The Interactive Voice Response (IVR) feature comes standard with most VoIP telephone services. The IVR feature eliminates the need of an operator or receptionist to direct calls, thus creating a more efficient and pleasant customer experience. By providing your customers with a friendly greeting and call menu that’s unique to your company, you can reduce their time on hold and increase time spent interacting with you.

All of our CallForwarding.com customers have access to IVR, but we’ve found that many of them don’t know how to set it up themselves. In this article, you’ll find a downloadable How To Set Up Your IVR guide, as well as an interactive video in which we show you how simple it is to configure your IVR.

What is IVR

IVR is a software system that greets your callers with a pre-recorded menu message, and uses voice responses to connect the caller to a specific destination. After listening to the possible menu options, the caller makes a selection via a touch tone keypad on their phone. This feature can complete a variety of tasks depending on which prompts are pressed or which keywords are said.The IVR can transfer calls to a specific person or department, relay information to the caller, handle transactions, or inform a live agent about the caller.

IVR Examples

1. “Hi Thank you for calling Bart’s Auto Repair. Press 1 for customer support. Press 2 for the sales department. Press 3 for billing. Press 4 for completed orders. Press 5 to repeat this menu.”
2. “Hi Thank you for calling Bart’s Auto Repair. Our hours of operations are 9:00am to 5:00pm, Monday through Friday.”

Learn How To Set Up Your IVR

You can download our How To Set Up Your IVR help guide, or watch the video demonstration below. If you still have questions about setting up your IVR, please don’t hesitate to contact us at support@callforwarding.com.