How To Create a Well-Planned
Automated Attendant
for an Improved Company Image

An Automated Attendant is your front-end entry-way. It shows your caller the direction and provides an image of your business to your caller. First impressions make a difference with how well your caller will appreciate what you can do for them.

If you are considering automating your phone system with a menu of options for your callers to select, it is important to keep in mind the structure of your company and the logical order of your departments and personnel. It is very important to present a clear and structured menu of options for your caller. Otherwise they will become frustrated if they can't accomplish what they called about in a short time with no hassle. You want to point your caller in the right direction. You don't want to give your caller confusing choices.

Proper Menu Structure

A quick, orderly and easy-to-follow menu is mandatory. How do you go about planning the proper structure for your menu? The trick is to analyze what most of your callers are calling about. What are their needs and what do they want from you. Then include this in your phone menu options.

Another thing to consider is how well your particular customers know your company. Do they routinely contact specific personnel? Do they know the extensions? Do they know the last name of your personnel. Or do they just have a vague idea of what department they need to reach? Knowing this, you can design your phone menu to match the needs of your customers.

If you have many people calling with a common question, or needing information about your products, make that part of your phone menu...such as "Press 5 for information about our widgets."

If your customers need printed documents, then place these in your phone menu for easy access without waiting for your personnel to take the delivery info and send it out. Instead, for example..."Press 6 to receive an instant fax of our event schedule."

Your phone menu can have options that ring direct to departments or personnel. Or sometimes it may be beneficial to play a personal greeting before connecting, so your personnel can record important information to be played before the caller connects or leaves a message. Decide how each extension should work in this fashion to get the best use out of it. Proper use of extensions will also releave your personnel of unnecessary phone conversations, which keeps them from completing their other tasks in time. This is a huge cost savings.

If your customers know your personnel by name, then it is helpful to offer a dial-by-name directory. The caller is instructed to dial the last name on the phone's keypad and the call is then connected. But you need to keep this up to date. If you let a person go or add others, you need to keep your phone directory up to date. Nothing could be worse than offering the option, and then letting the caller get a wrong or dead connection because your personnel is no longer working there. So just let me know when changes are required and I'll do it for you.

As a security measure, to be sure you don't lose important callers, it is helpful to always give a caller an option to get to an operator by pressing zero. Your operator may be your receptionist, or someone who can help callers who need guidance.

Phone Menu Standards

It is customary to place departments in the menu and assign extensions for personnel. However, based on your specific needs, you may place people in the menu. The difference is that when you have people in the menu, you are telling your caller to press 1 for Sally or 2 for John, etc. You are giving your caller an idea of the size of your company. This is important if your callers know who they want and just don't know the extension number. But you can always allow Dial-By-Name, instead, by making that one of the menu choices.

An automated attendant is also useful for allowing your callers to listen to important recorded information without needing to locate or wait for a live person. Common questions can be answered this way with Message-Only Mailboxes or Voice-On-Demand. These are great for providing business hours, directions to your office, listing job offerings, and answers to any other frequently asked questions.

Many people are in a rush and some callers don't have the patience to listen to automated phone systems. You don't want to lose these potential customers and you definitely don't want to frustrate them. The solution is to always provide menu option zero. Many people try that first if they are in a rush. The best is to let option zero ring to a live attendant, someone you have available to take and handle general calls. At the least, you can always make option zero go to a mailbox with a greeting offering a prompt return call. But then do it. Don't let a new customer, or anyone for that matter, wait to be called back.

When Personnel Are Unavailable

Your personnel may not always be available to take calls. After all, they are working. But it is just as important to take care of your customers or potential customers when they call. So when a call goes unanswered, quickly directing the caller to an appropriate voice mailbox, with instructions in a personal greeting, will help assure your caller that he or she will be taken care of in a timely manner.

When your personnel need privacy to accomplish complex tasks, their extensions can be set to "Do-Not-Disturb" mode so that important callers don't just hear ringing or fall into "Voice Mail Jail." When an extension is set as Do-Not-Disturb, it will play an alternate greeting that the mailbox user had set up to handle the times when they are unavailable. This greeting is known as an "Unavailable Greeting." It gives instructions to your caller to be used while not available, such as to call a different specified extension, or to leave a message. In the latter case, the time when the caller can expect a return call should be specified in the greeting. The fact that the mailbox user can record both a regular greeting and an unavailable greeting makes it easy to switch to Do-Not-Disturb (or unavailable mode) and back again without the need to record a new greeting.

Obviously it is important that you do indeed follow up with all messages. So it is important that your personnel check their voice mailboxes on a routine basis or that they have a message notification method enabled.

What type of system should I use?

You can purchase your own phone system or subscribe to a hosted service.

When you purchase a phone system, make sure you have a qualified installer who understands the equipment and your needs. Some systems require proprietary telephones and you will not be able to use existing phones. So check on this too, as it may increase your cost and make present equipment, such as fax machines, obsolete.

If you have a large company, the cost of acquiring your own equipment can run high, not to mention the cost of installation and maintenance. This is when a hosted service may be a better choice. But you need to compare the cost of equipment to the cost of usage. If you have a lot of usage (talk time) then you may save in the long run when you buy your own phone system.

Smaller companies with up to four incoming lines and no more than 12 extensions can use simple but powerful systems such as the VoicePro, which supports existing regular telephones and fax machines. Wiring is easy, using standard phone jacks, and programming is straightforward...done through any touch-tone phone, with easy-to-follow instructions.

Besides using your own equipment, you can sign up for a subscription service with very small monthly fees. These are better-known as a "Hosted PBX" and you avoid the cost of purchase and installation.

There several Hosted PBX services available, with varying features. If a Hosted PBX is the way you want to go, we can help you chose the right one for your needs. Generally, consider this. If you have personnel working at remote sites or from home, a VoIP Hosted PBX such as Packet8 Virtual Office may be the best solution. Each location needs a broadband internet connection, and the extenions can have unlimited calling with no usage fees. If you need more powerful additions, such as on-line call logs in real-time, voice mail and fax mail to e-mail, special call routing based on origin of caller, and more, Kall8 Virtual PBX gives you all that.

Verify Your Configuration

When you have a new Automated System set up and programming is completed, be sure to call your own number, listen to your own company greeting, and try every option in the menu to be sure everything works as you expect. You don't want your callers to run into something strange. You can catch it and have it corrected before your important callers find something wrong with the programming logic of your auto attendant.

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