10 Auto-attendant Scripts That Leave a Good Impression

In most cases, your automated attendant’s greeting will be the very first contact a customer has with your organization. As such, you want to make the best impression possible when deploying auto-attendant scripts. The best scripts sound professional, deliver clear, helpful information about your company, and make it easy to reach different extensions for further assistance.

Auto-attendant Scripts for General Company Information

Businesses can use general company information scripts to route callers to the right desk or department, as well as provide business hours, applicable fax numbers, or important addresses.

General Company Information Script With Department Routing

Thank you for calling _[company name]_. If you need assistance in Spanish, please press one. Otherwise, remain on the line to get connected. For our billing department, press two. To speak with sales, press three. For technical support, press four. For anything else, remain on the line and someone will take your call.

General Company Information Script for FAQs

Thank you for calling _[company name]_. For hours of operation, press one. For our fax number, press two. For a list of our offices, press three. To speak with an agent, press four, or remain on the line and you will be automatically be connected.

Auto-attendant Scripts for Individuals

Teams can use automated attendants to greet and route calls to the right individual or department. They can also be used to provide business hours, fax numbers, or the address of certain locations.

Individual Script for Temporary Absence

You’ve reached the office of _[your name]_. Unfortunately, I’m not available to take your call. If you need immediate assistance, please call my mobile phone at _[your number]_. Otherwise, please press one to leave me a message. Thank you and have a great day.

Individual Script for Extended Absence

You’ve reached the office of _[your name]_. I am out of the office until _[date]_. If you need immediate assistance, please contact my colleague at _[phone number or extension]_. Otherwise, please press one to leave me a message and I’ll call you when I return. Thank you and have a great day.

Auto-attendant Scripts for After-hours Calls

Many businesses use an auto-attendant script to let callers know how to reach a company outside of business hours or to let people self-select having their calls routed to a live answering service. This is convenient for customers as they can quickly receive answers, and it’s good for teams as it frees up their human staff from having to pick up the phone.

After-hours Scripts for Voicemail Forwarding

You have reached _[company name]_. Our offices are currently closed and we will reopen Monday at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Time. If you know the extension of the person you are trying to reach, please dial it now to be transferred to leave a message. Otherwise, please call back during our regular business hours so we may assist you. Thank you, and have a pleasant day.

After-hours Scripts for Emergency Service

Thank you for calling _[company name]_. Our offices are currently closed and will reopen Monday morning at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Time. If you require immediate assistance, please press one to reach our answering service. If you know your party’s extension, you may dial it at any time. If you need technical assistance, please refer to our website at _[website name]_. Thank you for calling, and have a great day.

Auto-attendant Scripts for Holiday Closures

Businesses that close in observance of a holiday can use the following scripts to let callers know about the closure and offer the ability to leave a message.

General Purpose Holiday Closure Script

You have reached _[company name]_. Our offices are currently closed in observance of _[holiday]_ and will reopen on _[day, date, time]_. If you’d like to leave a message, please press one. Otherwise, please call back during our regular business hours so we may assist you. Thank you for calling and we appreciate your understanding.

Holiday Closure Script With Departmental Routing

Thank you for calling _[company name]_. Please note, our offices will be closed _[days, dates]_ in observance of the upcoming holiday. For customer service, press one. For billing, press two. To make an appointment, press three or stay on the line to be connected to our answering service.

Auto-attendant Scripts for Marketing Campaigns

While you don’t want to clutter your scripted greeting with a lot of sales talk, offering a voice menu option to learn more about current seasonal promotions is a great way to give callers the information they want.

Promotional Campaign Auto-attendant Script

Thank you for calling _[company name]_. If you’re calling about our _[current promotion]_, please press one. To place an order, press two. To cancel an order, press three. To check the status of your order, visit _[website name]_ or stay on the line for the next available agent.

Seasonal Campaign Auto-attendant Script

Thank you for calling _[company name]_. To celebrate the upcoming holiday season, we’re offering 50% off all account renewals. Press one to learn more from one of our agents. To speak with customer service, press two. To hear all our current specials, press three. For all other calls, please stay on the line and someone will be with you shortly.

Benefits of Auto-attendant Scripts

An automated attendant is one of the most powerful voice-over-internet-protocol (VoIP) features you’re likely to have in your arsenal, and the best phone system automated attendants make it easier than ever for even the smallest businesses to set up routing options for their callers. However, without proper care, you run the risk of deploying a confusing, incoherent attendant message that is of no help to your audience.

In addition to providing a clearer message, the benefits of using a script include:

• Improved customer service experience: An automated attendant helps solo workers provide great service, even when they can’t personally answer the phone, by providing callers with vital information right away.
• Reduced overhead: Companies with automated attendants can minimize the cost of a live human receptionist by having their phone system take care of incoming call traffic and can, in some cases, provide callers with anticipated wait times.
• Shortened response times: Automated attendants can quickly answer and route a high volume of incoming calls to appropriate extensions. This keeps hold times to a minimum and reduces the risk of a lead hanging up without connecting to a live agent.
• Increased potential for sales: Auto-attendant scripts can be engineered to drive the bulk of call traffic to sales teams, which can lead to an overall increase in lead capture or closed deals.
• Promotes a more professional appearance: Auto-attendant scripts also help make companies look more respectable and established, which in turn leads to increased customer confidence.

Tips for Creating Professional Auto-attendant Scripts

Automated attendants are exceedingly easy to set up and use. However, making a truly helpful auto-attendant script can be a challenge. For this reason, you may want to consider hiring a professional writer on services like Fiverr to draft your script. If you’d like to do it yourself, there are a few things to bear in mind.

• Thank the caller for reaching out: Thanking the caller sets a positive, professional tone for the rest of their time interacting with your business. This is an easy way to help foster greater customer satisfaction.
• Respect the caller’s time: Nobody likes spending more time on the phone than necessary. Keep your messages short and try to engineer your scripts to get callers to their destination as soon as appropriately possible.
• Let callers know right away if they can skip the greeting: If your system allows callers to skip greetings, it can help to lead off your greetings with something to the effect of “Press _[x]_ to be forwarded to an assistant right away.”
• Tell callers if your office is closed: If your place of business is closed, let callers know right away so they can hang up and not waste their time.
• List the most commonly called options first: Identify popular extensions or departments and give callers the option of reaching out to those destinations first.
• Don’t offer too many options: Less is more when it comes to automated attendants. Customers generally don’t want to sit through a huge menu of options if they have a very specific reason for calling your team.
• Provide self-assist information: Information like store hours, business addresses, and promotions should be included in your attendant greetings. This can save your workers a lot of time from having to answer these questions themselves.
• Offer a choice to callers without touch-tone phones: It is helpful to set up your system to route calls to a human when callers don’t select a menu option. Additionally, let callers know in your script that they will be automatically connected to someone if they don’t select anything.

How to Record Auto-attendant Scripts

Recording an automated attendant greeting can be an intimidating process, but it goes a long way in better serving your customers. Here are a few recording tips to make your greeting truly shine.

• Write it down: Crafting your message in writing and then reading it aloud will almost always sound more professional than speaking off the cuff.
• Find a quiet spot: Record your greeting in an area free of background noise and chatter.
• Use the right equipment: You don’t need top-of-the-line audio equipment for your voice greeting, but you will likely benefit from investing in a decent standalone microphone rather than your laptop or smartphone’s built-in mic.
• Have someone review your script: Every good writer knows that peer review is the best way to catch small errors and make any content truly shine.
• Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse: Read your script aloud several times before recording it for your phone system. This will make sure you are fully comfortable with the script and that it flows smoothly.
• Speak naturally: Speak as if you were talking to a colleague in real life. Do not rush through the script or over-enunciate your speech.
• Test the recording after it’s live: Listen to the recording once it’s uploaded into your phone system. Make sure the upload was successful and that the entire message was uploaded with acceptable audio quality.

💡 Pro tip: If you are not comfortable with recording your auto-attendant greeting yourself, there are services that feature professional voice artists able to do this task for you. Check out our guide on the best professional voicemail greeting providers to learn more.

How to Upload & Use Your Auto-attendant Script

Most of today’s most popular voice-over-internet-protocol (VoIP) systems allow you to quickly build and deploy automated attendants that can greet callers without human intervention. In the majority of systems on the market, most services have a setting that lets you upload your own greetings.

Simply make a recording on any app you have available (iOS and Android both have built-in recorder apps, for example) and save it as an MP3 file. Once you are satisfied with your recording, all you need to do, in most cases, is upload it in your business phone system’s settings menu.

Please note that while the upload process should be relatively straightforward, some business phone systems offer more advanced auto-attendant capabilities. For example, Nextiva’s VoIP phone system allows users to manage greetings by location, and even offers assistance with professionally recording greetings for your team as part of its advanced routing controls. However, other VoIP systems may have this functionality included in another administrative module, or may not offer it at all. Therefore, you will need to consult with your provider if you run into any technical issues during this step.

Once you’ve confirmed that the file is uploaded, try calling your business from an outside line to see if you can hear the greeting.

Bottom Line

Auto-attendant scripts are the foundation of a good call management system. With care, they can quickly get callers to the right department or team members and overall make your customers happy. Scripts should be concise, brief, and provide the best answers to callers’ questions.