A retail business with several departments needed inbound calls routed correctly on the first attempt, without a human receptionist screening every call.
- 01Conversational triage
An ElevenLabs voice agent answers all inbound calls and asks the caller what they need, using natural conversation rather than a rigid phone tree menu.
- 02Department routing
Based on the caller's stated need, the agent performs a blind transfer to the correct department line, covering seven distinct departments in this build.
- 03Knowledge layer
An embedded prompt database gives the agent company specific information (hours, policies, common answers) so it can resolve simple queries itself before transferring, reducing unnecessary transfers.
Callers reach the right department without navigating a traditional IVR menu, and simple queries get resolved without a transfer at all.
- AI call routing agent
- virtual receptionist AI
- inbound voice AI for retail
- AI IVR replacement
Why conversational routing beats a phone tree menu. Positions this as a UX first alternative to legacy IVR.
How is this better than a normal IVR?+
Callers describe what they need in natural language instead of navigating a menu, which routes them faster and eliminates the zero out behaviour that breaks IVR analytics.