How to set up a Zendesk Talk IVR phone tree

Despite all the chat and email options we have today, sometimes a customer just needs to pick up the phone. For tricky or urgent problems, talking to a real person is still the fastest way to a solution. But when you're handling a steady stream of calls, you can't have every phone ringing every agent's desk. That's where a phone tree, or an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system, comes into play.

An IVR can be a huge help or a massive headache. A well-designed IVR guides customers to the right person quickly, while a poorly designed one can lead to a frustrating experience with complex menus.

This guide will show you how to set up a Zendesk Talk IVR, share tips for a positive customer experience, and explore the limitations of traditional phone trees, including how modern AI can help.

What is a Zendesk Talk IVR phone tree?


Let's start with the basics. Zendesk Talk is Zendesk’s built-in software for handling phone calls. It's part of their support platform and uses your internet to manage calls, so you don't need any old-school phone lines.

The IVR feature is the "phone tree" itself. It's the automated system that greets callers with a recorded message and gives them menu options. You know the drill: "Press 1 for Sales, Press 2 for Support." The goal is to route callers to the right place without an agent having to manually direct calls.

A Zendesk IVR handles a few important tasks:

• Routing calls: This is its main purpose. It sends callers to the right group of agents, whether that's billing, tech support, or a specific language queue.
• Sharing information: You can have it play recorded messages for common questions, like business hours or your office address. This saves your agents from repeating the same info all day.
• Deflecting calls: It can offer other choices, like leaving a voicemail or requesting a callback, so customers don't have to wait on hold.

When you get it right, an IVR can help you solve problems on the first try, give your team more time for tough issues, and make your phone support feel a lot more organized.

How to set up a Zendesk Talk IVR: A step-by-step overview

Setting up your Zendesk IVR happens inside your admin settings. Here’s a quick rundown of the process overview.

Accessing the IVR settings in Zendesk

First, you need an active phone number in Zendesk. If you've got that, you can find the IVR settings in the Admin Center. Just go to Channels > Talk and email > Talk, and you'll spot the IVR tab. This is your command center for building and managing phone menus. For your IVR to work, you'll have to assign it to a number.

Building your IVR menu and routes

This is where you actually build the phone tree. The menu is the main trunk, and the "routes" are the branches. Each route is tied to a number a caller presses on their keypad.

When you create a route, you need to tell Zendesk what to do with the call. Your main options are:

• Route to a group: Send the call to a specific team, like "Sales" or "Support."
• Route to another IVR menu: If you need more than one layer (e.g., "Press 2 for Support," then a new menu for "Press 1 for hardware, 2 for software"), you can link menus together.
• Send to voicemail: Let the caller leave a message for a certain group.
• Play an audio file: Use this to share information, like your hours.
• Forward to an external number: Send the call to a phone number outside of Zendesk.

Configuring greetings and keypress actions

A clear, professional greeting is a big deal. It's the first thing callers hear. You can record your own audio for everything from the main menu to hold music, or just use Zendesk's text-to-speech feature.

A cool feature Zendesk added is the ability to add tags based on IVR keypresses. So, if a caller presses "2" for billing, a "billing_inquiry" tag can be automatically added to the ticket. This is very useful for organizing your queue and for reporting.

Assigning the IVR to a phone line

After you've built your menu, recorded greetings, and set up the routes, the final step is to activate it. You just go into your Zendesk Talk phone number’s settings and assign the new IVR menu to it. Once you hit save, anyone calling that number will be greeted by your new phone tree.

Best practices for setting up a Zendesk Talk IVR

While it's possible to build a complex, multi-level phone tree, it's often not the best approach. A good IVR is all about getting the customer to the right person with as little fuss as possible.

Design a simple IVR structure

The key principle is simplicity. The goal is not to create a complex system. Even Zendesk recommends keeping your menus to five options and three levels. Exceeding this complexity can lead to customer frustration.

Before you touch any settings, grab a whiteboard and sketch out your ideal call flow. The main goal should always be getting the caller to an agent who can solve their problem, fast.

Using greetings to deflect common questions

Your main IVR greeting is valuable space. Use it to answer really common questions before the caller even has to push a button.

For instance, your greeting could say: "Thanks for calling Acme Inc. If you're looking for our business hours, we are open Monday to Friday, from 9 AM to 5 PM. For all other inquiries, please listen to the following options." Just like that, you've handled a bunch of simple calls.

Routing calls to specialized agent groups

This is where an IVR really proves its worth. Instead of having one giant pool of agents, you can create groups based on skills, like "Technical Support," "Billing," or "Spanish Speakers." Your IVR can then send calls directly to the team that's best prepared to handle the issue. This makes a huge difference in your first-call resolution rate because customers aren't getting passed around between departments.

Leveraging advanced features for efficiency

Zendesk Talk has a few other useful features, particularly on the higher-tier plans.

• Callback from Queue: This is available on Professional and Enterprise plans and lets callers hang up, keep their place in line, and get an automatic callback when an agent is free. Customers love this.
• After-Hours & Overflow Routing: You can create rules to automatically send calls to voicemail or another number when you're closed or when every agent is busy.
• IVR Keypress Tagging: As we mentioned, this is a big one. Those tags can be used to run Zendesk triggers and omnichannel routing. For example, you could make a rule that any ticket tagged with ivr_billing_inquiry is automatically set to "High" priority. This is a huge help for efficiently routing calls.

Limitations of Zendesk Talk IVR and how AI can help

While a well-designed IVR is a great starting point, it operates on a set of fixed rules, which can present certain challenges.

The challenge of rigid, rule-based systems

A traditional IVR doesn't think; it just follows the script you write. The challenge is that customer problems are often complex and don't fit neatly into predefined categories. What if a customer has a billing question that's related to a technical problem? Which button do they press? They end up guessing, getting sent to the wrong agent, and then needing a transfer, which is the outcome the IVR is meant to prevent.

To sum it up, here is our goal: To have it so that when clients call into our main help centre line during the weekday they'll have the option to reach a French agent through the IVR. For the weekend, they will still be given an English & French option in the main menu but if they attempt to select the French option, they will get a message saying 'Sorry, we don't have any French agents available right now, French services will resume on Monday' or something.

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These systems can also be inflexible. For instance, if you want a different after-hours message for holidays, you might have to rig up a workaround with overflow numbers because the system lacks dynamic time-based routing. This can make the system difficult to manage.

The manual effort of setup and maintenance

Building and maintaining an IVR is a manual process. You have to map out the flows, write scripts, record audio, build the routes, and then update it all every time a policy or team structure changes. This takes time and can prevent your support operations from adapting quickly.

How an AI teammate automates triage and routing

This is where a tool like eesel AI comes in. Instead of a phone tree that makes callers diagnose their own problem with a button press, an AI teammate can figure out what they need just by listening.

With eesel's AI Triage, you connect it to Zendesk and it immediately starts learning from your past tickets. It figures out your common issues and how you typically route them. When a customer leaves a voicemail, eesel transcribes it and understands the actual intent.

Here’s the big difference:

• Zendesk IVR: Routes based on a keypress. ("The caller pressed 2 for billing.")
• eesel AI: Routes based on intent. ("The voicemail mentions 'overcharge' and 'invoice,' so this is a high-priority billing issue for the finance team.")

Best of all, you manage eesel with plain English, not by building complex flowcharts. You can just tell it, "If a voicemail mentions a refund, tag it as 'Refund Request' and send it to the Returns team."

Zendesk Talk pricing for IVR setup

It's good to know that Zendesk Talk isn't a standalone product; it comes as part of the Zendesk Suite plans.

According to the official Zendesk pricing page, the IVR (phone tree) feature is available starting with the Zendesk Suite Professional plan, which costs $115 per agent per month (billed annually). It's also in the Suite Enterprise plan, which starts at $169 per agent per month.

On top of the subscription fee, you'll also have separate usage costs for your phone numbers and call minutes.

Build your phone tree, then level up with AI

Implementing a thoughtful Zendesk Talk IVR is a significant improvement over unmanaged call routing. It's a solid way to manage call volume, get customers to the right person faster, and bring some order to your phone support. The trick is to keep it simple, clear, and always focused on the customer.

But an IVR is just the starting point. Once you have your basic call flows down, the next move is to go beyond rigid rules and into intelligent, intent-based automation. That's where you can really boost your efficiency.

When you're ready to enhance your system with AI, an AI teammate can help. eesel's AI Agent can listen to your voicemails, understand what customers want, and then route, tag, or even resolve issues with up to 81% autonomy.

For a more detailed walkthrough, you can watch this video on how Zendesk Talk works and how to get started with the setup process.

A YouTube video from Zendesk demonstrating the features and setup of Zendesk Talk.

See how eesel works with Zendesk and find out what it's like to have an AI teammate on your side.