Telephony — IVR & auto attendant

IVR and auto attendant for smooth call handling

A well-designed interactive voice response (IVR) system gets your callers to the right person, without endless menus. We design your call handling on the 3CX phone system — greeting messages, call queues, business hours, skills-based routing, custom announcements — and evolve it as your business changes. For companies in Paris and Île-de-France, single-site or multi-site.

Design my call handling01 83 81 17 48
What holds you back

The patterns we keep seeing.

01

Lost calls, lost customers

Phones ringing unanswered, busy lines, failed transfers: every unanswered call is a customer dialling a competitor or a file falling behind. Without call queues and overflow rules, nobody even measures how many calls are being lost.

02

A greeting that ignores your business hours

A call at 7 pm or on a public holiday goes nowhere — no message, no voicemail. Callers have no idea when to call back or how to leave a message, and the company's professional image takes a hit each time it happens.

03

A switchboard that depends on a single person

All call routing goes through one person at the front desk: the moment they are away, calls wander from extension to extension. And changing a simple announcement means waiting for a provider — assuming anyone still knows how the installation is configured.

What we cover

The scope of the service.

01 / GREETING & IVR

Caller greeting and interactive voice response

Your company's first impression on the phone: short menus, clear messages and routing that takes callers to the right department as directly as possible.

  • IVR menu tree designed with your teams: short menus, clear options
  • Greeting messages and announcements, recorded or generated by text-to-speech
  • Direct-dial numbers (DDI) for key departments
  • Multilingual greetings to match your needs
  • Overflow to voicemail with messages delivered by email
02 / QUEUES & ROUTING

Call queues and skills-based routing

Calls are distributed according to your teams' skills and availability, with overflow rules when waiting times stretch.

  • Ring groups and call queues per department
  • Skills-based routing: calls are directed to qualified staff
  • Distribution strategies: ring all, round robin, priorities
  • On-hold announcements and queue position updates
  • Overflow between queues, to a mobile or to voicemail
03 / HOURS & CALENDAR

Business hours, public holidays and closures

Your call handling follows the company's real rhythm: opening hours, lunch breaks, public holidays and exceptional closures are handled automatically.

  • Time slots per day and per department
  • Distinct messages: open, closed, break, holidays
  • Calendar of public holidays and exceptional closures
  • Out-of-hours forwarding: voicemail, a mobile, or your organisation's on-call number
04 / INTEGRATION & AUTONOMY

3CX integration and autonomy for your teams

The IVR runs on the 3CX phone system: it integrates with your work environment and your teams keep control of day-to-day settings.

  • Configuration on your 3CX phone system, hosted or on-premises
  • Integration with Microsoft 365 and Teams depending on your environment
  • Queue statistics: calls received, handled, abandoned
  • Training for your teams: announcements, hours, forwarding rules
  • Network prerequisites checked, including voice traffic prioritisation (QoS)
How we proceed

From scoping to follow-up.

The exact scope, deliverables and timelines are formalised in the proposal, before any commitment.

1
Call flow scoping

Who calls you, why, at what times and who those calls should reach: scoping starts from your operational reality, not a theoretical org chart.

2
Menu tree design

Menus, queues, routing rules, hours and announcement scripts are formalised, then validated with your teams before any configuration.

3
Configuration and testing

Setup on 3CX, production of the announcements, then scenario testing: business hours, closed periods, overflow, public holidays.

4
Supported go-live

Cutover planned with your teams, staff kept informed, and quick adjustments based on early feedback from callers.

5
Follow-up and adjustments

Queue statistics reveal what your callers experience; menus, announcements and hours are adjusted as your business evolves, under the terms of your contract.

Frequently asked questions — telephony

The answers describe how the service works. Quantified commitments are formalised in your contract.

The phone system — the switchboard — receives calls and distributes them to your teams; historically, a receptionist handled that. An IVR (interactive voice response), often called an auto attendant, automates the orientation: a voice menu qualifies the caller's request and routes it to the right department, queue or voicemail. The two are complementary — the IVR directs, while the phone system, today software-based like 3CX, distributes.
It will if it is badly designed: menus that run too deep, ambiguous options, no way to reach a human. Our approach favours short menus, a direct option to reach a person, and overflow rules when waiting times stretch. The menu tree is validated with your teams before go-live, then adjusted based on actual call statistics.
The number of call scenarios and queues, the number of sites and numbers involved, the production of announcements (recorded or text-to-speech), the integrations you want, and any takeover of an existing phone system. An initial scoping establishes a precise scope of work; pricing is then formalised in the specific terms of your contract.
The timeline depends on the complexity of the menu tree, the number of sites, the production of announcements and your teams' availability for validation. Any number porting also follows its own schedule with the carriers. The schedule and milestones are formalised during scoping, then in your service contract.
Your numbers can be kept through number porting, organised by mandate with the carrier; the cutover is planned to limit the impact on your call handling. The existing installation is reviewed during scoping: some equipment — desk phones or headsets — can be reused, while other items are replaced depending on their compatibility with IP telephony.
Your teams, for day-to-day settings: we train them to change an absence message, an exceptional closure or a forwarding rule. Structural changes — a new queue, a redesign of the menu tree — are carried out by us, under the terms of your contract. The configuration and its documentation remain your company's property, including in the event of hand-back and reversibility.
Out of hours, the IVR applies the rules you have defined: a closed message, voicemail delivered by email, forwarding to a mobile or to your organisation's on-call number. If the internet link fails, backup forwarding to mobile lines can be prepared in advance. These continuity scenarios are defined during scoping and formalised in your contract.
Technically, yes: 3CX supports call recording and announcements played at the start of a call. These features are, however, subject to specific obligations — informing callers and employees, purposes, retention periods. We configure them to fit within those obligations; the legal qualification remains to be validated with your counsel.
Yes. Because 3CX is software-based, your call handling rules follow your staff: a desk phone at the office, a softphone on a computer, a mobile app on the move or when working from home. A single IVR can route calls to several sites as well as to remote teams. We operate in Paris and Île-de-France, and beyond through our regional partners for multi-site companies.
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An audit, then a clear plan.

Describe your need in a minute. We come back with an assessment and prioritised next steps.

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IVR and auto attendant for business on 3CX | Dalena