Using multi-level interactive voice response (IVR), or phone trees, you can route customers to the right agent or department, provide recorded responses for frequently asked questions, and deflect calls by allowing callers to switch from a live call to a text message.
If your Talk plan doesn't support IVR, you can route calls using group routing. For details, see Routing incoming calls to groups of agents.
You create an IVR menu by adding menus that callers choose through key presses. You can build a simple phone tree with one level or, if you have a complex support team structure, layer multiple menu levels together.
This article contains the following topics:
Recording an IVR greeting
Each IVR menu requires at least one IVR greeting listing the options and corresponding key presses. If your IVR menu will be complex with multiple levels and options, you might want to come back to this step after you've built out your menu (see Creating an IVR menu).
To record a personalized IVR greeting and prompts
- Follow the steps to create a custom greeting in Managing outgoing greetings. Select IVR as the greeting type.
Creating an IVR menu
The way you structure your IVR menu determines how callers are routed and what options they hear.
- Click the Admin icon (
) in the sidebar, then click Channels > Talk.
- Click the IVR tab.
- Click Add menu.
- In the menu that's added, click the Settings tab and enter a name for the menu.
- Click the Menu levels tab.
- The first menu level, Main menu, is already created for you. If you want additional, secondary menu levels that callers can reach from the main menu, click Add menu level.
- Click the Name field of a menu level to edit the menu level name.
- Choose an IVR greeting from the Greeting drop-down list. Only
greetings of the type IVR can be chosen.
- Click Add Route to add a new menu option.
- From the Keypress drop-down list, select an available key or select
Default.
If the caller hasn't pressed a key after the greeting plays three times, or if the caller presses the wrong key three times during the greeting, the default route will be used. If you haven't set a default route, the caller will be disconnected.
- From the Greeting drop-down list, select an optional greeting which will be played to the caller before they take action on the call. This greeting must be of the type IVR.
- Select one of the following actions:
- Voicemail: Routes the call to the number's voicemail. Keep in mind that if you haven't selected a greeting in the field above, no greeting will play (just the beep and straight to recording). When you select a voicemail action, you'll also be prompted to enter a group that voicemail tickets will be associated with.
- Group: Choose one or more groups of agents to route the call to. Unless a greeting is assigned to this group, the caller will be placed in the queue and hear the Wait greeting set for the number. The Available agents greeting will not be played. For more information about managing groups, see Creating, managing, and using groups.
-
Number: Routes the call directly to the specified number.
When you select this action type, you'll also be prompted to
enter the number to route calls to. When routing to an external
number in an IVR, that call is not recorded by Talk, and a
ticket is not created for the call. Additionally, the number you
enter cannot use an extension number.Important: When you route a call from your IVR to another number, you will incur an extra charge for the call forwarding.
- IVR Menu: Routes the call to another menu level within the same IVR menu. For example, you might want callers to press 1 for VIP support from the main menu, then be directed to another menu with options for VIP billing, VIP sales, etc. When you select the IVR menu action type, you'll also be prompted to select an IVR menu that calls will be routed to.
- Text back: Switches the interaction over to text by confirming the customer's number, then disconnecting the call and sending a text message. An SMS ticket will be created for this interaction with the customer so the conversation can continue by text. When you select the IVR menu action type, you'll also be prompted to select the number the text should be sent from and to enter the text message context. You can select the language to use for the text back confirmation in the Language drop-down list”
- Select a Group to route the call to. From the list of groups, turn on the ones you want, then, in the Primary group drop-down list, choose the group that calls will be routed to first. If agents in the primary group are not available, the call will be routed to one of the other selected groups. If no agents are available and the caller leaves a voicemail, it will be assigned to the primary group.
- Click Save.
- Repeat steps 9-15 to add additional routes.
- Click Save to save the IVR menu.
Assigning an IVR menu to a number
Once you've built your IVR menu, assign it to a number.
- Click the Admin icon (
) in the sidebar, then select Channels > Talk.
- Click the number you want to edit.
- Select the Routing tab.
- Toggle the Enable IVR? field to on.
- Select the IVR menu you want to use from the drop-down list.
- Click Save changes.
26 Comments
A few questions related to this:
1. What happens when a caller moves to a secondary IVR menu that routes to a group and no one from that group is available? When no one is available at all? (e.g. after hours)
2.. Can I set a custom voicemail message for a particular IVR menu? Or is there only once standard voice mail message that callers get routed to regardless of what menu of the tree they are in?
3. How do you recommend testing out your phone system to ensure it works properly? I'm an existing "talk" customer so I'm not sure how best to trial the IVR prior to releasing it to my customers. This is something that I think fairly obviously, most people would want to do.
Thanks!
P.S. This article references a video, "watch the following video", I don't see one linked anywhere.
I have the same questions as Matt.
Also, is there an option to route calls to a different number, if the queue reaches its max?
Could we receive a response for this?
Bump!!! Same!
Hey Bobby and David,
I did end up putting these questions to a support agent who kindly spoke to a product champ to help me out.
Here are the answers I was provided:
1. What happens when a caller moves to a secondary IVR menu that routes to a group and no one from that group is available? When no one is available at all? (e.g. after hours)
If you have a secondary IVR setup (this is done through adding another number), the call will go through the first, and go through the second. If no one on the second IVR answers, the call will go to voicemail.
2.. Can I set a custom voicemail message for a particular IVR menu? Or is there only once standard voice mail message that callers get routed to regardless of what menu of the tree they are in?
You may set a custom voicemail for each IVR option. The catch here is you'll need to set the type as "IVR Greeting" in order to use it for your IVR when you're saving the greeting. You may only have one voicemail option for each IVR number.
3. How do you recommend testing out your phone system to ensure it works properly? I'm an existing "talk" customer so I'm not sure how best to trial the IVR prior to releasing it to my customers. This is something that I think fairly obviously, most people would want to do.
To test this, you could add another line to your account temporarily. An additional line is only $1 and you could cancel it once your testing completed. This would be a great way to keep your testing separate from your 'live' numbers.
Hope this helps!
Matt
Matt,
Thank you very much for taking some time to share the suggestions you got. Some follow up on each point:
#1. Glad to know I can split like this. It's how I was set up but both were going to the same voicemail message.
#2. Sales part of the problem for #1 in that at least I can have two different end points... one for each and a custom message for each. That's good.
My follow question is that for 1 IVR I want to go to VM after hours (good there) for the second one I want to forward to an outside number. This is the tough nut to solve for. Any suggestions.
I will set up a test and see if I can create as you described and make any other breakthroughs.
Hello,
Does the IVR support voice recognition or is there an integration that would allow the customers to verbally provide information?
Hey David!
At this time the Talk IVR doesn't support voice recognition, but that's a really interesting idea! I checked over in our Product Feedback forum and don't see that anybody else has suggested it yet, so I'd encourage you to head over there and create a post sharing your detailed use case and why this functionality would be helpful for your company.
Hi
I have a couple of questions:
It's possible to route to a number if there is not agent is available? Instead to voice mail.
Can we route to a multiple numbers like extensions?
Thanks
Hey Hugo!
I'm going to get someone better versed in Talk in here to help you out. Stand by!
Thanks, wait for you guys.
Hi Hugo!
I'll address your questions one at a time here:
Can I route to a number if no agents are available?
Can I route to combinations of numbers, like extensions?
I hope this helps clarify things!
Hi,
actually the IVR plays the welcome message 3 times before moving to default routing, this is not good behavior as we should play 1 time, wait silently then move to default. or simply provide a box to select number of times to play message or how many seconds to wait.
at this time how can we avoid repeating 3 times.
Hello Sid,
At this time it is not possible to control the amount of times a greeting is repeated. I've taken a look and found the following related discussion about the functionality you are looking for: https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360000699348-IVR-Welcome-Message-repeat-option When you get a moment feel free to stop by, up vote the request and share your use case.
Our phone forwards to Zendesk talk but the IVR will not work. If I dial the Zendesk Talk number directly it allows users to press 1 2 or3 but if it is forwarded it does not. Is there anyway to fix that?
Hey Kellie,
This could have to do with a lot of your Forwarding set up. I'll be contacting you through a Ticket to get some more details and we can get this worked out. :)
Hello,
we want to set up an IVR that if the caller press 9, goes at english (we have done this) but if the caller doesn't press anything, it routes the call to a specific group (like we dont have the IVR).
Is that possible?
I tried the TextBack option and i was stuck in an endless loop in the 'Confirming customer's number'
I kept getting the confirmation of my number, hitting '1' to get the textback, the recording repeated the number confirmation.
Am i missing anything?
What if we would like the IVR to route to a voicemail but not allow a customer to leave a message? Ex: we require photos for all damaged items or items with a quality issue and as stated in our policy, they have to email us the photos. We would like the option to take them to a message stating that they need to proceed that way. Similar to how we do not currently allow voicemail after hours, we direct them to email us a ticket. Is this possible? Below is an example:
If you’re calling about a damage or a quality issue, please press 2. Take you a message stating: If you received an item that is damaged or defective, please email photos of your issue along with your order number and a brief explanation to xxxx@xxxxxx.com. To repeat this message, press the * key. To go back to the main menu, press #.
Hi Jamie,
You wouldn't be able to set this up as a Voicemail greeting and not allow the user to leave a message. However, you could mentioned your message directly within the IVR greeting you're uploading. That way they would not be directed to a voicemail at all and they wouldn't have to select a number to hear this message.
I realize this may not be the exact solution you're looking for but I hope it helps!
How does IVR reflect on the call queue? Can I see separate wait times for each group? This will help with forecasting.
Hello Wendi,
The average wait time in Talk is determined by phone number. So an IVR routing to a particular group could not give you the avg wait time for that particular group. Let us know if you have any other questions.
How can agents see what route the call is coming in from?
e.g. Caller presses 1 to come through to place an order online or callers presses 2 to follow up on the status of their order
Hello Bethany Parsons,
The only information given to an Agent is the number the caller called and the Group that the call was assigned to (in addition to the end user calling in if the phone number they are using is in Zendesk).
However, a best practice is to use a unique Group name for routing. For instance, Press 1 to place an order online can route to Group Order and Press 2 to follow up on the status of an order can route to Group Status. An Agent can be in multiple groups and by naming the Groups distinctly, I as an Agent know what IVR the caller pressed.
Best regards.
Hello!
We've set our IVR up with language options as the main menu. The IVR is tied to one phone number. It appears you're given the option to set 1 hold message, 1 wait message. The problem I'm having is that it will play the same language for both language options on the hold and wait messages as you only have 1 option.
Is there a way to remedy this without the addition of a new phone number?
Many thanks in advance,
Jeremy
Hello Jeremy Sims
Unfortunately there is no way for the system to pull information on the customer's language (or what IVR route they clicked) to affect what wait or hold music they hear.
One work around, that you mentioned, would be to have multiple phone numbers and have the main number with an IVR have each number press direct to a different number behind the scenes. So for example your customers all call into your public customer service number. If someone presses 1 for English it stays on that number, if they press 2 for Spanish it directs to a different one of your Talk numbers behind the scenes, and that number has all spanish hold and wait music/messages.
Another work around that many support teams use is to have the wait and hold greetings play in multiple languages on a loop. So you would hear english, then spanish, then japanese, then german, then back to english, etc.
I hope that helps!
I need to find a way to differentiate voicemails left by those who chose a particular option in the IVR. Is it possible to tag them or something? I'm not finding a way to identify them in the triggers.
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