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Receptionist taking a call at a busy office front desk
Routing calls without a menu right now

AI IVR for the Phone System You Already Run

Your callers should not have to learn a menu.

They say what they need. Frontly handles it, or routes it right the first time.

Get StartedTry a Free Test Call
Live in about an hourKeeps your phone systemAnswers 24/7Full transcript on every call

HEAR IT FOR YOURSELF

Hear it route a caller now

This demo answers as a bank's phone line, the classic home of the press-1 menu. Say what you need in a sentence, ask something off-script, or change your mind halfway through, and hear it route you without a single option to press. No signup required.

It runs in your browser. Nothing to install, no number to give us.No signup, no card, no waiting on a sales rep.Interrupt it, change your mind, ask for a human. It is the live agent, not a recording.
Sample call
A call like the one you are about to make
  1. Frontly

    Thanks for calling. Tell me what you need and I will take you straight to the right place.

  2. Caller

    There is a charge on my card that I do not recognize.

  3. Frontly

    I can help with that. Is the card lost or stolen, or do you still have it?

  4. Caller

    I still have it.

  5. Frontly

    Then this is disputes rather than a lost card. Before I transfer you, can I take your name?

  6. Caller

    Elif.

  7. Frontly

    Thanks Elif. Transferring you to disputes now, and I am telling them it is an unrecognized charge on a card you still hold, so you will not have to say it twice.

Captured in your dashboard
Name
Elif
Type
Warm transfer, card dispute
Time
Answered in 2 rings
Escalated
Yes

Your script, your appointment types and your escalation rules are set during setup.

The short answer

What is an AI IVR?

An AI IVR replaces the numbered phone menu with a conversation. Instead of pressing 1 for accounts, the caller says what they need in their own words, and the system either completes the task or transfers to the right person. Unlike the keyword-matching IVR of the last decade, it understands full sentences, handles callers who change their mind mid-call, and books or resolves rather than only routing.

THE PROBLEM

Two Generations of IVR Taught Your Callers to Press Zero

Press 1

the first generation. A menu tree the caller had to translate their problem into, and mash zero to escape when none of the options fit

Say it again

the second generation. Speech recognition that matched keywords rather than understanding sentences, misrouted constantly, and became a running joke

Already paying

for most businesses this is a swap, not a new line item. The IVR sits on a phone system contract with a monthly maintenance cost attached

One hour

to go live. Frontly sits in front of your existing phone system, so there is no hardware to replace and no migration project

HOW IT WORKS

Live in About an Hour. Your Phone System Stays Where It Is.

1

Point Your Main Number At Frontly

Frontly answers first and passes calls through to your existing extensions, queues and teams. Your phone system, handsets and numbers stay exactly as they are. No hardware, no migration.

2

We Rebuild Your Menu As a Conversation

Our team maps every branch of your current IVR to an intent, so anything the menu could do, Frontly can do. Then we add the things a menu never could: answering the question outright, booking, and capturing the reason for the call.

3

Go Live and Watch Where Calls Actually Go

Every call is logged with what the caller asked for, where it went, and whether it was resolved without a transfer. That is data your old IVR never gave you, and it is usually the first time anyone sees what people really call about.

WHAT FRONTLY HANDLES

Everything Your Menu Did, Plus the Calls It Sent to the Wrong Team

An IVR can only route. The measure of an AI IVR is how many calls end without a transfer at all.

Routing by what the caller actually said

The caller describes their problem in a sentence and Frontly sends them to the right team the first time. No translating their situation into a numbered option that half fits.

Answering instead of routing

Opening hours, account status, where to send a document, what a process costs. A menu can only pass these to a person. Frontly answers them from your own knowledge base and the call ends there.

Warm transfer with a spoken briefing

When a person is needed, whoever picks up already knows who is calling and why. The caller does not repeat the story they just told the machine, which is the single most common complaint about every IVR ever installed.

Callers who change their mind mid-call

Someone starts asking about an invoice and realizes the real issue is a delivery. A menu forces them back to the top. Frontly follows the change and carries on.

Booking and capture, not just triage

Appointments, callbacks and inquiries are completed during the call and land in your dashboard as structured records rather than as a routed call nobody logged.

Overflow and out-of-hours on the same number

The same front desk covers the queue when everyone is busy and the line after close, so callers do not hit a menu that leads only to voicemail.

More than one language on the same line

A caller who is more comfortable in another language gets handled rather than dropped, without a separate number or a second menu branch.

Visual Workflow Builder

Your Menu Tree, Rebuilt Without the Tree

1

We Migrate It For You

Our team maps every option in your current IVR to an intent, so nothing the menu could do is lost in the swap.

2

Route On Meaning, Not Keywords

Destinations are chosen from what the caller actually wants, which is why this does not repeat the misrouting of keyword-matching IVR.

3

Answer It Instead of Passing It

For anything you can define an answer to, the call ends without a transfer. That is the number worth watching after go-live.

4

Keep Your Extensions and Queues

Frontly transfers into the phone system you already run, so nobody has to learn a new handset or lose a number.

5

Change It Yourself

Add a destination, reword a response, or move a team without raising a ticket with your phone vendor and waiting on a change window.

Outbound calling, and deploying Frontly into your own cloud, are enterprise capabilities scoped with our team. See enterprise

See all features

WHAT USUALLY DECIDES IT

The three questions that come up every time

A real person, whenever the caller wants one

Every workflow can hand the call to the right team or person on your existing phone system. The transfer carries a spoken briefing, so your team picks up already knowing who is calling and why. The caller never has to explain themselves twice, which is usually the moment a good call turns into a complaint.

More than one language, on the same number

Frontly answers in more than one language on your main number. A traditional IVR needs a separate branch or a separate line per language, and most businesses never built one, so those callers were quietly dropped.

Flat monthly rate, with the meter switched off

No per-minute billing, no per-call fee, and no cap on how many questions the AI is allowed to answer. Your busiest month does not produce your largest invoice, and adding another topic to its knowledge does not add a line to the bill. See pricing for the current rates.

ANSWERING SERVICE OR AI

Is an AI IVR better than the phone menu we already have?

A phone menu can only route a caller to a team. An AI IVR can finish the call. The caller says what they need instead of picking from a list, and anything you can define an answer to is handled without a transfer. The menu you have now sends all of it to a person.

Where a staffed answering service still wins

A menu is predictable, and for some businesses that is the point. If your call types are genuinely few and fixed, and every caller knows exactly which department they want, a well-built IVR gets them there in seconds with no interpretation involved. Predictability has real value on a simple call tree.

Where Frontly wins

Most call trees are not simple. They grew branches over years, callers press zero rather than navigate them, and the calls that do get routed often end in an answer somebody could have scripted. Frontly answers those outright and transfers the rest with a spoken briefing, so nobody repeats themselves.

Most businesses end up running one or the other rather than both. If you are weighing it up properly, the full cost and capability breakdown is in Frontly against a virtual receptionist.

CONTAINMENT, NOT ROUTING

The measure that matters is containment, not routing

Replacing a menu-driven IVR is the one change where you already have a baseline. The old system counted keypresses and transfers on the same call volume, so the before and after are like for like.

Whole sentencesinstead of a menu option the caller has to translate their problem intoThe previous generation matched keywords against a list. Interpreting a full sentence is what removes the misrouting that made callers press zero on reflex.
Zero transferson the calls the menu could only ever pass to a personAny question you can define an answer to now ends on the call. For most businesses this is the largest single block of transferred calls in their phone data.
Every call typedby what the caller wanted, not by which button they pressedSeeing intent rather than keypress is usually the first time an operator can tell what people actually ring about, which is what makes the routing rules improvable.
Stored and hosted in your region: US, EU, UK
Encrypted in transit and at rest
Enterprise: deploy in your own cloud or on-prem

FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

KEEP EXPLORING

Keep exploring Frontly for IVR and Call Routing

Go deeper on the capabilities, comparisons, and guides that matter most.

24/7 inbound answering

How Frontly answers every call, qualifies the caller, and books the job in your dashboard.

How inbound works

Your call flow, your rules

What the agent asks, what it books on the spot, and what gets a human woken up. Built with you before you go live.

See the workflow builder

After-hours answering

Your menu leads to voicemail after close. See how the same front desk covers the overnight shift.

See after-hours

Ready to Retire the Phone Menu?

Swap your IVR for an AI front desk in about an hour. No hardware, no migration project.

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