IVR

Your IVR (Interactive Voice Response) channel can consist of an endless number of different IVR (and non-IVR) actions. IVR actions available over Flow are the following:

Start Call
Play
Collect
Forward Call
Record Voicemail
Hang Up

Note

Your outbound IVR should always start with the Start Call action. For inbound calls, Start Call action will not be used.

Start Call

When adding the Start Call element to your IVR flow, the first step is to select the sender/caller ID (your business Voice number).

If you include the Machine Answered condition in this step of the communication and don`t want to continue the call if that happens, add the Hang Up element.

Use the advanced options to set the Record Callaction and the following options:

Validity Period
Retry Period
Data Payload
Callback URL

(The Callback URL is your platform URL where the delivery reports will be pushed.
Check out our Developers Hub for the delivery reports format (opens in a new tab).)

Play

Add the Play element, fill out all the necessary fields, and choose the audio source: text-to-speech message or audio file. These two come with their specific functionalities, but, for both, you can set up the duration of pause to add additional silence before the audio file has been played, and conditions that will help you further branch your flow.

Text to Speech

Text content can be up to 1400 characters long. Once you enter the message text, the language is automatically detected. You can also select the voice that will be used for the message.

To hear your message before sending it, click the audio preview button.

Audio File

For the audio file, select the source:

File upload - prerecorded file from your computer
File URL - publicly accessible URL location of your audio file
Voicemail - select it from the list of the files created using the record action

Collect

The Collect element is added to the flow to get the response from your customers who will be communicating using the digits on their phones.

Define the following:

Variable name - this is where the Flow will keep your customer inputs.
Maximum input length - defines the number of inputs the customer is expected to enter when interacting with the IVR menu.
Input waiting time - the number of seconds the IVR will wait for the customer to press the first key.

The # key cannot be collected; it is reserved for the user input termination. The IVR platform automatically stops reading the end user`s input after receiving*#*, and it does not store it.

If you want response codes to show in the IVR Voice reports, these are the options:

Always show (default): Response codes will always appear in the reports and logs.
Show masked: Response codes will show in reports and logs as a masked value (xxxx).
Don’t show: Response codes will not show in reports and logs.

You can use the conditions in the Collect element to branch the IVR flow based on the response code received from the user or based on the user`s hang up action.

If you use the Collect element after the Play element then you have a few options depending on how you wish to collect the choice from the user:

You can force the user to listen to the whole message in the Play element and only collect number choice after that. Choose the Audio played completely condition in the Play element to do this.
If you want allow the user to make a choice before the audio has played completely then DO NOT choose the Audio played completely option.

Forward Call

Before forwarding the call to one or more phone numbers, you will need to fill in the following fields:

From – Caller ID that will be used on the call-receiving side. Voice can only use numeric senders and the call delivery depends on the CLI route.
To – One or more phone numbers to forward the call to.

When the call is forwarded to more than one phone number, you could have parallel calls to all of them (until one gets picked up) or sequential calling. For the sequential dialing, set up how long do you want the ringing to last before we move to another number in the sequence.

The conditions for this element that you can use to continue designing the flow are answered, no answer, busy, error.

Important

The Forward call element must be the last IVR action in your IVR flow, no other IVR actions can follow it, but you might use other non-IVR actions after or start a new call.

Record Voicemail

This element in IVR flow records a part of the call. For example, it could serve to record a customer opinion, get customer feedback, or leave a voice message. First, you will need to take care of the following:

The name of the recorded file
Maximum recording duration measured in seconds
Maximum silence duration that IVR will wait for before stopping the recording
Define the digits that will end the recording
Select the beep sound check box if you want the tone played at the start of the recording

Audio files that are recorded using the Recorded Voicemail element can be retrieved on the Recordings page on our web interface.

After you add the Record Voicemailaction, the only way to branch the call is with the Hang Up condition.

Download the Voice IVR audio file (opens in a new tab).

Hang Up

The Hang Up action is used to end the call. After you add it to the flow, use non–IVR actions only or start a new call.

Non-IVR Actions

Make even more flexible flows and improve communication with your end users with other elements that you can combine with the IVR ones.

During an IVR communication, you can do practically anything – for example, you can send SMS or Push confirmations or update profiles based on customers` input. In addition, all the segmentation possibilities that the People data platform offers will help you plan and deliver relevant messages through the Voice channel.

These are actions available to use with IVR:

The “wait for” elements (Wait for an Event, Wait for Change in People Profile, Wait for a Date) and Split Audience can be used before or after the call, but as a part of a separate flow.

Channels Functions

IVR