Contact Center Trends

New Feature: Multi-Level IVR

By Shauna Geraghty

0 min read

Have you and your team felt constrained by one IVR level with 10 IVR prompts? Are your customers becoming frustrated from waiting through a series of IVR prompts until they find the one that fits them best?


End customer frustration by allowing them to be directed to the right person right away with our new feature: multi-level IVR.


With multi-Level Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems, callers are asked to choose from a series of audio prompts (e.g. “Press 1 for sales…”) and then based on their selection are given another series of audio prompts to choose from and so on. They are then routed to the most appropriate agent, department, team, call queue or voicemail based on their choice.


Our multi-level IVRs are customizable, so you decide how many prompts your customers will hear and how many levels of the IVR they will have to go through until they are routed to their desired agent. Whatever your business needs, Talkdesk’s multi-level IVR will support it.


A Typical Multi-Level IVR Scenario

  • A caller contacts your company
  • The caller hears a welcome greeting (e.g. “Thank you for calling Starworks.”)
  • The caller is asked to choose from a series of prompts (e.g. “Press 1 for Sales, 2 for Support…”)
  • The caller choses a number (e.g. 1 for sales)
  • The caller is directed to another series of prompts (e.g. If you would like to make a purchase, press 1; to return an item, press 2…”) and so on
  • The caller is then directed to the appropriate agent, department, call queue or voicemail

Multi-Level IVR Features


Completely Web-Based Multi-Level IVR

Talkdesk is a completely web-based call center software solution with IVR functionality. There is no need for hardware, software to install, plugins, audio cards, routers, telephone cables, etc. All you need is a computer and Talkdesk can be set up and fully functional in 5 minutes.


Customizable Menus, Levels and PromptsSetting up your multi-level IVR is simple. You can choose to have as many or few IVR menus, levels and prompts as you would like and you can make changes to your IVR at any time. You can record your custom prompts, upload a previously recorded file or type them in and we will automatically convert them to audio prompts. The entire setup process will take minutes so your team can be up and running in no time.


Create a Personalized Greeting

The first thing your customers hear is your recorded IVR greeting, so why not make sure it’s perfect. Talkdesk allows you to upload a pre-recorded greeting, create your own, use our standard greetings or type in a message and we will automatically convert it to an audio file. With these options, you can make sure that your customers have an amazing first impression.


Allow Customers to Help Themselves

Sometimes your customer’s questions can be answered by your IVR. You can use your IVR to tell customers your business hours, directions to your office, current promotions, upcoming events, contact information, etc. When you allow your customers to help themselves, you will save valuable time and resources so your agents will be free to handle more complex issues.


Make the Customer Experience Awesome

Your IVR is the perfect tool to show how awesome your company is. You can choose to play different hold music in each queue, record new greetings each week and even let your customers know about current promotions and upcoming events. When their experience before they reach an agent is pleasurable, their impression of your company will be more positive.


Choice of Routing Options

Talkdesk knows that directing your callers to the right agent is a high priority. That’s why we provide multiple routing options so you can choose the one that best fits your needs. You can set the IVR routing so your best agent always gets the call, so callers are routed to agents based on their skills or so all agents in your company or a certain department are routed the call at the same time. With so many routing options, you can be sure that your customers are always routed to the right agent, every time.


Extension Dialing

Sometimes, your callers know exactly who they are trying to reach. So Talkdesk allows your callers to bypass the IVR menus and dial an extension at any time. This useful feature will save your callers time when they know who they would like to speak to.


Forward-to-Phone Directly from the IVR

When your agents are in the field, in a different office, working from home or on their mobile phone, Talkdesk will forward the caller to them, directly from the IVR. Now your flexible workforce can take calls wherever they are.


Send Calls Directly to Voicemail

When all of your agents are busy, your waiting queues are full or it is after your business hours, you can route calls directly to voicemail. You can also chose a specific IVR prompt that will send callers directly to voicemail. This feature will allow you to screen calls and can be a huge time-saver.


Business Hours

With Talkdesk, you can easily configure business hours so that when all of your agents are away, or are working remotely, calls can be forwarded to voicemail, or to an external number. Never miss a call or lose a customer, no matter what time they call, with this feature.


How To:



  • Sign in as an “Admin”
  • Click on “Numbers” on the left hand tab
  • Click on the phone number that you would like to setup the multi-level IVR
  • Click on the “IVR” tab
  • Type in or record your IVR message (e.g. “Please press 1 for English, 2 for Spanish…)
  • Select the number from the pull down menu that corresponds to the message you recorded (e.g. 1 routed to the English IVR)
  • For multilevel IVR, select “new IVR” from the pull down menu to replace the default “route to” selection
  • Write or record your next IVR level message (e.g. Please press 1 for sales, 2 for support…)
  • Select the corresponding number from the drop down menu
  • Select the tag that you would route the caller to (this tag corresponds to agent tag)

Tip: Keep the number of IVR menu levels to 3 for a better customer experience.

Discover Talkdesk's enterprise-class cloud security

SHARE

Shauna Geraghty

As the first U.S. employee, Shauna helped to scale Talkdesk to over 1,000 employees in 7 offices globally. During her tenure, she has built Talkdesk's Marketing, Talent and HR functions from the ground up. Shauna has a doctorate in clinical psychology and has applied foundational knowledge from the field of psychology to help propel Talkdesk along its hyper-growth trajectory.