Personalize your business with a Phonebooth auto-attendant

First off… we’re going to rethink auto-attendants (commonly referred to as phone trees).

For a large portion of businesses, sounding big can be a benefit.  We’re accustomed to hearing Press 1 for Sales, Press 2 for Support, Press 3 for Marketing.  While this is a value-add for some folks, others would rather opt for being more personal.

In the recent Lifehacker article discussing Phonebooth Free, there were a few comments regarding a general disdain for auto-attendants and their lack of personalization…

Auto-attendants can actually help us make our businesses more personal.

First of all, with Phonebooth, auto-attendants are optional.  You are not required to make an auto-attendant!  On the other hand, it is easy to make a phone tree that facilitates talking to real people.  To best understand how we can rethink auto-attendants and phone trees, we’ve created a few examples… some business, some more personal.  The key takeaway should be that you can be as creative as you want with your phone tree.  Sounding large and professional may not be your thing, if it isn’t… make something cool and tell us about it.

Example 1: We don’t need no stinkin’ auto-attendant.

Description: We want the phone to ring real people. No message. No tree. No nothing.

The Setup: You don’t actually create an auto-attendant if you want this to happen with no audible message.  Create a Group, add the relevant users and choose to call them all at the same time or in a specified order.

An Alternative: A simple, personalized auto-attendant with limited options and a quick message. Call  (877) 870-6306 to hear an example.  Pressing 1 rings a group, 2 rings a user and 3 rings a user.  Quick, easy and to the point while remaining personal.  One benefit of using an auto-attendant is that you can embed Contact Us Plus onto your website or blog.  This adds another layer of personalization as anyone of the web can click-to-call whoever they’d like to talk to and be automatically connected to them.

Example 2: Business by day, Band by night.

Description: A group of business professionals (one Bandwidth.com employee who may or may not be the current voice of Phonebooth) has a sweet band, but they can’t field calls during the day at work.

The Setup: Several auto-attendants are networked together with pre-recorded mp3 files and all calls are routed to the appropriate voicemail inbox for text transcription and attached mp3 files.

Check It Out: Call  (919) 576-9979 to hear the Beggar’s Caravan auto-attendant accompanied with some of the band’s songs.

Example 3: A Cappella auto-attendant.

Description: DoubleShot, an all vocal band from Pittsburgh used Phonebooth Free to create a professional business phone system for their band.

The Setup: Several auto-attendants are networked together with pre-recorded mp3 files and all calls are forwarded to the appropriate user.

Check It Out: Call  (412) 444-5321 to hear the DoubleShot auto-attendant accompanied with some of the band’s songs.  Contact Us Plus is also used on their website allowing users to click-to-call to reach them on the phone.

Remember, with Phonebooth – you can make your business phone system whatever you want it to be.  If you’re doing something cool or creative with Phonebooth, please be sure to let us know!  We’d love to feature you in a future post.