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A phone menu greets callers and lets them choose where to go: “For wholesale orders, press 1. For the café, press 2.” Each key sends the call to a person, a group of phones, a voicemail box, another menu or one of your AI agents. This guide builds a two-option menu for Northwind’s main line, tests it without making a call, and shows where to put it on a number.

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Start the menu

1

Open IVR

Click Communications in the left rail, then Routing at the top, then IVR. Click New IVR.
2

Name it, pick a voice and write the greeting

Type a Name for the menu and pick a Voice: Play lets you hear it. Under Greeting, write what callers hear first, including the choices.
Name Northwind main line, outlined; Voice Harlow, Warm Support, feminine, English, outlined, with Play; and the greeting Thanks for calling Northwind Coffee Roasters. For wholesale orders, press 1. For the Pearl District café, press 2., outlined

Name, voice and greeting

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Add the choices

1

Click Add option and pick a key

Under Menu, click Add option, then the key callers press.
2

Choose where the key goes

In the first list, pick the kind of destination: Extension (one phone), Ring group, another IVR, an AI agent, Voicemail, Repeat menu or Disconnect. In the second list, pick which one. Give the option a short Label so you know what it is for.
Menu options: 1, AI agent, AI receptionist (Riley), label Wholesale, outlined; 2, Voicemail, 1003, Jamie Holloway, label Pearl District café, outlined; and Add option, outlined

Two choices

Repeat for each key, then click Create IVR.
Further down, three settings cover the edges: Business hours sends callers somewhere else when you’re closed, After hours picks where that is, and Invalid input sets how many times the menu repeats when someone presses a key with no option.

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Test it without a call

On the IVR page, click Test on your menu. The play button reads the greeting in the voice you picked, and the keypad shows where each key goes. Press a key to follow it.
IVR walkthrough for Northwind main line: the greeting's play button, outlined, and the greeting text; the options 1 AI receptionist, Wholesale, and 2 Voicemail, Pearl District café; and the keypad with 2, outlined

The test, with the greeting and keypad

Routes to: Voicemail, Jamie Holloway, extension 1003, outlined, with Restart walkthrough and End test

Where key 2 goes

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Put the menu on your number

Click Routing, then Numbers, and the edit button on your number’s row. Under Inbound routes to, pick IVR, then your menu under Which IVR?, and click Save changes. From then on, callers to that number hear the menu.
Inbound routes to IVR, outlined, and Which IVR? Northwind main line (6000), outlined

The number, sent to the menu

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Good to know

  • Need a number first? See Get a Local or Toll-Free Number.
  • Menus inside menus. Pick IVR as a destination to send a key to a second menu, such as a list of departments.
  • Deleting a menu a number still points to makes that number turn calls away, so point the number somewhere else first.
  • More detail on every setting: see IVR.