A voice menu is the first thing a customer meets, and most of them are written the way an org chart is drawn — from the inside out. That is the root of nearly every bad one.
Four options, maximum
People hold roughly four things in their head while listening. A menu with seven options means most callers press something wrong, arrive at the wrong team, and get transferred — which costs two calls and one annoyed customer.
If you genuinely have seven departments, group them. Two layers of three beats one layer of seven, every time.
Say the department, then the number
"For airtime and bundles, press 1" — not "Press 1 for airtime and bundles".
Callers are waiting to hear their problem. Once they do, they need the number immediately. Put the number first and they spend the whole option wondering whether it applies to them, and miss the digit.
Put the common one first
Whatever half your calls are about goes first. It is the option most people are waiting for, and every second before it is a second they might hang up.
You already know what it is. If you do not, listen to twenty calls and you will.
On Kiswahili
Offering language as the very first choice costs every caller a step. It is the right call if a real share of your customers prefer Kiswahili — and the wrong one if you are doing it because it seems polite.
A middle path that works well: run the menu in English, and add a final option in Kiswahili — kwa Kiswahili, bonyeza 9. The callers who need it find it, and everybody else saves a step.
Never make them listen to something they cannot use
Options for departments that are closed, or for services you no longer sell, waste the caller's time and your reputation. If sales closes at five, the menu after five should say so and offer a callback — not offer sales and then ring a desk nobody is at.
Give them a way out
Somebody who does not know which option fits will press nothing. Decide what happens then — usually, route to whoever answers general enquiries. Repeating the menu twice and hanging up is the worst outcome and, unfortunately, the default in a lot of systems.
Recorded voice or text read aloud?
Text read aloud by the system is instant to change, which matters more than it sounds — you will edit the menu several times in the first month, and a recording means booking the person who recorded it.
Record a human voice once the wording has settled. The greeting is worth recording properly; the options can stay as text you can fix in a minute.
A menu that works, as an example
- Greeting: "Thank you for calling [business]. Please listen carefully as our options have changed" — actually, cut that last part. It has been in every menu for twenty years and it is never true.
- "For your account balance and statements, press 1."
- "To report a problem, press 2."
- "For anything else, press 3."
- "Kwa Kiswahili, bonyeza 9."
Four options, the commonest first, a way out at three, and language last. Most businesses need nothing more complicated than that.