When a customer calls your business, they often need different things — one person wants to speak to sales, another has a support question, another wants to check their order status. A voice menu, also called an IVR (Interactive Voice Response), lets callers route themselves to the right place by pressing a number on their keypad. This article explains what a voice menu is and when to use one.

Without a voice menu, every call goes to the same place — your main line or your whole team. That means the wrong person often ends up handling the wrong call, and callers waste time being transferred. A well-designed voice menu gets callers where they need to go on the first try, without any manual routing from your team.

When a caller reaches your voice menu, they hear a recorded greeting with options — for example: "Press 1 for sales. Press 2 for support. Press 3 to leave a message." Based on what they press, the system sends the call down a different path in your inbound rules. Each option can lead to a ring, a voicemail, another menu, or your AI agent.

You control the greeting text, the number of options, and where each option leads. Callers who don't press anything can be handled by a timeout rule — for example, after 10 seconds with no input, the call goes to voicemail.

A voice menu makes sense when your business handles multiple types of calls that need to go to different people or places. If every call your business receives is the same type and goes to the same person, you may not need one at all — a direct ring may be simpler and faster for your callers.

Good use cases for a voice menu: a business with separate sales and support teams, a company that handles both existing clients and new enquiries differently, or any situation where you want callers to self-select before reaching a person.

The full step-by-step guide is here:

👉 How to Create a Voice Menu (IVR)

Add the IVR block to your inbound rules, record or type your greeting, assign a keypress to each option, and connect each option to the next step in your call flow.

Keep options short. Callers don't listen to long menus. Three to five options is the practical maximum — more than that and callers start pressing random numbers out of frustration.

Put the most common option first. If 80% of your callers are existing clients, make that option 1. Order your menu by volume, not by what feels logical to you internally.

Always offer an escape. Include an option to speak with someone directly, or to leave a voicemail. Callers who can't find their option in the menu will hang up if there's no way out.

Once your voice menu is set up, callers can route themselves. The next step is making sure each menu option actually rings the right phone or person.