The phone never stops ringing, and you’re the one answering calls most of the time. But between serving customers, managing your team, and handling a hundred other tasks, you just can’t get to every one.
And when customers can’t reach you, they don’t wait around — they hang up or, worse, call your competitors. You know you need a better system, but maybe you’ve held off on setting up Interactive Voice Response (IVR), worrying it’ll feel too robotic. Or your team is already drowning in calls, and you’re not sure IVR will actually help.
But IVR doesn’t have to be frustrating or impersonal. When designed with your customers in mind, an IVR call routing helps them reach the right person faster without stretching your team thin. You’ll see fewer abandoned calls, higher customer satisfaction, and no more feeling chained to the phone all day.
In this guide, we’ll show you how to master IVR routing with 10 strategies for better call management.
1. Keep it simple
One of the quickest ways to overwhelm callers is to greet them with too many menu options. You might think offering every department extension upfront is helpful, but if customers can’t quickly find what they need, they may hang up before reaching someone.
Keep your IVR menu short, focusing on the most common needs. For example, “Press 1 for Sales” or “Press 2 for the Support team.”
Don’t forget to use clear language in your menu options. Jargon can make callers feel like they’re stuck in a corporate loop, so skip the acronyms and speak to your audience like you’d talk to a friend.
To nail this, find the right auto-attendant script that works for your customer base.
2. No caller left behind
Imagine a customer calls your business, hears your greeting, and isn’t sure which button to press. So they wait, thinking they’ll be connected automatically, but nothing happens. After a while, they hang up.
Avoid this by setting up a default phone menu action for when there’s no caller input, like letting the call ring through to a live person, routing it to voicemail, or repeating the phone menu.
Kathleen Buffington, Customer Success Manager at OpenPhone, suggests, “If you’re getting a ton of missed calls, I recommend setting your default option to let the call through to a live person. Otherwise, many people will just sit and wait, thinking they’ll be connected eventually, only to get pushed to voicemail and then drop off the call.”
On the flip side, if spam and robocalls are your top headache, Kathleen recommends setting the default option to voicemail.
With OpenPhone, you can also set up auto-replies to send a text when you miss a call. A quick message like “Hey, sorry I missed you! I’m in the field right now, but I’ll call you back within [X] hours” reassures callers they haven’t been forgotten.
You can also set up an auto-reply like “Hey, sorry I missed your call. Can I help you over text?” to keep the conversation going and avoid playing phone tag.
Here’s how the auto-reply functionality looks in OpenPhone:
You run a small business, not a contact center. Missing the occasional call is inevitable. But that doesn’t have to mean lost business.
Instead, route callers to shared business numbers so everyone on your team can pitch in without getting overwhelmed.
An incoming call will ring every person with access to the shared number and stop ringing once a team member picks up the call.
With a call routing system, you can even customize the ring order. You can have all phones ring at once so the first available person can pick up or set it up so calls ring in a custom group. If the first group doesn’t answer, the system moves on to the next batch, continuing until someone picks up or the call is sent to voicemail.
Take your inbound call routing strategies one step further with OpenPhone by routing customer calls based on a team member’s skills, responsibility, or availability, all while keeping a single, easy-to-remember phone number.
On OpenPhone, you can do this in your phone menu settings after adding a menu option that contains the Ring user step. Then select who on your team receives calls from that menu option. And don’t worry about your line being busy. With OpenPhone, there’s no limit to the number of phone calls you can have at the same time.
Since your team shares numbers, you can easily review the history of any conversation. If you need to collaborate privately, you can tag each other for input and share notes in real time using internal threads.
This way, everyone stays in the loop and your callers get a straightforward experience every time.
If you need help mapping your phone tree, check out our tips on designing an IVR call flow.
4. Provide self-service options
Even if you only pick up calls during specific hours, your callers should still be able to find the information they need around the clock.
The best IVR systems for small businesses (like OpenPhone 😉) let you set up business hours call routing to automatically direct callers to other resources when you’re unavailable.
You can also include commonly asked questions in your phone menu greeting, like your business hours, directions, or how to reset a password. This way, customers who need quick details can help themselves, allowing your team to focus on the conversations that need a personal touch.
Other quick resources for your customer greeting could be:
- Check your account balance
- Confirm or cancel an appointment
- Update billing information
5. Record your own IVR greeting
Hearing a computer-generated voice can feel impersonal.
Recording your own IVR greeting helps you create a warmer touch right from the start. It also shows customers you’ve put in the effort to address their needs
rather than making them jump through hoops.
For inspiration when recording your greeting, look through our guide on professional voicemail greeting examples.
6. Offer language options
When your callers speak multiple languages — whether they’re spread out across different regions or you have a significant number of non-English speakers in your area — it pays to make them feel at home. Setting up an extra language menu shows you care about your caller’s background and are open to helping them.
You could record greetings and prompts in each language or direct callers to a bilingual team member; either way, you give everyone a better experience.
An auto-attendant phone system can show you which menu option a caller selected to connect to you. That way, your team knows what the customer needs before picking up.
Let’s say the same person on your team handles sales and customer support calls. Seeing which menu option the caller selected helps them shift gears instantly.
With OpenPhone, the menu choices appear for the incoming call notification like this:
8. Test your IVR call routing system consistently
Once you’ve finished setting up your IVR and routing options, it’s time to test your system.
Call your business number from different devices and walk through each menu option, making sure every choice routes where it’s supposed to. Is the greeting clear and easy to follow? Do unanswered calls route to voicemail or a backup team member the way you want?
If you let callers select an option when they say a specific keyword, check that it properly recognizes the word.
It’s also worth reviewing your call analytics to see which menu options get the most traffic. For example, if one department is experiencing high call volumes, you can rethink your call distribution and use conditional call forwarding to route calls to another team or location.
Continually test and optimize your setup as you hire new team members, change your business hours, or notice an uptick in customer complaints.
9. Integrate your phone system with your CRM
When your team can easily see a caller’s history, past interactions, and relevant notes, they can handle incoming calls with more confidence. Also, call resolution times are faster and callers tend to have a better, more personalized experience.
Plus, integrating your phone system with CRM tools like HubSpot or Salesforce automates customer data updates, keeping everything organized and accessible.
10. Improve your routing through call recordings
Want to know how well your IVR menu is working? Listening to call recordings and reviewing call transcriptions can give you clues about where customers get stuck.
If you notice callers often saying something like, “I think I need to talk to someone else” or “Can you transfer me to the right person?” it could mean your menu options aren’t clear.
If that’s the case, tweaking your IVR menu — whether it’s renaming options, changing the order, or simplifying choices — can make a big difference.
Just remember to stay on the right side of privacy laws. Let people know the call is being recorded and what you plan to use the recording for (like training or quality assurance purposes).
For tips on staying compliant, check out our guide on how to legally record phone calls.
How to set up IVR call routing in OpenPhone
With OpenPhone, you can set up an IVR phone menu in just a few minutes.
Here’s how you set it up from the OpenPhone web or desktop app:
- Navigate to Settings and Phone Numbers.
- Select the phone number you’d like to add a phone menu/auto-attendant to.
- Scroll down to the Call flow section and click Phone menu.
- Click Set a greeting message, then upload an audio file, record yourself, or select text-to-speech.
- Under Menu options, set up the IVR menu options. You’ll be able to set up to 10 different options.
- If a caller stays on the line without selecting an option, they will be sent to voicemail by default. You can change this by clicking Send to voicemail and selecting another destination.
- If you changed the default action, click Save.
- That’s it! Update your phone menu at any time by returning to your workspace.
Make every conversation count with OpenPhone
Well-structured IVR call routing strategies reduce missed calls and give customers a smoother experience. For small businesses, this means turning missed opportunities and constant interruptions into a system that helps them stay on top of every call — without the extra stress.
With OpenPhone’s Business plan, you can add IVR to any phone number (US, Canadian, or toll-free), create custom call flows, share numbers, record calls, transcribe voicemails, and integrate with apps like HubSpot or Slack to simplify call handling.
Try OpenPhone for free for seven days to explore how it can help your business and make call management stress-free.
