Automated Attendant Services
Before callers talk to anyone on your team, they talk to your automated attendant.
It might run on AI or on a traditional series of recorded prompts. Either way, this first touchpoint sets the tone for the whole call. A clear, caller-focused menu gets people where they need to go. A confusing one has them pressing zero over and over or hanging up to call your competitor.
We build auto attendants that sound like your best receptionist on their best day: welcoming, quick and always on-brand.
With BusinessVoice Automated Attendant Services, you can:
- Get callers to the right destination faster
- Cut down on misrouted calls and repeat transfers
- Answer common questions before callers reach your staff
- Make a professional first impression 24 hours a day
- Keep your phone greetings consistent with your brand voice
How Automated Attendant Services Improve the Caller Experience
Remember the last time you called a company and heard nine menu options, none of which fit your question? Or a greeting announcing holiday hours from three years ago?
Your callers notice those things, too. Your automated attendant is a customer touchpoint, like your website or your lobby, and callers judge it the same way.
So we start with your callers. Many phone menus mirror a company’s org chart, so callers have to understand your departments before they can get help. We look at why people call you and what they ask for most. Then we build a menu that makes sense to someone who has never seen your org chart.
From there, your Creative Consultant writes clear, concise greetings and prompts. We record them with professional voice talent and produce them to match your brand. Callers move through quickly and come away with a better impression of your company.
61% of customers say IVR phone menus make for a poor customer experience
Source: Vonage
Benefits of Automated Attendant Services
It may not be practical for your business to have a live person answer every call. Implemented correctly, an automated attendant is the next best thing and offers benefits like:
Faster Call Routing
Callers want to reach the right person without jumping through hoops. A short, easy-to-follow menu with the most-requested options first gets them there faster. Your team also spends less time transferring calls that landed in the wrong place.
Around-the-Clock Availability
Your automated attendant never takes a lunch break or calls in sick. It greets the 7 a.m. caller and the 11 p.m. caller the same way. After hours, it can share your schedule, point callers to your website or voicemail and tell them when to expect a response. A healthcare practice might direct callers to an after-hours nurse line. A credit union might point members to online banking.
A Professional First Impression
A well-scripted greeting, voiced professionally, tells callers you pay attention to detail. They hear an established, organized company that’s ready to help, and that impression carries into the rest of the call.
Brand Consistency
When several employees answer your phones, each one greets callers a little differently. Your automated attendant delivers the same welcome every time. When we write and voice your auto attendant alongside your On Hold Marketing, callers hear one consistent voice until someone picks up.
Fewer Hang-Ups
Callers who get lost in a menu often give up, and they may not call back. A simple, caller-focused auto attendant keeps them on the line and moving toward the help they need.
Our Automated Attendant Services
Caller Journey Design
We’ll meet with your Marketing, I.T., Customer Experience and Operations staff to learn why people call, where those calls need to go and what callers need to hear along the way. Then we’ll map out a caller journey with as few steps as possible between “hello” and help.
Greeting and Prompt Scriptwriting
Your dedicated BusinessVoice Creative Consultant writes everything your auto attendant says, including your main greeting, menu prompts, after-hours and holiday messages, directory and voicemail greetings and closure announcements. Every script is written for your company and your callers, in your brand’s voice.
Professional Voice
The voice that answers your phones becomes the voice of your company. We’ll help you choose a voice whose tone fits your brand and your callers. A senior living community might want warmth and patience. An industrial distributor might want someone crisp and direct. Listen to our voice demos.
Audio Production
We record, edit and engineer your greetings and prompts to your phone service or system’s specifications, so they sound clean and play correctly. If you’d like music under your main greeting, we’ll choose a fully licensed track that suits your brand.
Updates When You Need Them
Your business changes. You open locations, add services, adjust hours, reorganize departments and close for holidays. When that happens, we’ll update your auto attendant so callers never hear outdated information.
Phone System Coordination
We’ll work with your I.T. team or phone service provider to deliver your recordings in the right format and get them loaded properly. Shopping for a new phone service or system? Read about the technology factors worth considering.
Auto Attendant Best Practices
After decades of listening to how companies answer their phones, we’ve found that a few simple choices make the biggest difference for callers.
Put the most common request first.
If most people call to schedule a service appointment, don’t make them wait until option five.
Always offer a way out.
Every menu level should give callers a way to reach a person. Callers who feel trapped get frustrated quickly.
Use titles, not names.
“For our service manager, press 3” stays accurate when staff changes. “For Dave, press 3” doesn’t.
Record holiday and closure messages in advance.
When a snowstorm closes your office, you’ll want that message ready to go.
Pick one approach to dialing.
Mixing “press 2” and “dial extension 204” in the same menu confuses callers. Choose one and stick with it.
Automated Attendant vs. Interactive Voice Response
People often use these terms interchangeably, but there’s a difference.
An automated attendant is mainly a routing tool. It greets callers, offers a menu (“For sales, press 1”) and sends each call to the right extension, department or voicemail box.
Interactive Voice Response (IVR) can do more. It can collect information from callers, understand spoken responses, look up account details and handle tasks like payments or appointment confirmations without a live agent.
Many AI-powered options, often called AI receptionists, exist as well. If you’re exploring one, look for a provider that lets you influence the AI receptionist’s speech patterns, lexicon and voice.
Whichever type of system you use, callers deserve a positive caller experience and a voice that sounds like your company. We can help with any of them as part of our Automated Caller Experience services.
Why Choose BusinessVoice for Your Automated Attendant Services
Since 1989, we’ve focused on what happens when people call your company. As one of the pioneers of the caller experience industry, we know how each part of a call shapes how callers feel about you: the first greeting, the hold experience and the conversation with your staff.
Award-Winning Caller Experience Marketing Agency
No Caller Experience Marketing provider has been honored more often for creative and marketing excellence than BusinessVoice. Since 1994, we’ve earned 150+ awards from local, national and international competitions. The writers behind that work are the same people who will write your auto attendant.
Dedicated Creative Consultants
You’ll work with the same Creative Consultant from day one. They’ll get to know your business, brand and callers, then write every greeting and prompt with them in mind. You won’t get a fill-in-the-blank script from an industry template.
One Partner for the Whole Call
Your auto attendant is only the first step in a call. We can also create your On Hold Marketing, offer callers a callback option through CXSelect, review your entire phone experience with a Caller Experience Audit and help your staff sharpen their phone skills with Caller Experience Training. With one partner handling all of it, every part of the call sounds like it came from the same company.
Automated Attendant FAQs
An automated attendant, or auto attendant, is a phone system feature that answers incoming calls with a recorded greeting and a menu of options. Based on the caller’s choice, it sends the call to the right person, department or voicemail box without a receptionist.
Often, yes. Both terms usually describe a system that answers and routes calls automatically. Some companies also use “virtual receptionist” for a live, remote answering service, so it’s worth asking providers exactly what they’re offering.
Yes. An AI auto attendant, sometimes called an AI receptionist, understands what callers say instead of asking them to press a number. It can answer common questions and send calls to the right place based on the caller’s own words. We can help your AI auto attendant sound like your company by shaping its tone, word choices and voice.
Keep it short. Welcome callers, confirm they’ve reached your company and get to the options quickly. Your Creative Consultant will help you decide what belongs in the greeting and what’s better saved for your on-hold content.
As few as your callers need. Long menus are hard to remember, so we’ll usually suggest a short main menu with the most common requests first. If you need more options, we’ll organize them into sub-menus that make sense.
We engineer and label your audio files to your system’s specifications. We’ll also work directly with your I.T. team or phone service provider to get them loaded.
Any time your hours, locations, staff, services or menu options change. It’s also smart to have holiday and weather closure messages recorded ahead of time.
Yes, and we recommend it. The same voice across your auto attendant, IVR and On Hold Marketing gives callers one consistent experience throughout the call.
We work with companies across many industries, including banking & financial, healthcare, senior care, manufacturing & industrial and automotive.
Yes. We’ll build a custom program around your call volume, goals, budget and timeline.