An Auto Attendant routes calls automatically, similar to the way that a traditional receptionist used to.
One of the most used features of Versature’s Hosted PBX offering is the Auto Attendant, also known as “digital receptionist” and/or “IVR” in some circles. An Auto Attendant allows callers to be transferred to an extension without a receptionist. When a caller dials your number(s) they will be greeted by a
pre-recorded message prompting them to dial an extension or department. Once the option is entered the Auto Attendant will route the caller to the desired destination.
Versature’s Auto Attendant has a ton of feature rich options including:
- Sub-greetings from the main greeting. Some examples of sub-greetings are : office hours, small directory listing, directions to your office, etc.
- Departments. Example: press 1 for sales, press 2 for support, etc.
- Dial-by-name directory. The caller can dial the last name of the individual if they do not know their extension.
- Alternate language support. - ”to hear this greeting in french, press 9″.
- Operator support. - press 0 to speak with a receptionist.
Helpful tips for designing your Auto Attendant:
- When planning the layout of your Auto Attendant it’s important to inform the client of all their options, but not to let the greeting run too long. Anything over 15 seconds is probably too much information.
- Make sure you have an operator/receptionist setup. Callers are impatient and often press 0 immediately to bypass the greeting.
- Have your script prepared and written out before you record your greeting. It’s much easier to read your greeting than record from memory.
- Record your greeting in a quiet area.
- Record your greeting using our web based dashboard from a Polycom phone. Land lines and cell phones don’t allow for high definition (HD) call quality.
Versature offers a professional recording service for a flat rate fee. The benefit to going with the professional recording is that the volume and pitch will be perfect, your greeting will match the rest of the system prompts, and it will make your business seem that much bigger and polished. The downside is that it’s harder to change quickly if you want, for example, to change your main greeting for the holidays.
Versature’s provisioning team is here to help you design an Auto Attendant that will work properly for YOUR business. Our experience can definitely help you avoid common pitfalls and mistakes .. we’ve helped hundreds of companies like yours to design the perfect Auto Attendant and we are looking forward to assisting you!
