Setting Up Auto-Attendants for Sales, Lettings, and Property Management

Introduction: The Front Door to Your Estate Agency

Your telephone greeting is, for a significant proportion of your clients and applicants, the very first interaction they have with your agency — and first impressions in the property market are commercially consequential in a way that few other industries match.

A vendor weighing up three local agencies before deciding who to invite for a valuation will form a judgment about professionalism within the first ten seconds of calling each one. A motivated buyer who calls on a Saturday morning to arrange a viewing is making a real-time assessment of which agency is worth their time. What they hear when the call connects sets the tone for every conversation that follows.

For most independent and mid-sized estate agencies, what that caller currently hears is something close to this: a phone that rings several times, answered at speed by a junior negotiator or a harried receptionist, followed by a brief pause while that person tries to establish who the caller wants and whether that person is available, followed — as often as not — by a hold tone, a transfer attempt, and a second introduction to a different member of staff who may or may not be the right person.

Meanwhile, consider what is happening inside the branch while this plays out. The senior negotiator taking a vendor call about a potential instruction is being interrupted by a tenant reporting a dripping tap. The lettings manager trying to qualify a potential landlord is fielding a maintenance emergency from a managed tenant. The property manager who should be coordinating a contractor is acting as a human switchboard for misdirected sales enquiries. Every one of these interruptions is a drag on productivity, a dilution of the caller's experience, and — in the case of a high-value commercial opportunity interrupted by an administrative query — a direct cost to the business.

The auto-attendant, configured correctly and with agency-specific intent, eliminates this chaos at source. It is not a cost-cutting measure designed to replace human interaction. It is a triage system designed to ensure that by the time a human answers the call, the caller is already speaking to the right person, and that person is fully briefed on why they are calling. This article provides a complete, practical blueprint for designing, scripting, recording, and configuring an auto-attendant system built specifically for the operational structure of a multi-discipline estate agency.

What is an Auto-Attendant (IVR) and Why Do Agencies Need One?

An auto-attendant is an automated telephony feature that answers inbound calls and presents the caller with a menu of options, routing their call to the appropriate destination based on their selection — without requiring a human to manage the transfer. It is the same technology behind "press 1 for sales, press 2 for lettings" — but when configured with strategic intent, it becomes significantly more sophisticated and commercially valuable than that description suggests.

Defining Auto-Attendants vs. Standard Voicemail

The fundamental distinction between an auto-attendant and a voicemail system is that an auto-attendant routes to live people, while voicemail stores messages for later retrieval. This distinction matters enormously in estate agency, where the window of caller motivation is short and the commercial value of a live answer — versus a message left and retrieved hours later — is substantial.

An auto-attendant does not prevent callers from reaching voicemail — it ensures that voicemail is a considered, deliberate choice at the end of a structured routing journey, not a default that activates because nobody answered.

The Triage Effect: Ending the "Pass the Parcel" Internal Transfer Game

The single greatest operational benefit of an auto-attendant for a multi-discipline estate agency is the elimination of internally misdirected calls — the "pass the parcel" dynamic where a caller is transferred two or three times before reaching the person who can actually help them.

Every misdirected transfer carries a cost:

• Time cost: Each transfer adds 30–90 seconds of hold time, re-introduction, and context-repeating for the caller.
• Productivity cost: Each transfer requires a member of staff to interrupt what they are doing to handle the redirect.
• Experience cost: A caller who has repeated their name, property address, and reason for calling three times before reaching the right person has had a demonstrably poor experience — regardless of how helpful the final person is.

An auto-attendant short-circuits this entirely. The caller self-identifies their need by pressing a key. The system routes directly to the team equipped to handle that need. No intermediate human, no transfer, no hold. From the caller's perspective, the agency appears highly organised. From the agency's perspective, the right people are only handling the right calls.

Projecting a Professional, Multi-Department Corporate Image

A well-configured auto-attendant gives a single-branch independent agency the telephone presence of a multi-office corporate operation. For a four-person branch competing with a regional chain, this is not a trivial advantage.

When a vendor hears "Thank you for calling Ashworth & Partners. For our Sales team, press 1. For Lettings, press 2. For Property Management, press 3," they perceive an agency with distinct specialist teams, structured processes, and the operational maturity to match. That perception influences the valuation appointment decision before a single human has spoken.

This brand signalling is not dishonest — it reflects the genuine functional specialisation of even small agencies, where sales, lettings, and property management genuinely require different expertise and different staff handling enquiries. The auto-attendant simply makes that specialisation audible to the caller from the first second of contact.

Mapping Your Call Flow: Sales, Lettings, and Property Management

Before any script is written or recording made, the most important step in auto-attendant setup is mapping the call flow on paper — defining exactly what options will exist, in what order, and where each selection will route. This is the architectural decision that determines whether the system works or frustrates.

The Golden Rule: Keep Options Under Four

Cognitive overload in a phone menu is the single biggest driver of call abandonment. Research in telephony UX and IVR design consistently identifies four options as the practical ceiling for a single menu level. Beyond four options, the caller's ability to hold the earlier options in working memory while processing the later ones degrades — leading to hesitation, misselection, and a rising impulse to hang up.

For most estate agency branches, three options is the optimal top-level menu:

• Option 1: Sales — all residential sales enquiries, new instructions, valuations
• Option 2: Lettings — tenant enquiries, landlord enquiries, new tenancies, viewings
• Option 3: Property Management — maintenance, repairs, rent accounts, property inspections

If the agency has a significant additional service line — new homes, commercial, block management — a fourth option may be appropriate. Beyond that, consolidate rather than expand. A caller uncertain between two options will typically press the first plausible one and rely on the person who answers to redirect if needed. This is acceptable. A caller presented with six options is likely to press 0 or hang up.

Prioritising the Menu Order: Why Revenue Comes First

The order of options in your auto-attendant menu is a commercial prioritisation decision, and it should be made deliberately rather than by default. The general principle is: revenue-generating enquiries first, administrative and reactive enquiries last.

In a typical residential agency, this means:

1. Sales — the highest commission value per call, highest urgency of response, most time-sensitive lead type
2. Lettings — recurring revenue value, high conversion sensitivity, competitive lead environment
3. Property Management — high volume, lower individual revenue impact, time-insensitive except for emergencies (which should have a separate emergency option)
4. Other / General Enquiries — accounts, admin, contractor communications

The practical reason for this order is not to disadvantage tenants — it is to ensure that the most commercially sensitive calls experience the fastest path to a live, expert answer. A tenant reporting a non-urgent maintenance issue will tolerate pressing option 3. A motivated buyer who has just driven past a property and pulled over to call will not tolerate being option 4 on a six-choice menu.

Handling the "Other Enquiries" Catch-All

Every auto-attendant needs a defined destination for calls that don't fit neatly into the primary department options. Without it, callers who don't identify with any of the offered options — a solicitor calling about a completion, a utility provider calling about a managed property, a journalist following up on a press release — will either misselect an option or abandon.

The catch-all option should:

• Be clearly labelled: "For all other enquiries, press 4" or "For accounts and administration, press 4"
• Route to a capable destination: A general reception hunt group, an administration extension, or — if the agency has no dedicated reception — a round-robin across available senior staff
• Not be a dead end: It should reach a live person during opening hours, not a voicemail box that will be checked infrequently

The catch-all is also the appropriate destination for inter-agency communications — from other agents, referral partners, or professional contacts — who don't identify with any of the client-facing department options.

Writing the Perfect Auto-Attendant Script

The script for your auto-attendant greeting is the single most impactful piece of copy your agency produces in terms of the number of people who hear it. In a branch handling 80 inbound calls per day, the auto-attendant greeting is heard by every single one of those callers — every working day, year-round. It deserves the same creative investment as your window display copy or your Rightmove listing headline.

Tone, Pace, and Brand Consistency

The tone of your auto-attendant must balance warmth with efficiency. Callers who are frustrated, anxious, or time-constrained — a vendor worried about a stalled sale, a tenant without hot water, a buyer trying to arrange a viewing before a competing offer is made — do not want a lengthy welcome message. They want to know they have called the right place and reach the right person as quickly as possible.

Practical tone guidelines for estate agency auto-attendant scripts:

• Warm but concise: The greeting should acknowledge the caller's call and identify the agency within the first three seconds. It should not begin with a 30-second mission statement about the agency's commitment to service excellence.
• Active, not passive: "Press 1 to speak with our Sales team" is better than "For the Sales department, you may press 1." Active constructions are shorter and project confidence.
• Consistent with the agency's market positioning: A premium, independent agency serving a high-value market should use a calm, authoritative tone and formal register. A fast-moving urban lettings agency might use a slightly more energetic, direct style. Neither is wrong — the test is whether the audio sounds like the agency's brand.
• Paced for comprehension: The voice recording should be delivered at a measured pace — fast enough to feel efficient, slow enough for the options to be retained. A common mistake is recording at a normal conversational speed, which is too fast for menu comprehension when heard for the first time.

The Anatomy of a Good Greeting

A well-constructed estate agency auto-attendant greeting has five components, each serving a specific function:

1. Brand identification: "Thank you for calling Ashworth & Partners." Confirms immediately that the caller has reached the right agency. Do not start with "Hello" — it sounds informal and delays the confirmation.
2. Availability signal (optional but recommended during open hours): "Our team is available to help you today." A brief human warmth signal that differentiates the greeting from a purely mechanical transaction.
3. Menu options — revenue first, concise: "For Sales, press 1. For Lettings, press 2. For Property Management, press 3." No elaboration needed. Callers know what these terms mean.
4. Catch-all option: "For all other enquiries, press 4." Always present; always last.
5. Escape hatch: "Or hold the line to speak with reception." Or "Press 0 for reception." Present in every menu, every version, every time.

Total duration for this structure: approximately 18–22 seconds. This is the target. Any auto-attendant greeting that exceeds 30 seconds before reaching the menu options is too long.

Example Script Templates

The following three templates are designed for distinct agency configurations. Each can be adapted to agency name, team structure, and market positioning.

Template 1: Simple Single-Branch Agency (3 departments)

"Thank you for calling [Agency Name]. To speak with our Sales team, press 1. For Lettings, press 2. For Property Management and maintenance, press 3. For all other enquiries, press 4. Or press 0 to speak with reception."

Duration: Approximately 16 seconds. Suitable for: independent agencies with a straightforward departmental split and a front desk that can handle overflow.

Template 2: Multi-Department Agency with Valuation Emphasis

"Thank you for calling [Agency Name], your local property experts. If you're thinking of selling or letting your property and would like a free valuation, press 1. For our Sales team, press 2. For Lettings enquiries, press 3. For Property Management, press 4. Or hold to speak with our team."

Duration: Approximately 22 seconds. Suitable for: agencies prioritising new instruction generation, where a dedicated valuation routing path is commercially justified. Note: this template uses four options with an implied fifth (hold). Use this structure only if the valuation enquiry volume is sufficient to justify a dedicated routing path.

Template 3: Lettings and Property Management Focus (high managed portfolio volume)

"Thank you for calling [Agency Name]. For our Sales team, press 1. For Lettings and new tenancy enquiries, press 2. If you're an existing tenant with a maintenance or repair issue, press 3. For emergency maintenance outside of office hours, press 4. Or press 0 to speak with our team."

Duration: Approximately 22 seconds. Suitable for: agencies with large managed portfolios where tenant calls represent the highest inbound volume. The explicit "existing tenant maintenance" option reduces misdirected calls to the lettings team and immediately signals to tenants that there is a structured process for their query type.

Out-of-Hours Version (for all templates):

"Thank you for calling [Agency Name]. Our office is currently closed. Our opening hours are Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm, and Saturday 9am to 1pm. To leave a message for our Sales team, press 1. For Lettings, press 2. For a non-emergency property management message, press 3. If you are an existing tenant with an emergency maintenance issue, press 4 to be connected to our out-of-hours maintenance line. Alternatively, visit our website at [website address] to submit an enquiry online."

Best Practices for Property Management and Emergency Maintenance

Property management represents the heaviest inbound call burden for most residential lettings agencies, and — without structural separation — it is also the most disruptive. A single managed portfolio of 150 properties generates a continuous flow of maintenance requests, rent queries, inspection follow-ups, and compliance questions that, if routed to the general reception or the lettings team, will consume a disproportionate share of answering resource and interrupt higher-value commercial activities constantly.

Isolating Time-Consuming Tenant Queries from the Main Reception

The most effective structural decision an agency with a managed portfolio can make is dedicating a separate IVR option — and a separate hunt group destination — to tenant enquiries. This single configuration change separates the two largest inbound call streams (tenant management and commercial enquiries) at the point of first contact, before any human has answered.

The practical implementation:

• Dedicate IVR option 3 (or option 4 in a four-option menu) explicitly to "existing tenant maintenance and property management enquiries"
• Route this option to the property management team's hunt group — not to the general reception
• If the property management team is small, configure overflow from this option to a dedicated property management voicemail with a committed same-day response promise, rather than overflowing into the sales team's queue

The commercial benefit is twofold. Property managers spend their time fielding the calls they are trained and employed to handle, rather than being triaged in from general reception. Sales and lettings negotiators spend their time on revenue-generating calls, uninterrupted by maintenance queries that are not their responsibility.

Setting Up Dedicated Out-of-Hours Maintenance Routing Rules

The most operationally and legally sensitive routing requirement for any agency managing residential properties is the out-of-hours emergency maintenance line. In England and Wales, landlord and agent obligations under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018, and associated case law create a real expectation that tenants have access to an emergency contact for urgent issues — loss of heating in winter, total plumbing failure, security breaches — outside of business hours.

A well-configured out-of-hours maintenance routing system:

• Activates automatically at the branch close time via time-of-day routing — no staff intervention required
• Presents a clear distinction in the out-of-hours IVR between non-emergency (leave a message, we'll call tomorrow) and emergency (connect now to the duty contractor or out-of-hours management line) options
• Routes emergency calls to a real destination — either a dedicated out-of-hours property management mobile, a contracted 24/7 maintenance provider (such as Fixflo's contractor dispatch service or an equivalent), or a senior property manager on a structured duty rota
• Documents all after-hours contacts — most cloud VoIP platforms log all calls including those handled via out-of-hours routing, providing an audit trail of tenant contacts and response times

Call Deflection Strategies: Online Portals Before Human Contact

Call deflection is the deliberate use of the auto-attendant to guide callers toward a self-service or online resolution pathway before connecting them to a live agent. For property management calls in particular — where a significant proportion of tenant enquiries can be more efficiently handled via a dedicated online repair reporting portal — call deflection reduces live call volume without reducing service quality.

Platforms such as Fixflo, Property File, and similar property management portals allow tenants to submit maintenance requests, upload photos, receive automated contractor booking confirmations, and track repair progress online — all without telephone contact. For agencies using these platforms, the auto-attendant can be configured to promote the portal before connecting to a live agent:

"To report a non-emergency maintenance issue, you can use our online repair portal at [agency website]. This is the fastest way to log your repair and receive a reference number. To speak with our Property Management team directly, press 1."

This deflection prompt does not prevent the caller from reaching a live agent. It presents an alternative that many callers will prefer and meaningfully reduces the volume of calls that require live staff handling.

Common IVR Mistakes Estate Agents Make (And How to Avoid Them)

The difference between an auto-attendant that improves the caller experience and one that destroys it lies almost entirely in the avoidance of a small number of well-documented configuration errors. These mistakes are common precisely because they feel reasonable in isolation — adding more options to be "more helpful," using the available text-to-speech tool because it's quick, skipping the escape hatch to simplify the menu. In practice, each represents a significant failure point.

The "Maze" of Too Many Nested Sub-Menus

Nested sub-menus — where pressing an option at the first level presents a second menu, which may itself present a third — are the single most common cause of auto-attendant failure in small and mid-sized estate agencies. They are created with good intentions (greater specificity, more precise routing) and produce the opposite of the intended effect: caller confusion, escalating frustration, and call abandonment.

The property sector has no legitimate need for sub-menus in a standard branch auto-attendant. Consider this failure mode:

• Press 1 for Sales
• → Press 1 for residential sales. Press 2 for commercial. Press 3 for land and development.
• → [Caller presses 1 for residential] → Press 1 if you're looking to buy. Press 2 if you're looking to sell.

By this point, the caller has pressed three keys and heard approximately 45 seconds of audio before reaching a ringing phone. This is not efficiency — it is a maze. Any caller who is mildly time-pressured, slightly uncertain, or using a hands-free device will abandon before completing the journey.

The rule: one level of menu, maximum four options, with an escape hatch to a live human at every point. The additional specificity that sub-menus theoretically provide is achieved more effectively by having the answering agent ask a single qualifying question when the call connects.

Outdated or Poor Audio Quality: Why Professional Recording Matters

The audio quality of your auto-attendant recording is a direct proxy, in the caller's perception, for the quality of your agency. A greeting recorded on a mobile phone in a noisy office, delivered in a halting register, with background noise and inconsistent volume, communicates the same things to a caller as a poorly designed brochure or an unmaintained shop window. The content may be correct, but the presentation signals disorganisation.

The most common audio quality failures in estate agency IVR recordings:

• Mobile phone recording: Narrow frequency response, background noise, inconsistent volume
• Multiple recording sessions with different voices: Menu options recorded by different members of staff at different times, producing an incoherent auditory patchwork
• Text-to-speech robotic voices: The default synthetic voice available on most VoIP platforms is immediately recognisable as automated and creates psychological distance rather than brand warmth
• Outdated content not re-recorded: A 2021 recording referencing a team member who left in 2022, or a Saturday opening time that has since changed

The solution is a professional voiceover recording — a single session with a professional voice artist using a proper studio recording setup, producing a complete set of greeting files at the required audio specifications for your VoIP platform. The cost of a professional voiceover session is typically £100–£300 for a full set of agency menu recordings. In the context of the number of calls those recordings will represent the agency on, the cost per impression is immeasurably small.

Forgetting the Escape Hatch: "Press 0 for Reception"

Every auto-attendant menu — at every level, in every time configuration — must provide a direct route to a live human. This is not optional. It is the foundational principle of IVR design that protects both caller experience and commercial outcomes.

The callers most likely to need the escape hatch are precisely those the agency can least afford to lose:

• A caller who doesn't identify cleanly with any of the offered options (a solicitor, a prospective commercial tenant, a journalist)
• An elderly caller who is unfamiliar with phone menu navigation and becomes anxious when pressed to make a selection
• A caller with an urgent, multi-faceted enquiry that doesn't fit any single department category
• A caller in genuine distress (a tenant in a serious emergency, a vendor in a chain collapse) who needs to speak to a human immediately

The format for the escape hatch is consistent across all major VoIP platforms: "Or press 0 to speak with our team." It should be the final item in the menu — not the first (which would encourage all callers to bypass triage) and not buried as option 7 of 8. Final, audible, and always present.

Technical Setup: Bringing Your Menu to Life on a Cloud Phone System

The design and scripting work described in the preceding sections translates into a set of specific technical configurations within your cloud VoIP platform's administration portal. For most cloud telephony platforms — including 3CX, RingCentral, Gamma Horizon, Vonage Business, and similar — the auto-attendant configuration follows the same logical structure, even if the interface labels vary.

Recording Professional Audio: DIY vs. Professional Voiceover

The decision between recording in-house and commissioning a professional voiceover artist is one of the clearest cost-benefit calculations in agency telephony.

Technical specifications to provide to the voice artist:

• File format: WAV or MP3, 8kHz or 16kHz sample rate (confirm with your VoIP provider — specifications vary)
• Bit rate: 128kbps minimum for MP3
• Delivery: Separate audio file per prompt (not one continuous recording)
• Pace note: Slightly slower than natural conversational speed for menu options; natural speed for brand greeting

Linking Menu Options to Hunt Groups and Mobile Softphones

In the VoIP admin portal, each auto-attendant menu option is assigned a destination — typically a hunt group, an individual extension, a voicemail box, or an external number. The destination configuration translates the routing strategy defined on paper into the live system behaviour.

For a three-option estate agency auto-attendant:

• Option 1 (Sales): Route to Sales Hunt Group — all sales negotiators' desk extensions, with twin-ring to mobile softphones, overflow to branch manager after 20 seconds
• Option 2 (Lettings): Route to Lettings Hunt Group — all lettings negotiators, with overflow to a lettings voicemail box (with same-day callback commitment) if all are busy
• Option 3 (Property Management): Route to Property Management Hunt Group — property managers' extensions, with explicit overflow to out-of-hours maintenance line outside business hours
• Option 0 (Reception): Route to general reception hunt group or the first available agent across all departments

Each destination hunt group is configured independently — with its own ring strategy (simultaneous or sequential), ring duration, overflow logic, and voicemail destination. The auto-attendant simply acts as the entry gate that directs each caller to the correct hunt group; from that point, the hunt group's own routing rules govern the call.

Time-of-Day Configurations: Automatic Daytime and Nighttime Profiles

Time-of-day auto-attendant switching ensures that callers hear the correct greeting and are presented with the correct routing options based on when they call — without any manual action from branch staff. Two profiles are the minimum requirement; most agencies benefit from three or four.

Profile 1: Daytime Operational (e.g., Mon–Fri 09:00–17:30, Sat 09:00–13:00)

• Full departmental menu as specified above
• All hunt groups active with live agents
• Option 0 routes to manned reception

Profile 2: Out-of-Hours / Closed (e.g., Mon–Fri 17:30–09:00, Sun all day)

• Out-of-hours greeting with reduced options
• Sales and Lettings options route to voicemail with callback commitment message
• Property Management option routes to emergency maintenance line or duty mobile
• No option 0 (no manned reception) — or option 0 routes to a senior manager's mobile for exceptional circumstances

Profile 3: Bank Holiday / Special Closure

• Identical to out-of-hours profile but with a bespoke message acknowledging the closure
• Activate these profiles in advance via the admin portal — do not rely on manually switching on the day

Profile 4: Saturday Afternoon / Reduced Staffing

• Simplified menu reflecting reduced available staff
• Overflow routing adjusted to compensate for lighter Saturday afternoon staffing

The switching between profiles should be fully automated via the platform's time-based rules engine. An agency that relies on a member of staff manually activating the out-of-hours greeting each evening will inevitably experience missed switches — usually on the days that matter most.

Conclusion & Implementation Checklist

A well-designed auto-attendant is one of the highest-leverage operational investments available to an estate agency, precisely because it scales effortlessly. A staffing investment adds capacity proportionally to headcount. An auto-attendant configuration, built correctly once, handles the ten-thousandth call with exactly the same consistency and professionalism as the first. It does not have a difficult Monday morning. It does not transfer a vendor to the wrong person out of distraction. It does not put a motivated applicant on hold while it finishes a conversation.

The one big takeaway bears restating in the sharpest possible terms: an auto-attendant respects the caller's time and protects the agent's productivity. These two benefits compound each other. A caller who reaches the right person immediately has a better experience and converts at a higher rate. An agent who only handles the calls relevant to their specialism works more efficiently and generates more revenue per hour. The auto-attendant creates both outcomes simultaneously, on every call, at zero marginal cost.

The agencies that resist implementing structured call triage typically cite two concerns: "We want to feel personal and not corporate," and "Our callers prefer to speak to a human immediately." Both concerns are understandable, and both are answerable. A warmly worded, professionally recorded greeting that routes a caller to the right specialist in four seconds is more personal — in the sense that the caller reaches someone genuinely qualified to help them — than a generic answer by a junior negotiator who will transfer them twice. The perception of a large, structured agency is not a disadvantage in a competitive property market. It is a differentiator that signals competence and inspires confidence.

The 4-Step Rapid Implementation Checklist

Work through these four steps in sequence. Do not record audio before the flow is mapped. Do not configure the system before the audio exists. Testing before going live is not optional.

Step 1: Map the Flow

• List every department or team that receives distinct inbound calls: Sales, Lettings, Property Management, and any additional specialist lines.
• Define the maximum number of top-level menu options (target: 3–4, absolute maximum: 4).
• Define the menu order: revenue-generating departments first, administrative/reactive last.
• Map the destination for each option: which hunt group, which extensions, which overflow behaviour.
• Define out-of-hours behaviour for each option: voicemail, callback request, emergency routing.
• Confirm the escape hatch destination: who answers "Press 0 for reception" during opening hours?
• Document the exact time windows for each routing profile: daytime, out-of-hours, Saturday afternoon, bank holidays.

Step 2: Write the Script

• Draft the daytime greeting using the five-component structure: brand ID → availability signal → menu options → catch-all → escape hatch.
• Draft the out-of-hours greeting with emergency maintenance routing clearly signalled.
• Draft individual voicemail prompts for each department's overflow voicemail box.
• Review all scripts for tone consistency: does every prompt sound like the same brand voice?
• Time each script aloud: the main greeting should complete in under 25 seconds; individual prompts in under 15 seconds.
• Remove any option that requires explanation — if you find yourself adding clarification copy, the option needs to be reworded or restructured.

Step 3: Record the Audio

• Commission a professional voiceover artist (online platform or local studio — not a staff mobile phone recording).
• Provide the voice artist with all scripts as a single briefing document, with tone direction, agency name pronunciation guide, and technical file specification (format, sample rate, bit depth).
• Request delivery of individual audio files per prompt — not a single concatenated recording.
• Review all files against the scripts before upload: verify accuracy, pronunciation, and pace.
• Confirm file format compatibility with your VoIP platform before uploading.

Step 4: Test Call Before Going Live

• Upload all audio files to the VoIP admin portal and assign to the correct auto-attendant menu options.
• Link all menu options to the correct hunt group destinations.
• Configure time-of-day profile switching and verify that profiles activate at the correct times.
• Conduct a full internal test call: call the main branch number from an external mobile and navigate every menu option, confirming each routes to the intended destination.
• Test the out-of-hours profile by temporarily overriding the time settings: verify that out-of-hours routing behaves correctly and that the emergency maintenance option connects to the correct destination.
• Test the "Press 0" escape hatch: confirm it routes to a live person during opening hours.
• Ask one person unfamiliar with the system to test call and provide candid feedback on clarity, pace, and overall experience.
• Document the final configuration — all menu options, destinations, and time profiles — in a written record accessible to the agency owner or IT manager for future reference.