Multi-Level Auto Attendants (MLAA) allows you to set up a hierarchical menu structure that provides callers with better self-service access to the department or person they're trying to reach. In an MLAA system, callers reaching the Auto Attendant are routed from the main menu through to one or more additional sub menus (menu nodes) until their call is answered.
You can program up to 10 multi-level menus, each with its own greeting and prompts. The greeting at the top level (called the main menu node) is the primary company greeting with the usual prompts to dial an extension number, "0" for an operator, and other digits to reach destinations such as Sales or Technical Support.
MLAA allows the following features to be accessed from any level of hierarchy of menu nodes:
Directory
feature
You can program the Directory feature for any menu option between 1
to 9 in VM Multi-Level Auto Attendants form. The menu option
9 is the default Directory feature that is accessed by dialing 9.
To prevent confusion between dialing a mailbox that starts with 9
and the Directory feature, an inter-digit timer of 4 seconds
is started when the first digit entered is 9. If no other digits are
entered during these few seconds, the user is transferred to the Directory.
Language
Toggle
You can program language toggle key between 1 to 8 in the menu options
of VM Prompt Languages
form to allow callers to switch between primary and the alternate
language. The default value for language toggle is 8.
NOTE: The language change is only applicable to the system prompts and not the system greeting.
In addition to the above features, MLAA also supports Dial by Extension feature where the caller can reach a mailbox directly by dialing an extension. For more information, see Setting up Multi-Level Auto Attendant (MLAA).
NOTE: Dial by extension is only applicable for a root menu node. The root node is the first node accessed when user dials an extension to reach MLAA.
At the subsequent levels (menu nodes) the greetings prompt callers to make further selections. The greeting for a Technical Support node might offer choices based on product type as follows:
"For MiVoice Business technical support, press 1. For MiCollab Nupoint UM technical support, press 2. For all other products, press 3. To return to the previous menu, press star. To repeat the choices, press pound."
From this menu, dialing 1 or 2 transfers the caller to a technical support representative. Dialing 3 might route the caller to yet another sub menu node with more choices.
Menu node mailboxes support a separate Business Open/Business
Closed greeting, played based on the system's day/night mode or the VM Business Hours Settings (
NOTES
The * (star) and # (pound) prompts help ensure that the system is easy to use. Be sure to include them in your greetings, particularly the * prompt if you have multiple menu levels.
Calls from rotary phones are not supported by the Auto Attendant. If a caller calls into the auto attendant using a rotary phone, the system will eventually transfer the caller to the operator. However, if the system has routed the call to a level within a mailbox menu tree, the caller will hear the mailbox greeting three times before being transferred to the operator.
Menu node mailbox greetings cannot be recorded from the administrator's mailbox.
For each menu node, you can determine the system's behavior if a caller does not (or cannot) enter anything:
divert the caller to the operator (default), or
terminate the call
Diverting a call to the operator
The greeting is repeated three times, then the call is forwarded to:
The menu node operator or
the menu node mailbox (programmed in the VM
Multi-Level Auto Attendants
(
If the menu node operator
is not programmed, the call is diverted to the system operator or
system operator mailbox (programmed in the VM
Mailboxes (
If the system operator is not programmed, the call is sent to mailbox 0.
NOTE: If both the menu node operator and the system operator are programmed, preference is given to the menu node operator.
Terminating the call:
The greeting is repeated three times, then the call is terminated.
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Refer to Setting up Multi-Level Auto Attendant for programming instructions.
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