Auto-Attendant

It depends on your provider and how their pricing works.

With Quo, auto-attendant is included on our Business plan for $23 per user per month. Each user you add to your plan also gets a phone number, and extra numbers cost just $5 per number per month.

Some providers charge:

• One-time setup fees
• Extra costs for inbound toll-free calls

However, Quo doesn’t charge these fees.

Auto-attendants work well for most teams, but there are a few cases where they’re not the best fit:

• Emergency services where callers need to reach someone right away
• Very small teams, with 1–2 people, where it’s easier to answer calls instantly
• Higher-ticket sales that require conversations on the phone with a sales rep

Hiring a full-time receptionist can make it harder to scale as your business grows. Most roles cost around $37,230 per year.

In contrast, an auto-attendant usually costs between $23 and $100 per month. If you’re mainly routing calls and answering repetitive questions, it’s a simpler way to scale without adding more headcount.

Auto-attendants offer multiple benefits to businesses:

1. Better customer experience: Customers can connect with your team faster using an auto-attendant. They don’t have to wait in a call queue or go through multiple call transfers.
2. ‍Shorter wait times: Customers don’t have to wait on the line or call back to connect with your team. And with shorter wait times, teams can quickly improve their customer satisfaction.
3. ‍Reduced spam calls: Robocallers can’t navigate through phone menu options easily. Your team won’t get distracted by spam calls and can have more conversations with customers. 

An auto-attendant is a menu-based system callers can use to navigate to different departments in a business. Some auto-attendant phone systems offer IVR to access different menu options, which can use voice recognition and integrate with your systems to give you customer context, log calls, and keep all your information in one place. 

Click Add greeting message in the Phone menu call flow block and choose:

1. Upload a file: Use an existing MP3 or WAV audio file.
2. Record: Create a greeting directly in Quo.
3. Text-to-speech: Type text for a  professional voiceover.

Example greeting: “Thank you for calling Acme Inc. For Sales, press one. For Support, press two. For our business hours and location, press three. To speak with an operator, press zero.”

You can also check out Quo’s free AI business auto-attendant greeting generator to create your own greeting, available whether or not you have a Quo account.

Each phone menu level can accommodate up to 10 options. Each option corresponds with a phone keypad number, i.e., zero to nine.

You can add up to two nested menus in Quo’s auto-attendant feature — your automated phone operator.

Auto-attendants help callers navigate to the right department or team, and call queues manage callers waiting to speak with someone on the team. Call queues are typically used by call centers to manage high call volumes.

Here are a few auto-attendant script examples:

1. Basic auto-attendant greeting:

Hello! Thanks for calling XYZ Company. Our hours of operation are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern time, seven days a week. Please select from the following menu options to reach a specific department:

For sales, press one.
For billing, press two.
For public relations, press three.

For all other inquiries, stay on the line to speak with a member of our customer support team.‍

2. Customer support script:
Thank you for contacting XYZ Customer Service.

If you are a new customer, press one.
If you are an existing customer, press two.
For more information about XYZ Company, press three.

To repeat this message, press zero.‍

3. Restaurant script:
Hello! You’ve reached XYZ Bistro. For reservations, press one. For information about our menu, press two. To place a to-go order, press three. For all other inquiries, please stay on the line.

‍Looking for more examples? Get a list of 20+ clear auto-attendant script examples on our blog. 

Both auto-attendants and answering services offer benefits to small businesses. With Quo, you don’t have to choose between them. Add an auto-attendant to your call flow to help customers navigate to different teams. Provide a menu option for callers to talk to Sona, our AI answering service, in case they can’t reach a member of your team or simply have a quick question Sona can answer.

Here are a few best practices you should follow when setting up your auto-attendant software:

• Use a short greeting. For example, “Press one for sales, two for support.”
• Stick to 3–5 options so it’s easy for callers to navigate your menu.
• Put the most common menu option first.
• Give callers a way to repeat the menu. 
• Decide what happens if no one chooses a menu option, like replaying the menu or routing the call to an AI voice agent, like Quo’s Sona.

An auto-attendant service should support different ways to route calls:

• Sequential routing: Calls people one at a time until someone answers
• Simultaneous routing: Rings multiple people at once
• Time-of-day routing: Sends calls to the right rep or answering service based on your business hours
• Skill-based routing: Directs calls to the correct team depending on what the caller needs