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A phone menu greets the caller, reads out the options, and waits for a key press. This page walks through building one inside a call flow.
Call flows are in beta. If your line has no Call flow section, see the Call flows overview.

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Build it

1

Add the menu

Open the designer, select the plus under Incoming call, and choose Phone menu.
2

Write the greeting

In the panel on the right, fill in Greeting message: what callers hear before the options.Keep it to one line, such as “Thanks for calling Dupont Plumbing.”
3

Add your options

Select Add option. Each option takes a keypad key and a name.Give it a short name in the Option name field, then choose what the key does: ring the line, forward the call, play an announcement, send to voicemail, or open another menu.
4

Fill in the No selection branch

Every menu has a No selection branch for callers who press nothing or press a key you have not used. Point it somewhere sensible, usually voicemail or ringing the line.
5

Save and call your own line

Select Save, then call the number from your phone and press each key.

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How the menu is read out

Allo speaks your greeting first, then builds one line per option from the option’s name:
You write: Sales Callers hear: “For Sales, press 1”
The name is dropped into that sentence, so it has to fit inside it.
Write short noun phrases: “Sales”, “Support”, “Opening hours”, “A new appointment”. A full sentence turns into nonsense, because “For if you would like to book an appointment please press one, press 1” is what actually gets read out.
Options are read in keypad order, 1 to 9 and then 0. So an option on 0 is always announced last, which is what you want for the usual “press 0 to reach the operator” catch-all.

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Choosing keys

You have keys 0 to 9, one option each. A menu needs at least one option before Allo lets you save it. A few habits that hold up on real calls:
  • Three to five options. Callers forget the rest.
  • Put the most common reason first.
  • Keep the same key for the same thing if you rebuild the menu later. Regulars dial from memory.

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When the caller does nothing

If the caller presses a key you have not assigned, Allo repeats the menu. After three tries it takes the No selection branch. Callers who press nothing at all wait about five seconds before the menu repeats. An option can open another Phone menu, up to six levels deep. Every sub-menu needs its own greeting, its own options and its own No selection branch. Deep menus test the patience of the person calling you. Two levels is usually plenty.

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Letting some callers skip the menu

The Who can skip the menu setting on the menu step lets known contacts bypass it and ring the line directly. Use it so regulars are not put through the keypad every time.

Recordings and audio

Use a recording instead of a synthesized voice

Call flow troubleshooting

Menu announced twice, wrong routing, silence