IVR Call Flow Builder With Revisions

Press 1 for sales, press 2 for service is a decision about where your customers go. LeadLocate CRM lets the store make that decision itself, hear it, change it, and go back to the version that worked.

An IVR is the phone menu: the recorded voice that greets a caller and offers options, and the logic behind each option that decides which phones ring, which message plays and where a caller ends up if nobody answers. Most dealerships have one because their phone vendor built it, years ago, and changing it means a support ticket and a week. The IVR call flow builder in LeadLocate CRM puts that menu on a page the store controls, for the tracking numbers the store uses on its ads, listings and landing pages.

A flow is a set of steps. The first is usually a greeting. Then a menu with options, each mapped to a key the caller presses. Each option leads to another step: ring a group of phones, take a voicemail, play a recorded message, check whether the store is open and branch on the answer, pause, or end the call. Steps chain, so sales can ring three phones and then fall to a voicemail while service plays a message and then transfers. The greeting and every spoken step can be typed as text and spoken by the system, or uploaded as an audio file the store recorded itself.

The automotive phone system page frames the menu as part of a store's whole phone setup. This page is the product side: how the builder in LeadLocate CRM works, where it lives, and the one design rule that keeps a store from ever hanging up on a customer by mistake.

A general manager notices that service callers keep reaching salespeople, because the store's tracking number rings the sales ring list and the number is printed on the service coupon too. Monday morning she opens the builder, adds a greeting that says thank you for calling, press 1 for sales and 2 for service, and points option 1 at the sales ring group and option 2 at the service desk's line. She types the greeting as text, listens to it, decides it sounds fine, and saves. The change is live on the next call. No ticket, no week.

Wednesday she wants the after hours behavior fixed too. She adds a business hours step in front of the menu: during hours the menu plays, after hours a short recorded message says the store's hours and takes a voicemail. She records that message herself on her phone, because she wants it in her own voice, and uploads it as the audio for the step.

Friday the sales manager complains that the ring group step rings his cell during his lunch. She opens Earlier versions, looks at Monday's revision, and instead of restoring it she edits the ring group to leave his cell off. Every version is kept, so the argument about what the menu used to do is settled by reading it rather than remembering it.

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The builder is the Call Flow section of the IVR Settings page, reached through Account Settings under Billing and Admin. It sits on the same page as the Forward Calls To ring list, the Virtual Receptionist switch, the Announce Calls screening switch and the store's hours, because those are the pieces a flow is made from. A ring step in the flow uses the same dialing, the same press 5 screening and the same recording as a plain forwarded call, so a call that reaches a salesperson through the menu is logged and recorded exactly like one that reached them directly.

Audio comes from two places. A step can hold text that the system speaks, which is fastest to write and change. Or a step can carry an uploaded recording, with Upload Greeting for the greeting itself, when a store wants its own voice on the line. A voicemail step lands on the store's voicemail, with the company greeting or the greeting of the user the call was meant for.

The results land where every other call does. The Calls page in the main menu logs the call with its recording and the option the caller chose along the way, and the lead's timeline carries it in order with the texts and emails around it. On the LeadLocate mobile app, Call Logs shows the same history.

Two design rules matter more than any individual step. The first is revisions. Every save is kept under Earlier versions, so a store can see what its menu said last month, compare it to today, and go back. A menu is the first thing a customer hears from the dealership, and a change that sounded clever on Tuesday and cost calls by Friday should be reversible without rebuilding it from memory.

The second is the fallback. A flow is only live when it is saved, switched on and complete. A menu with no options, an option that points at a deleted step, or a flow that was half built and abandoned is not live; the store's standard call handling, the plain Forward Calls To list and the voicemail behind it, runs instead. The builder says so with Back to standard handling and Use Standard. That means a store can build a flow over several sittings and never expose a customer to the half finished version.

The same rule covers loose ends inside a live flow. A step with nothing after it, a menu whose caller pressed a wrong key too many times, and a ring group where nobody answered all land on the store's voicemail. The only way a flow ends a call without a message is a deliberate Hang Up step the store put there on purpose. A customer who calls a LeadLocate number and does what the menu asks is never left listening to silence.

A dealership's phone menu is usually a professional services line item: the phone vendor builds it at install, charges for changes, and the store learns to live with a menu it would never have designed. Stores that want a menu on their tracking numbers specifically, the numbers on ads and listings, often find that their call tracking vendor offers a menu as a paid add on and their phone vendor offers one on the main line, and the two never match.

In LeadLocate the menu lives with the tracking numbers, the ring list, the receptionist and the log, in the CRM the store already pays for. Changes take minutes and cost nothing. A store comparing costs can look at what it has paid for menu changes in the last year and set that beside the pricing page, where CRM Only starts at $199 a month and carries the builder like every other plan.

What the builder does not replace is the main switchboard's menu, if the store has one and likes it. The builder governs the numbers a shopper dials from an ad; reception, parts and the main published number can keep whatever system they have. Many stores run the two side by side, with the LeadLocate menu built for shoppers and the main line built for everybody else.

A phone menu is where a store makes its first impression on a caller, and a bad one costs calls in a way no report shows. Options that go nowhere, a greeting that runs forty seconds, a service caller sent to a sales cell, a hang up when nobody answers: each one is a shopper who dials the next dealership on the list. The builder's fallback rule and its revisions exist so those mistakes are hard to make and easy to undo.

On the record keeping side, a call that passes through the menu is logged and recorded like any other, with the caller ID, the path it took, the person who answered and the recording, so a claim about what a caller was told has a recording behind it. Recording laws vary by state, and a store should set its announcement policy accordingly; a greeting step is a natural place for a recorded line disclosure, and the call recording and transcription page covers the rest.

Business hours steps are the other protection. A menu that transfers to a salesperson's cell at ten at night annoys the salesperson and strands the caller on a phone nobody will answer. A flow that checks hours first and takes a message after close treats late callers well and returns the call in the morning from the lead where it was logged.

A new LeadLocate account starts without a menu: the tracking number rings the store's own users through plain forwarding, and the builder is empty. To add a flow, open IVR Settings, go to Call Flow, add a greeting, add a menu with the options the store wants, and point each option at a step. Type the audio as text or upload a recording. Save, switch it on, and the next call hears it. An incomplete flow simply stays on standard handling until it is finished.

A store that would rather describe the menu it wants and have it built can ask; our team puts it in production for your dealership. The same is true of anything the standard steps do not cover, such as a menu that differs by tracking number: available on request, and our team puts it in production. The pre-recorded live demo shows a call passing through a menu and landing on a lead.

The builder decides where a caller goes; the pieces it sends them to are their own features. Pair it with call forwarding and ring lists, which is what a ring step uses, and with tracking phone numbers, so the menu answers the number on each ad and the call arrives on the lead with its source attached. Pair it with the virtual receptionist when the store wants a caller greeted and asked what they need rather than offered a numbered menu, and with voicemail greetings for what a caller hears when a ring step comes up empty.

A store that wants a BDC in the loop should read the BDC phone service page, since a menu option can ring the BDC's phones as its own group. The all features page shows where the builder sits among everything else in the platform.

Every vendor has downtime, and a store should know what that looks like before it happens. The call flow runs on the phone service side of the platform, separate from the CRM's web pages, so an interruption on the CRM does not stop a caller from hearing the greeting, choosing an option and ringing through to a salesperson. What pauses is editing the flow and seeing the calls on the Calls page until the CRM is back; calls handled during the interruption are reconciled then. The store's tracking numbers and its Forward Calls To list are provisioned on the phone service and keep ringing the store's phones regardless. If you need a person during an interruption, the contact page reaches one.

What is a call flow, in plain terms?

It is the path a caller takes: the greeting they hear, the options they are offered, and what happens after each choice, such as ringing a group of phones, taking a voicemail, playing a message or checking whether the store is open. The builder lets the store draw that path itself.

Can I use my own recorded voice?

Yes. Any spoken step can carry an uploaded audio file, and Upload Greeting covers the greeting itself. A step can also hold text the system speaks, which is faster to write and change.

What happens if I save a flow that is not finished?

Nothing changes for callers. A flow is only live when it is saved, switched on and complete; an incomplete one leaves standard call handling in place. Inside a live flow, any loose end lands on the store's voicemail rather than hanging up.

Can I go back to an earlier menu?

Yes. Every save is kept under Earlier versions, so a store can read what the menu said before a change and restore it or edit from it.

Does a call through the menu get recorded and logged?

Yes. A ring step uses the same dialing, screening and recording as a plain forwarded call, so the call lands on the Calls page and the lead's timeline with its recording, the same as any other.

What does it cost?

The builder is part of every LeadLocate plan, including CRM Only from $199 a month. There is no charge for changes, revisions or uploaded audio.

The IVR call flow builder is included in every LeadLocate plan, month to month. See a call pass through a menu and land on a lead in the pre-recorded demo, or start on CRM Only.

Prefer to talk right now? Call or text 844-376-2274.