The best way to set up the front of a phone line

Callers decide in the first few seconds whether the line works for them. The opening must say what they can do, and the call must always have a clean way out.

Pick one of two openings

1. Open greeting that names the choices (recommended for most accounts). Set the Welcome Greeting under IVR Settings, Voice Configuration, for example: "Thank you for calling Acme. You can ask me a question, or I can connect you with sales or support. What would you like?" The AI bot handles the answer, so callers can say it their own way.

2. Deterministic phone menu first. Add an IVR Phone Menu node before the AI node: "Press 1 for sales, press 2 for support, press 3 for our most common questions, or stay on the line to talk to our assistant." Use it when your business needs a guaranteed path (for example a regulated department) or when callers often cannot speak freely. Wire the retry, timeout and invalid-key branches so no key press dead-ends.

If you want both, put the phone menu first and send the "stay on the line" branch to the AI node.

Say the most common reasons people call

Add a sentence to the bot's instructions listing the top reasons callers phone you (for example hours, order status, account help, billing, sales). The bot then offers them in one short sentence instead of asking an open question. Keep it to three or four reasons.

Hours, closings and overrides

• Set Business Hours in the voice configuration. After hours, the bot says plainly that the team is closed, gives the next open time, and offers a message or a support ticket by text or email.
• For holidays, add a temporary override with an end date so it switches itself off.

What the platform guarantees on every call (no setup needed)

• Digits are spoken one at a time (phone numbers, codes).
• The caller's number comes from caller ID. The bot never asks for it and never reads it back; messages, tickets and texts use it by default.
• Goodbye cannot loop. After the bot's first unrequested goodbye it asks "anything else?" once. A second goodbye always ends the call, and a short closing line from the caller ("I'm good, thanks") ends it at once.
• "Are you still there?" is answered in code, so the bot does not repeat an older answer.
• A call-length cap and an idle hang-up are set per voice configuration. Set both; they protect your usage.

Knowledge the bot can use

The AI node reads the knowledge sources you select on the node. Pick your website or product index and the Help Center articles (KB articles) so newly published articles are found without a separate step. Articles are indexed automatically when you publish or save them; use Sync Index Now under Knowledge Base settings if you import many at once.

Texting a link to the caller

Turn on Text a Link to the Caller (IVR) in the node's skills. It sends the help article link to the number the caller is phoning from. It only sends velaro.com style help links you have approved, and never asks for a number.

Test before you publish

Call the line and try: a plain question, interrupting the bot, staying silent, saying "um" and pausing, asking for sales, asking for support after hours, asking for a text, and saying goodbye twice. The call should end cleanly and never repeat a sentence.

Related

IVR Escalation Guide, IVR Voice Configuration Guide, Designing Workflows Across Channels.