IVR Phone Tree

Most phone systems these days start with an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system to route calls. If you are not familiar with the term IVR, you are probably familiar with having to press 4 for sales, 5 for support etc. While IVR systems are great for routing calls to different departments, they are annoying and cumbersome to use. With the power of AI, lets see how we can re-define the traditional IVR phone tree and remove friction on the caller's end.

With an AI powered call system like echowin, there is no need for the user to have to go through all the menu options and press the right keypad option. They can simply talk to the AI agent and tell them where they want to be connected. While there are many different ways to achieve this, let's explore some recommended ways.

Using Smart Transfer

If you are on the echowin Pro plan or above, you will have access to Smart Transfer that will make the transfer process seamless. This is how you would set this up:

• Create a scenario with description along the lines of "When the caller asks to be transferred or wants to talk to a person".
• Add a Smart Transfer tool within the scenario and connect it directly to the scenario start.
• Add all the departments you have along with their description and phone numbers to the Smart Transfer tool. Be mindful that the description is what helps the AI decide where the caller is trying to transfer to.
• Activate the scenario.

That's it. Let's say you have the following groups in Smart Transfer:

Name: Sales

Description: Handles sales queries, questions regarding purchases and refunds. Members: Adam Smith, Joe Philips

Name: Support

Description: Handles support issues related to our product. Members: Jose Martinez

Now when the caller calls and says "Can I talk to Joe?", they will automatically be transferred to the Sales department. When they say "Can you transfer me to someone?", they will be asked where they would like to be transferred to first, and then get transferred there.

If the primary purpose of your AI agent is to do phone transfers like a traditional IVR system, we recommend setting a greeting letting the callers know that they can ask for the call to be transferred like the following:

Thank you for calling Best Buy. I can answer any questions you may have about our store or you can ask me to transfer you to sales or support. How may I help you?

Smart Transfer takes all the pain out of transferring calls. There is a dedicated guide on this tool here.

Using Scenarios

If you do not have access to the Smart Transfer tool or don't need multi department transfers, you can use our regular Transfer tool that is available in all plans. Here is how you would set it up:

• Create a scenario for each transfer. Give it a description such as "When the caller wants to talk to support".
• Add a Transfer tool and connect it with scenario start.
• Configure the transfer tool to add the phone number where the caller would be transferred to.
• If your plan supports, you can also use Location Transfers that lets you add different locations that your business may have along with their phone numbers and the agent will automatically ask for the location the caller is calling from and transfer them to the closest match.

The only downside with this approach is that you need multiple scenarios to handle different departments or groups. With both setups, you can also add pre-screening so that you can ask the caller for their name, reason for call or any other relevant information and have that emailed or texted to you before the call gets transferred.