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How to create a voice menu (press 1, press 2…) in your IVR

  • Updated

A voice system (IVR) allows you to centralize and manage your incoming and outgoing calls while improving responsiveness and customer service quality. In this guide, you’ll learn how to create an IVR menu to direct your callers to the right team and set up custom keypad settings.

Prerequisites

  •  You must have a Ringover Business account to access this feature.

Create and configure an IVR voice menu

1. Access your IVR scenario settings

Open your interactive voice response builder to adjust call routing for your team members.

  1. Go to your IVR's page.
  2. Click on 'Edit' for the IVR you want to configure.
  3. Click "Configure" to modify the corresponding scenario.

2. Set up a nested voice menu

A nested Interactive Voice Response menu allows you to direct incoming calls to the right service or person within your company, preventing long phone waits.

  1. Click on "Configure"
  2. Select "Nested menu"
  3. Click on the gear icon to the right of your key selection
  4. Enter a descriptive label for your key selection
  5. Click on "Create your announcement" to set up your voice greeting

3. Customize advanced keypad settings

Tailor how your voice menu behaves when callers interact with the system or fail to make a selection.

  1. Max. amount of time given to caller to select a menu option: This is the maximum number of seconds the system waits for the caller to press a key before proceeding.
  2.  Number of times the message plays before the default keypad option is automatically selected: This determines how many times the voice prompt is repeated if no input is detected.
  3. Default keypad option: This is the fallback destination where the call is routed when the caller does not select any option.
  4. End of entry key: This defines the key you want the caller to press to signal they have finished entering digits.
  5. Allow user extensions: This allows callers to dial a user's individual extension directly from the IVR menu to bypass routing.
💡 You can easily see who last edited the menu of an existing IVR. This is particularly useful for companies with several admin team members and helps identify configuration issues following a recent modification.

For more details on setting up and managing your nested IVRs : 🔗 How to add aliases to your IVR

🎉 You now know how to create an IVR voice system and can optimize call distribution to improve your customer experience!