Call flows and IVR
A phone tree template that works
A copyable menu: one greeting, three options and four exits, with the wording written out. What to change, what to leave, and where each line has to land.
· 6 min read
Phone menus & automation
Call flows and IVR
Auto-attendants, menus, business hours and the routing behind them.
Articles
Call flows and IVR
Auto attendant mistakes that lose callers
Five failures in menus that are wired correctly: too many options, no way to a person, department names, a key that cannot help, a greeting that rambles.
· 8 min read
Call flows and IVR
What is an auto attendant?
An auto attendant answers your main number and routes the caller by key. What it decides, what it cannot fix, and the size of business that does not need one.
· 5 min read
Call flows and IVR
Why clock changes leave holes in phone coverage
Three teams cover the whole clock in January and drop the baton every night in July, with nobody touching the rota. What moved, why, and how to find it first.
· 6 min read
Call flows and IVR
How to find the dead ends in your phone menu
A key that leads nowhere is invisible from the inside, because the person who built the menu never presses it. Five faults, and how to find them in an hour.
· 5 min read
Call flows and IVR
The six messages a phone line needs
Most business lines have two recordings and need six. What each one has to say, which two go missing every time, and how to write the set in one sitting.
· 6 min read
Call flows and IVR
Why your phone system rejects your greeting
Your greeting plays on a laptop and the phone system refuses it. What the upload checks, what 8 kHz mono means, and how to convert the file in your browser.
· 7 min read
Call flows and IVR
After-hours call handling: three honest options
The sequence a call takes after closing time, and the three destinations that work for a small business: a reopening message, voicemail, or an outside number.
· 5 min read
Call flows and IVR
Change your auto attendant menu yourself
How changing your own auto attendant menu should work, what happens to a caller who is already in the old one, and what publish refuses to put live for you.
· 5 min read
Call flows and IVR
Business hours and holidays in one call flow
Where the holiday calendar has to live for a business hours call flow to close on the right days, without anyone touching the menu again every December.
· 4 min read
Call flows and IVR
Small-business voicemail: where a message goes
What happens to a message left at a small business when nobody picks up, who is told about it, what the notice carries, and what the greeting should say.
· 4 min read
Call flows and IVR
Unexpected closure: the snow-day phone message
What a caller should hear the moment you decide to close for the day, and the one switch that changes it without touching your opening hours.
· 4 min read
Call flows and IVR
Building an auto-attendant callers stay on
A well-built phone menu runs a few seconds and offers three choices. How to structure one, and what the Charter of the French Language adds to it in Quebec.
· 3 min read
Call flows and IVR
French-first IVR that still serves anglophones
A bilingual menu and a French-first menu are different structures. One offers a choice; the other has a default. Quebec's Charter asks for the second.
· 3 min read
Call flows and IVR
How long may the “for English” message be?
Quebec guidance says the message offering service in another language should be brief and should say who can be served in it. How to write one that fits.
· 3 min read
Call flows and IVR
Quebec statutory holidays in call routing
Quebec's holiday calendar differs from the rest of Canada, and a phone menu configured elsewhere answers on the Patriotes Monday and on the Fête nationale.
· 3 min read
