An Automated Phone Menu for a Five-Person Office

The call that came from the website

Somebody has read your services page, checked that you cover their area and tapped the number. They have decided. All they need now is a person.

Instead they hear a greeting, then a list: press one for sales, two for service, three for accounts. One option leads to a second list. The second leads to music, then voicemail.

Some callers leave a message. Some press zero and hope. Some hang up, go back to the search results and call the business listed under yours.

None of them appear in any report. A caller who hangs up during a menu looks exactly like nobody calling at all.

Why small offices add menus

The reasons are understandable. A menu sounds established, routes calls without a receptionist and spares the people doing the work from constant interruption.

Phone systems also arrive with menus built in, and whoever installs one records a greeting for each department because the system has a slot for it.

But in a five-person office each department is one person, and that person is often out. The menu adds steps in front of the same voicemail box.

What the caller actually meets

• A long greeting before the first choice.
• Options named after departments, not after the caller's problem.
• A second menu inside the first.
• Music with no hint of how long the wait will be.
• A voicemail box that is full or never checked.
• No way at all to reach a person.

The second is the one that loses the most calls. Somebody with a leaking tap or a job to book does not know whether that counts as sales or service, and a wrong guess feels like starting again.

Callers from the website have decided

A call from the phone book used to be an early question. A call from the website usually comes after the research is done: the services, the area, the reviews, the photographs.

Many of these callers are on mobiles, having tapped the number on the page. Pressing keys means taking the phone from their ear, which is awkward on a job site or in a parked car.

They also had several other numbers on the same results page. The next one is a tap away, and trying it costs them nothing.

Answer live during business hours

The change that matters most is simple to say: while you are open, a person answers. Perhaps not every call, but nearly all of them.

Most business phone systems and hosted phone services can ring several phones at once, or one after another, including a mobile. Whoever is free picks up, and nobody needs a menu to find them.

Agree who covers lunch and site visits, so the phones are never all away at once. For busy periods, a professional answering service can take overflow calls in your business's name.

If there has to be a menu

Some offices do need to route calls. Keep it to one short choice, offered in the first few seconds, with an option to reach a person.

Name the options by what callers want, such as booking a new job or asking about an existing one, rather than by department. Two options are plenty for five people.

Never put a menu inside a menu. And never use one to read out your hours or address; the website already does that better.

A worked example

A construction cleanup company cleans new homes and renovations before handover: drywall dust, paint spatter, stickers on windows, debris in the yard. Five people work from its office, and its crews are on site all day.

Its phone system greeted callers with a menu for the residential division, the commercial division and accounts, then a second menu separating new quotes from existing jobs, each ending in a different voicemail box.

Most callers were builders' site supervisors with a possession date coming, ringing from noisy sites. One told the owner he had stopped using the main number and now called the owner's mobile directly.

The main number now rings the office manager and the dispatcher together, then the owner's mobile. The menu runs only after hours, with one choice: press one if a crew is due on your site tomorrow.

Voicemail that keeps the caller

Some calls will still reach voicemail. The greeting should name the business, say when the caller will hear back, and offer the quote form on the website as another route.

A promise such as a return call before ten tomorrow gives the caller a reason to wait. A generic greeting gives them a reason to try someone else.

Clear the box every day. A caller who reaches a mailbox that cannot take messages leaves with nothing at all.

The website and the phone together

Put the hours when someone answers beside the number on the website, so callers know whether to expect a person. On phones, set the number up so a tap starts the call.

If you run AdWords with a call extension, every tap on the number in an ad is paid for. A call that ends in a menu loop is a click bought and thrown away.

Ring the main number yourself from a mobile once a month, at different times of day, and count how long it takes to reach a person.

The counter-case

Some businesses genuinely have separate callers. An office with its own service desk and a separate sales line, or a business that takes urgent calls after hours, can use one routing choice well.

Larger offices with a steady volume of calls may need more structure than five people do. And after closing, a short menu that sends urgent calls to an on-call phone is useful.

For a five-person office during business hours, though, a person should answer, and any menu should be one short choice.

This week

1. Call your main number from a mobile.
2. Time how long it takes to reach a person.
3. Ring several phones together during business hours.
4. Cut any menu to one short choice.
5. Rewrite the voicemail greeting with a call-back time.
6. List the hours a person answers beside the number.
7. Clear the voicemail box every day.

Step three is the change that removes the problem. When several phones ring at once, a person answers without the caller having to work out where they belong.

Which number to put on the website in the first place is covered in a toll-free number on a neighbourhood business.

Frequently asked questions

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.