Setting up an Advanced IVR
Many businesses utilize IVR or auto-attendant features to control the flow of calls, which can help reduce inbound traffic or easily route callers to the appropriate party without requiring agent interaction. IVRs can be simple, such as offering a Press 1 or 2 option for English or Spanish-speaking callers. They can also be complex, such as including a voicemail option, transfers, employee directories, etc. For more information on how to configure a simple IVR, follow these instructions. For advanced IVRs, continue with the instructions below.
Advanced IVRs are billed at $0.15/minute, starting from when the IVR begins to when the caller is finished interacting with it. For more information, check out this article.
In this article we'll discuss:
Creating a Main IVR Greeting
All IVRs must start with a Greeting block. This will be considered your "main menu" and will provide callers with subsequent options. For example, an IVR greeting may say "Thank you for calling ABC Plumbing. For emergencies, please press 1. For our hours of operation, please press 2. For all other calls, please press 3."
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Within SAS Flex, go to the Builder icon on the left navigation panel. Then select IVR Blocks.
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All of the available IVR blocks will be listed on the left.
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First, let's drag over the Greeting block to the designated area on your screen.
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Under the Greeting tab, choose your Recorded greeting from the Recording dropdown, or type in your greeting to use our Text to Speech option.
If you want a different message to play when you are closed for after hours or holidays, check the Activate away greeting box, choose Play when we are closed from the Frequency dropdown and choose your respective recorded greeting.
In order for the IVR to be able to change based off your business hours or after hours, you'll want to make sure you have already created a business hours set and a holiday set. Additionally, you'll want to make sure your business hours set is selected under the Options tab within the IVR workflow.
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Under the Options tab, choose what will happen if there is no input from the caller after the greeting, or if there is an invalid input.
If you choose the Transfer to Extension option, the number you input in the Extension field should correlate to the options you add within the Logic tab.
If you use an automated system that requires a keypad press before a call is connected, activate and set the DTMF tone so that our system can accept the call.
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Under the Logic tab, we'll need to add our various prompt options.
There is a max of 9 options that can be added within a Greeting block. If you need to include more than 9 options, you can also utilize the New Option block.
If you want to include a list of Employee extensions, you may fill them out under the Employees tab. This is not required, but if you choose to use it, you will also need to configure Employee Extension blocks.
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Under the Field tab, you'll need to name your block. We named ours ABC Plumbing - IVR Greeting.
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When you are done, click Save. Once your main greeting has been created, it's time to build out your individual IVR blocks which we'll later connect in the next section. Hop over to this article to see a comprehensive breakdown of each IVR block and how to build them, then come back here to finish up!
Configuring your IVR Workflow
Once your IVR blocks have been created, you are now ready to configure your IVR workflow.
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Click the Builder icon on the left menu navigation panel and select IVRs.
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Click Add IVR. In the pop-up window, you'll need to add a name for your IVR. Then click Save.
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Select your newly added IVR to begin building. Your screen should look like the picture below.
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Under Unassigned blocks, locate your Greeting block, and drag it over to the designated area on your screen.
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Next drag out your other IVR blocks into the workflow.
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Connect each IVR block with its corresponding link within the greeting, as shown below. When you are done, click Save.
Congratulations! You've just built an advanced IVR. Now you'll need to assign your SAS numbers to the IVR and Script accordingly, or you can contact support for help!
