Configuring an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) menu can be tricky at the best of times, but configuring an Asterisk IVR menu requires a certain amount of prior planning and knowledge of using the Asterisk Command Line Interface (CLI). Moreover, as we demonstrated in last week’s tutorial, your IVR needs to be not just okay, but excellent as IVRs are the first point of contact where an incoming caller starts to form an impression about your company — so it might be a good idea to also refer to our IVR best
practices again to make sure you don’t make a rubbish IVR / AutoAttendant.
Mathias’ Top Tip
When configuring your IVR menus in Asterisk, it is essential that every level of your IVR menu has its own unique Context within your Dialplan. Otherwise, once an option number is used, you will not be able to use it again and you could well start sending your callers unintentionally to the back end of beyond of your dialplan which obviously would be very bad for customer service. Failing to do so will also have the negative impact of meaning that you will not be able to use the same extension again when configuring a different IVR menu.
Stay tuned for next time when we will build on this configuration, making it more advanced and how to configure timeout and invalid key entry actions.
Final Word - We Upgrade Business Communications
A well-configured business phone system that oozes useful tools, delivers excellent audio quality and intuitive call flows will leave callers with a highly professional impression. The configuration options and application availability and how well they are utilized will have a decisive impact on the level of profressionalism when it comes to call management and therefore how your customers view your company. The switch to a pascom VoIP phone system solution provides the opportunity to not only upgrade your internal collaboration but also to redefine telephony in your company.
If you would like more information regarding pascom and our Asterisk based Software PBX, please visit our website or give the pascom team a call on +49 991 29691 0 to discuss your requirements and get started within minutes using our free hosted business VoIP phone system edition.
Until next time — Happy VoIPing!