Sample auto attendant script for small firms

A small business auto attendant script needs four things: the business name, up to three options with the most common first, a key that reaches a person, and a route for callers who press nothing. Here is one to record today:

Thanks for calling [Business name]. For a new job or a quote, press 1. To change an appointment, press 2. To speak to the office, press 0.

Set the system to send anyone who presses nothing to the office line. Below are seven scripts for different firms and times of day, the settings to check once they're recorded, and the case for having no menu at all, which is where a lot of small firms should start.

An auto attendant answers the call and sends it on. Microsoft's description of its purpose is to direct a caller to the right person or department based on what they choose. So a menu only helps when different choices reach different people. If keys 1, 2 and 3 all ring the same mobile, you've asked the caller to do a small task to reach the phone they'd have reached anyway.

Who answers the phone	What to set up
One person	No menu. A short greeting, then ring the phone, then voicemail or forwarding
Two or three people who all do the same thing	No menu. Ring them together, using what your provider calls a ring group or hunt group
Someone in the office and people on site	Two or three options
Separate teams, such as lettings and maintenance	Up to five options

Most phone systems can do the no-menu version. Microsoft's Teams call flow guide, for one, lets you redirect a call straight after the greeting.

Seven scripts

Fill in the square brackets, then read the script to someone who doesn't know your firm. If they can't say which key they'd press after hearing it once, the options need plainer words. With three options it should take around 20 seconds, and anything much longer means something can go.

Thanks for calling [Business name]. Putting you through now.

Keep it this short or use no greeting at all. If the call then goes unanswered, the voicemail greeting scripts take over.

2. A trade firm with an office

Thanks for calling [Business name], [trade] in [area]. For a new job or a quote, press 1. To change an appointment, press 2. For an emergency, such as [a burst pipe or no heating], press 3. To speak to the office, press 0.

If you work with gas, put your safety line in front of the menu: "If you can smell gas, hang up, leave the building and call [gas emergency number]." A caller shouldn't have to listen through the options to hear it.

3. A small office

This one fits an accountant, an insurance broker or a bookkeeper, where the first split is usually between people you already know and people you don't.

Thanks for calling [Business name]. If you're new to us, press 1. If you're already a client, press 2. For invoices and payments, press 3. To speak to reception, press 0.

4. A property manager

Thanks for calling [Business name]. If anyone is in danger, hang up and call [emergency number]. For a repair that can't wait, such as [a water leak or no heating], press 1. For any other repair, press 2. For rent and accounts, press 3. To rent a property or to let one with us, press 4. To speak to the office, press 0.

Urgent repairs go first here even if they aren't the most common call, because a tenant with water coming through the ceiling shouldn't sit through the lettings option. That makes five options, which is as many as you want.

5. After hours

Thanks for calling [Business name]. We're closed now and open again at [time] on [day]. For an emergency, press 1 to reach the person on call. For anything else, stay on the line, leave your name, number and what you need, and we'll ring you back by [time].

Leave out the emergency sentence if nobody is on call. The promise of a callback time is the part callers remember, so choose one you can keep.

6. Holidays

Thanks for calling [Business name]. We're closed from [date] and back on [date]. For an emergency while we're away, call [number]. For anything else, stay on the line and leave your name and number, and we'll ring you back by [date].

Put the same dates on your email auto-reply, your website and your Google profile. The Christmas closure templates have the wording for those.

7. No key, or the wrong key

Sorry, I didn't catch that. I'll put you through to [the office].

This one is easy to forget, and it catches anyone who is driving, who doesn't trust menus or who simply waits. If your system plays its own wording here, that's fine as long as the call ends up with a person or a mailbox.

Draw the map before you record

Microsoft recommends working out call routing in a diagram first. A table does the same job for a small firm, and every row has to end somewhere a caller can be helped. Here is one for script 2. The firm is made up, and your rows will differ.

Key	Caller wants	Rings first	If nobody answers
1	New job or quote	Office	Owner's mobile, then voicemail
2	Change an appointment	Office	Voicemail with a callback time
3	Emergency	Person on call	Second person on call, then voicemail with a callback time
0 or no key	The office	Office	Voicemail with a callback time

Fill in the last column honestly. If most rows finish in voicemail during working hours, the menu is sorting calls into a queue nobody is listening to, and you should read "When a menu is the wrong tool" further down.

Five wording rules

These come from Microsoft's call routing best practices, read on 3 November 2026. They're written for Teams administrators and carry over well to any phone system.

Name the service, then the key. "For sales, press 1" works better than "Press 1 for sales", since the caller knows what they're listening for before the number arrives.
Stay at five options or fewer. Microsoft's reason is that callers struggle to remember more. A firm of ten people can usually manage with three.
Put the most common reason first. Microsoft suggests looking at the types and frequency of your incoming calls. The one-week missed-call audit is an easy way to collect them. Add a note of why each person rang.
Use your callers' words. A customer knows "a job you've already booked". They don't know "service delivery".
Leave the menu alone once it works. Regular callers learn the keys. If you do change the options, Microsoft suggests telling callers in the prompts for the first 30 days.

Settings to check after you record

Three settings are worth checking on any system, and they work differently from one to the next. The details below are from each vendor's help pages as read on 3 November 2026, so check your own provider's if you use a different system.

Hours. The defaults run in opposite directions. In Microsoft Teams, if you don't change the hours, the business-hours flow runs from 9:00 to 17:00 every day of the week, Saturday and Sunday included. In Google Voice, which offers auto attendants on its Standard and Premier subscriptions, the default is 24 hours a day, so your after-hours script never plays until you set hours. Both let you add holiday dates.

A key for a person. Teams directs callers to the operator you configure when they make no selection or a call hits a processing error, and Microsoft recommends setting one. It also says to map a key to the operator, otherwise that feature isn't enabled. Google's page doesn't say what happens when nobody presses a key, so test it yourself.

Options that get in the way. Teams has a "Force Listen" setting that ignores keys until the whole menu has played. I'd leave it off, so that a regular caller can press 2 straight away. Teams also matches dial keys before directory searches, so a caller typing an extension can be transferred on the first digit. Microsoft recommends turning directory search off if you've assigned keys, or giving it a separate auto attendant.

Then call your own number from a mobile. Press every key, press a wrong key, press nothing, and do it again outside business hours. Let each destination ring out so you hear what the last column of your map really does. Google's setup page includes a Preview step, but only a real call shows you what a caller gets.

A menu sorts calls and answers none of them. In a firm where everyone is on site from eight till five, every key leads to a phone nobody can reach, and the caller has now pressed a button and reached voicemail anyway.

Microsoft, for one, now offers an AI option. Its planning overview, read on 3 November 2026, says Teams Phone Agent became generally available on 30 September 2026 and describes it as extending auto attendants with conversations that can route callers without fixed menus, answer questions and manage appointments. That's a product for Teams customers, so it won't help on another system.

If your map ends in voicemail too often, conditional call forwarding is the simplest next step, and AI receptionist vs answering service compares the two ways of getting calls answered. With our AI receptionist the caller has nothing to press. It asks what the call is about and books the slot, and the caller gets a text with the time. If you'd set up that kind of software yourself, AI receptionist prompting covers what to write in its instructions.

Frequently asked questions

What is an auto attendant?

It's the recorded or computer-read menu that answers a business number and sends callers to a person, a team or a mailbox, usually by keypad and on some systems by voice. You'll also hear it called a phone menu, a phone tree or a digital receptionist.

What's the difference between an auto attendant and voicemail?

An auto attendant runs before anyone answers and decides where the call goes. Voicemail runs after nobody has answered and takes a message. Most small firms use both, with the voicemail sitting at the end of each route.

What should an auto attendant greeting say?

It should say only what helps the caller pick a key: who they've reached, then the options with the most common first, including one for a person. "Your call is important to us" helps nobody choose, and a warning that the options have changed belongs there only in the first 30 days after a change.

Should you record the script yourself or use text to speech?

Either works. Teams, for one, accepts a typed greeting of up to 1,000 characters or an uploaded audio file. A recording in a local voice sounds more like a small firm, and text to speech is quicker to change when your hours or options move. Try both and keep whichever you'd be happy to hear as a caller.

How often should you update the script?

Change it when something behind a key changes, such as someone leaving, a new mobile number or a service you've dropped, and put new dates in script 6 before each closure. Otherwise leave the main menu alone. After any edit, ring your own number and press the key you changed, because the recording can be right while the number behind it is wrong.

Sample auto attendant scripts for a small business, and when to skip the menu

Does your firm need a menu?