Menus are a great way to direct your callers to the department or person they want to speak to. When a caller reaches your phone number, he or she will hear a greeting with menu instructions on how to reach the person they’re calling: Press [1] for Sales, press [2] for Customer Service, and so on.
Administrators of Phone.com NxT accounts can quickly and easily set up a menu in the Configure App. This article explains how.
Administrators of Phone.com Classic accounts can log into the Control Panel and follow these instructions.
Adding and activating a menu includes the following three steps:
- Adding a greeting for your menu that describes the different number selections a caller can make.
- Adding a menu to your account, and setting up forwarding options for each of the number prompts in your menu.
- Activating the menu, so that calls are automatically routed to it and your greeting plays.
This article discusses the first step—how to add a menu greeting. You can then move on to adding the actual menu and activating it.
Adding a Menu Greeting
- Mouse over Configure and click Add a Greeting.
- In the Nickname field, enter a nickname for your greeting, so that you can easily identify it later.
- Record your greeting using either Text To Greeting, Record From Phone or Upload New File.
- Select Save Greeting.
Adding a Menu
Now that you’ve added a menu greeting, you can add the actual menu to your account and identify the greeting as the message you want callers to hear.
- Mouse over Configure and click Add a Menu.
- In the Name field, enter a name for your menu.
- Select the greeting you added as the outgoing message from the drop-down menu. You can also add a second invalid-entry greeting that callers would hear if they press an invalid key.
- For Allow extension dial, select Yes to allow callers to enter an extension number at anytime to bypass the menu and dial that extension.
Click Continue.
The menu is created and call handling (forwarding) settings are displayed for each number selection.
Setting Forwarding Options for Your Menu
The process of setting options for each number selection will vary depending on how you want calls to be routed. In the steps below, we will simply forward calls to Sales for [1] and send calls to voicemail for [2].
There are many other actions available. They include playing another greeting or hold music, forwarding the call to a queue, connecting to receive a fax, and others.
You can also add a sequence of actions for each number selections. For example, when a caller presses [1], you could route them to your Sales agent’s extension, allowing the phone to ring for 20 seconds, and then go to the voicemail Inbox for that extension. Number selection [2] might be to go directly to your company’s main voicemail Inbox immediately.
- For number selection [1], click Edit.
- On the Call Handling Rules page, change Select Operation to Forward Call.
- Enter an extension number in the text field, select the number of seconds that you want the line to ring, and select whether or not you want to play hold music.
- Click Add Next Action.
- Change Select Operation to Leave Voicemail.
- Enter the voicemail extension number in the text field.
- Click Save Rule Settings.
Once you have added forwarding options for all of the number selections you want to define, click Save Changes to save the menu.
These steps show you how you can build a series of actions for each number selection to manage calls.
Activating Your Menu
Note: Before you can activate your menu, you must add a menu greeting and add the menu itself, setting up call forwarding options for each number selection.
- Mouse over Configure and click Manage Numbers.
- Select Edit for the phone number that you want to forward to your menu.
- For Number Action, click Edit.
- On the Call Handling Rules page, change Select Operation to Go to Menu, then select the menu you just created from the drop-down menu.
- Click Save Rule Settings.
Your menu setup is now complete! When callers reach your Phone.com number, they will hear your menu greeting and can choose the routing options that you added to your settings.