System information

In this chapter we talk about building an automated attendant. In Chapter 17 we will
discuss IVR.
*
Designing Your Auto Attendant
The most common mistake beginners make when designing an AA is needless com-
plexity. While there can be much joy and sense of accomplishment in the creation of
a multilevel AA with dozens of nifty options and oodles of really cool prompts, your
callers have a different agenda. The reason people make phone calls is primarily because
they want to talk to someone. While people have become used to the reality of auto
attendants, and in some cases they can speed things up, for the most part people would
prefer to speak to somebody live. This means that there are two fundamental rules that
every auto attendant should adhere to:
1. Keep it simple.
2. Make sure you always include a handler for the folks who are going to press 0
whenever they hear an auto attendant. If you do not want to have a 0 option, be
aware that many people will be insulted by this, and they will hang up and not call
back. In business, this is generally a bad thing.
Before you start to code your AA, it is wise to design it. You will need to define a call
flow, and you will need to specify the prompts that will play at each step. Software
diagramming tools can be useful for this, but there’s no need to get fancy. Table 15-1
provides a good template for a basic auto attendant that will do what you need.
Table 15-1. A basic automated attendant
Step or choice Sample prompt Notes Filename
Greeting—business
hours
Thank you for calling
ABC company.
Day greeting. daygreeting.wav
Greeting—non-busi-
ness hours
Thank you for calling
ABC company. Our
office is now closed.
Night greeting. nightgreeting.wav
Main menu If you know the ex-
tension of the per-
son you wish to
reach, please enter it
now. For sales,
please press 1, for
service, press 2, for
our company direc-
tory, press #. For our
Main menu prompt. mainmenu.wav
* It should be noted that Asterisk is an excellent IVR-creation tool. It’s not bad for building automated
attendants either.
332 | Chapter 15: The Automated Attendant