Today’s phone systems provide you with all the tools you need to automate your call flow and create a positive customer experience. However, it’s up to you to implement the most effective strategy and use your phone system’s features efficiently. If you’re not sure where to get started, you’ve come to the right place. We’ve outlined all the basic principles and best practices for your phone greetings so you can design, script, and record with confidence.

Understand Your Call Flow

In order to streamline your call flow, you must have an understanding of what your callers need. What questions do they most frequently ask? What departments receive the highest call volume?

Creating a visual chart of your call flow, including voicemail and transfer messages, allows you to better design and organize your auto attendant and move callers appropriately through the system. A visual call flow chart will also help you catch menu mistakes and omissions, like not giving a caller an exit option from your hours of operation message.

Prioritize Caller Info

Once you’ve identified the info you’d like to include in your auto attendant messages, prioritize the options that are most desirable to your average caller. Creating menu options that address common inquiries translates into direct cost savings because it allows your business to handle a higher call volume and tend to more customer concerns without a live representative.

Avoid Dated Information

One of the biggest mistakes companies make when setting up their auto attendant is using names and dated information without a solid plan for updating their messaging. Unless you are a small firm or family-owned business with five or less names in your directory, employee turnover can quickly make your company directory outdated, leading to caller confusion.

Stick with department names or job titles to save yourself and your callers the hassle. If you are including names and have several to list, consider using one of the main menu options to direct callers to a sub-menu directory.

Instead of:

For Sam Young, Sales Manager – Press 1

For Whitney Rice, Customer Care Specialist – Press 2

Use this:

For the Sales Manager – Press 1

For Customer Service – Press 2

Be Specific And Concise

If callers have to do too much guesswork in navigating your phone system, they’ll hang up and call elsewhere. So, be clear about who they need to speak with in order to address their specific needs. For example, if you want your new customers to set up their billing account with Customer Service rather than your Billing Department, make note of that in your greeting.

While you want to be clear, it is also important to keep menus and messaging direct and to the point. Avoid putting specific information (like fax, location and directions) in the main greeting, and instead direct callers to another auto attendant extension where they can access these details. Even removing “please” from your menu and simply saying “press 1” helps streamline call flow. To avoid caller frustration, provide a clear avenue to speak with a live representative — like a press 0 for the operator override mechanism.

Don’t Forget Standby Messages

When setting up phone system greetings, often people focus on their menus and directory and forget their secondary messaging. In order to create a unified sound across all your phone system greetings, be sure to include your out of office message, holiday hours, seasonal greetings and transfer messages in your initial system planning.

Record Professionally

When potential customers call your business, your phone greeting sets the tone for their first impression. You invest time and effort in cultivating the right logo and brand, and the sound of your business is equally important. In order to create a positive experience for your callers, make sure your greetings are rehearsed, read clearly and professionally and are recorded without background noise.

To ensure a consistent caller experience, all messages should be recorded in the same voice. Since most companies don’t have trained voice talent on staff, many turn to the professionals for their phone greetings. Professionally recorded phone system greetings not only sound dramatically better than self-recorded messages, but they will ensure your greetings are compatible and allow you to maximize the features of your Mitel phone system.

The quality of your call flow and phone greetings can make or break your customer experience, either warding off customers due to inefficiency or keeping them satisfied by getting them where they want to go quickly and professionally. Create the outstanding customer experience you want by automating your call flow with Mitel phone systems.

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By the experts at Mitel