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Setting up a phone tree is one way to keep your business connected and organized. Here’s how you can make the most of your voice-over-IP technology by implementing a phone tree system.
For a company, it is important to have a phone tree. The phone tree allows for people to call other people in the company and get connected with them. This can be done by setting up a VoIP phone tree.
Customers are disappointed when calls are misrouted, which is where learning how to correctly set up a phone tree comes in. This word refers to a series of automated menus that swiftly and accurately route a caller to the appropriate department, extension, or person. Create a diagram based on your call routing rules, assign Groups of Calls, and configure your phone system’s menu settings, including the hours when different menus will be accessible to callers, to set up your phone tree.
In four easy steps, you may create a phone tree for your voice-over-internet-protocol (VoIP) business phone system:
Make a diagram first.
The first step in designing the right flow for your phone tree menus is to draw a graphic that depicts the whole customer experience from the minute they call to the moment their troubles are handled. “What department do they require?” and “Can their inquiry be handled through self-service?” will be answered by the graphic.
It’s critical to do this right since it’s the first step toward conceptualizing and executing the customer’s calling experience. Fortunately, internet tools like Canva, Visme, Adobe Spark, Crello, and even MS Paint can assist you in creating a phone tree. You may also sketch out your phone tree diagram using pencil and paper for an even simpler technique. It won’t matter how it appears as long as it assists you in visualizing the client journey.
To make things simpler for you, we’ve prepared a number of phone tree diagram templates that you can download and customize to your specific company requirements. You can find them in our page on phone tree examples. There are a few components of your phone tree diagram that should be included regardless of how you design it:
Principal Greetings
This gives the incoming caller information about your company. When they dial in, they’ll hear your business name and potentially more packets of information, like your field, how long the business has been serving the community, and so on. Your Principal Greetings can also tell the caller that they can dial the extension of whomever they’re trying to reach at any point in the menu (if this feature is available).
Keep in mind that the greatest company phone systems allow you to establish different menu prompts for your clients. You’ll want these menus to be clear and succinct, which is why some clients may hire a professional to record their prompt scripts. You may also have a computer-generated audio file for your phone tree prompts by using text-to-speech.
Optional Languages
Immediately following the Principal Greetings are your menu’s Optional Languages. This helps non-English speakers navigate to the submenu that best matches their native language. Be sure to include non-English submenus with all of the proper counterparts for each language.
General Information & Announcements
You may assign a selection for corporate information or announcements if you wish to provide some basic information about your organization. The phone tree will have its own extension for this segment. Leaving announcements, special deals, and regular or holiday hours are often posted here, in addition to basic information. This portion acts as a basic self-service call routing menu, allowing the caller to acquire information without having to speak with an agent.
Groups of Calls
Groups of Calls can be one of the most important helpful benefits of phone systems with interactive voice response (IVR) or auto-attendants. This is a grouping of your business departments, and you need to include every potential option for your callers. For example, this submenu can prompt the caller to dial “1” for your Customer Service department, “2” for your Sales department, or “3” to reach Billing. This submenu may need to be edited from time to time as your business grows and adds new departments.
Directory of Dial-by-Name
For those customers who have an existing business relationship with a specific agent, having an option to access a Directory of Dial-by-Name on your phone tree makes getting the help they need quicker. Every team member will have an extension attributed to them that can match the first few letters of their name or their initials. This is just a way to help shorten the waiting period before a customer gets help and to help them connect with someone familiar with their case or problem.
2. Assign Groups of Calls
Once your diagram is complete, it’s time to classify your employees so that they are reachable via each of their respective departments. Since Groups of Calls are assigned to specific departments, it’s critical to assign every employee to the correct department to avoid misrouting calls. For example, when a caller attempts to reach customer support, it would be annoying if they were instead sent to someone in the sales department.
When you set up a phone tree, it’s a good idea to list all the names and extensions of employees who fall within a specific call group. This should be done even with temps and floating staff. For example, sometimes you may have a team member who might help out with customer support but is part of a sales team. With some providers, including RingCentral, you can assign agents to multiple Groups of Calls.
3. In the IVR Menu, configure the Phone Tree Settings.
Now that you’ve completed the prerequisites, you can begin the process of creating your phone tree’s IVR menus. This procedure varies from provider to provider, but each has a mechanism for IVR setup that commonly includes a web interface and a visual hierarchy. Zoom, for instance, offers a basic IVR flow chart that you can customize by adding routing choices and submenus. For the purposes of this article, we utilized RingCentral’s multi-level IVR configuration.
RingCentral was chosen because it offers one of the top auto-attendant and IVR systems on the market. It includes several possibilities for your phone tree depending on your package. You’ll get an auto-attendant with the lowest plan tier, and higher levels will let you build up a multi-level IVR. It also includes a Visual IVR Editor, which gives users a simple user interface with drag-and-drop options. Setting up a phone tree becomes more easier as a result of this.
Using RingCentral’s Visual IVR Editor, create a phone tree diagram.
Regardless of the technology your provider uses, you can generally learn everything you need to know about configuring at your own speed if you have a subscription or take advantage of one of the provider’s free trial offerings. Most providers will provide you the option of recording audio, using prerecorded audio, or using text-to-speech to produce menu prompts for your customers.
The Auto-Receptionist section on the RingCentral interface is where all RingCentral IVR setup options begin. General Settings, IVR Menus, an IVR Editor, or a Prompts Library are all options. When you choose Visual IVR Editor, you’ll see a list of saved IVR menus that you may use and adapt for your company. Select the phone icon under “New Tree” to start a new one. This will generate a new base-level phone tree menu with a plus symbol and drop-down settings.
The “+” plus sign allows you to perform structural edits. For example, you can create a new menu, attach an existing one, transfer to an external number, or send the caller to a Directory of Dial-by-Name, voicemail, or extension. Once you select an option, the system will allow you to assign key presses for each submenu and label each menu based on your business’ call routing rules. Most systems, like RingCentral, will also allow you to preset Groups of Calls to select from them as you configure your menu.
The drop-down menu options enable you to personalize the menus that the caller hears. Choose between a pre-saved audio file and text-to-speech spoken prompts, for example, under prompt. In the prompts library, you may make audio files for your prompts.
4. Establish a schedule for your phone tree menus.
Your IVR system will most likely operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week by default. However, some companies, like as RingCentral, enable you to establish a second menu for after-hours usage.
For example, your first menu can receive calls and route them to your Groups of Calls during business hours. Your second IVR phone tree will then route callers to voicemails or local sales teams in other offices after standard business hours for the office they called. Some providers will provide more than two menus so that you can set specific menus for things like holidays; in fact, with RingCentral’s Ultimate Plan, you can program up to 250 phone trees at a time.
Setting up an effective IVR phone tree is simply one part of establishing a VoIP business communications system. Take a look at our featured tutorial on how to set up your VoIP system for a more in-depth look at the other procedures needed.
Conclusion
Simply said, you must set up a phone tree in order to provide the greatest possible service to your callers. A smart IVR system can let a client do self-service activities like bill payment or access information about your company’s hours, holidays, and promotions without having to deal with your representatives, which will lessen your agents’ workload.
Setting up a VoIP phone tree is an easy way to manage communications for your business. The process of setting up a phone tree can be done in many different ways, but this article will show you how to set one up with a Google Voice account. Reference: how to set up voip for business.
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