IVR and call flows: routing phone calls automatically

An interactive voice response system takes a call before a person does. It plays announcements, reads the caller’s key presses (DTMF tones) or spoken answers, and routes the call accordingly – to a team, a queue, a mailbox or an information message.

Today an IVR is usually one part of a larger call flow: the rules that decide what happens with a call to a number, depending on opening hours, availability and the caller’s choice.

• Opening hours – different routing during and outside business hours.
• Voice menu – "press 1 for sales, 2 for support".
• Ring group – several people ring at once or one after another.
• Queue – callers wait with announcements until someone is free.
• Mailbox – callers leave a message.
• PIN entry – for example to dial into a meeting.

Once an organisation has connected a phone line (a SIP trunk), each number follows its call flow: it can ring a person or a group, play a voice menu, put callers into a queue or a voice room, or let the mailbox answer. A number can also be a meeting dial-in, where callers enter the meeting PIN. Voicemails are transcribed on Coviqo’s own servers.

On the Business plan, call flows can also include an AI receptionist that runs on Coviqo’s own servers: it first tells callers they are talking to an AI, answers from the knowledge you enter and can hand over to a person. Telephony depends on the plan – see pricing and the phone calls chapter.