AI IVR for Australian Business
Your callers should not have to learn a menu.
They say what they need. Frontly handles it, or routes it right the first time.
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. Frontly does it on the number you already have, in more than 40 languages, and can ring back anyone who hung up waiting.
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
No hardware
to replace. Frontly sits in front of your existing phone system, so there is no migration project
HEAR IT FOR YOURSELF
Ring the Bank. Skip the Menu.
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.
Test Call
Talk to the AI agent right now from your browser. Hear how Frontly handles a typical call.
This demo is a configured example. Your plan starts with a general receptionist workflow you customise.
Prefer to listen? Hear a recorded demo call
Bank phone line
Caller changes their mind mid-call
HOW IT WORKS
Your Phone System Stays Where It Is.
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.
Customise the Prebuilt Workflow
Start from the prebuilt receptionist workflow and map every branch of your current IVR to an intent in the visual builder, so anything the menu could do, Frontly can do. Then add the things a menu never could: answering the question outright, booking, and capturing the reason for the call.
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 ring 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 realises 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 enquiries 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
Start With a Prebuilt Receptionist Workflow
Start from a prebuilt receptionist workflow. You map each option in your current IVR to an intent in the visual builder, so nothing the menu could do is lost in the swap.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Cross-Call Memory
Your AI Remembers the Last Time They Called
- Repeat callers recognised across calls
- The previous issue recalled, so nobody starts from the top
- Earlier transfers visible, so a caller is not sent in the same circle twice
- Full history against the caller rather than scattered across teams
Frontly Dashboard
Finally See What People Actually Ring About
Every Call, Categorised
What the caller wanted, where it went, and whether it was resolved without a person. Your IVR only ever told you which button was pressed.
Full Transcript on Every Call
Read exactly what was said rather than reconstructing a complaint from memory.
Containment At a Glance
See what share of calls finished without a transfer, which is the honest measure of whether this is working.
Misroute Patterns Surface
Spot the enquiries landing on the wrong team and fix the rule yourself in minutes.
Alerts Where They Matter
Configure SMS or email so specific call types reach a person immediately instead of sitting in a queue.
Outbound Campaign Manager
The Same System Can Ring Out
Call Back the Queue
Anyone who hung up waiting can be rung back automatically, which no IVR has ever done for you.
Reminders and Follow-Ups
Appointment reminders, renewal notices and status updates run from the same platform answering your inbound line.
Same Builder, No New Tool
Script an outbound campaign with the same drag-and-drop builder you used for the inbound flow.
See What Landed
Track which callbacks connected, which went to voicemail, and which need another attempt.
INTEGRATIONS
Works with the software ivr and call routing already runs on
Connect your AI receptionist to the software your team already uses, so Frontly can check availability, manage bookings and capture caller details as part of your reception workflow.
IT service desks and help desks
Team messaging
CRM, calendars and productivity
Google Calendar
Microsoft 365 / Outlook
HubSpot
Calendly
Square Appointments
Needs Square Appointments Plus or Premium
Zoho CRM
Pipedrive
Salesforce
Google Sheets
Integrations support Frontly's reception and caller follow-up workflows. Available actions depend on the connected software and your setup.
Not on the list, or need a specific workflow? Tell us what you use and what you'd like Frontly to handle. We'll check what's possible.
WHAT USUALLY DECIDES IT
The three questions that come up every time
A real person, whenever the caller wants one
Frontly 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.
Knowledge with no cap on questions
There is no cap on how many questions the AI is allowed to answer. Add another topic to its knowledge whenever your callers start asking about it.
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 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.
Bigger organisation?
Large contact centres and enterprise phone estates
Enterprise replaces the menu across many lines and connects to your own systems during the call. Own-cloud or on-premise deployment with local models, SLA-backed uptime and a dedicated account manager.
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
A traditional IVR gives the caller a fixed list of options and routes based on which one they pick. An AI IVR listens to what they say in their own words, works out what they need, and either answers it outright or transfers to the right person. The traditional system can only route. This one can finish the call.
The IVR generation that asked you to say a word matched keywords against a list. Say something it did not expect and it misrouted or asked you to repeat yourself. Frontly interprets whole sentences, handles callers who change their mind mid-call, and asks a clarifying question instead of guessing.
No. Frontly sits in front of the phone system you already run. You point your main number at Frontly and it transfers into your existing extensions, queues and teams. Your handsets, numbers and internal routing stay as they are, so the swap is not a migration project.
Yes, and that is the starting point rather than the goal. Starting from the prebuilt receptionist workflow, you map every branch of your existing menu to an intent in the visual builder, so nothing is lost. The value is in what comes after: calls that used to be routed to a person can now be answered outright.
They get one. Frontly transfers on request, and the handover carries a spoken briefing so whoever picks up already knows who is calling and why. Callers learned to press zero because menus made them repeat themselves. Removing that reason is most of the improvement.
The measure is containment: what share of calls finish without a transfer. Your Frontly dashboard reports it per call type, alongside what callers asked for and where they were sent. A traditional IVR only ever told you which button was pressed, so for most businesses this is the first real visibility they have had.
Only if it routes a lot of calls to people who then do something simple. That volume is the whole opportunity: those calls can finish without a person. Where every call genuinely needs judgement, the gain is smaller and we would rather tell you that than sell you a swap that changes nothing.
They can, and you choose how Frontly introduces itself, for example as your AI receptionist. Frontly never pretends to be a person. What callers notice first is that it does not sound like the menu it replaced: they say what they need and get it.
Yes, on the same number. A traditional IVR needs a separate branch or a separate line per language, and most businesses never built one. Frontly answers in more than one language on your main number, so those callers are handled instead of dropped.
Yes, in proportion to how repetitive your phone is. Calls ending in an answer somebody could have scripted now finish without a person, and for most businesses that is a large share of what the menu currently routes. Calls needing real judgment still reach a human, so the reduction tracks your call mix.
Containment rate: the share of calls that finish without a transfer, broken down per call type. Alongside it, watch misroutes and repeat callers. A traditional IVR only records which key was pressed, so these are usually new numbers for you rather than a comparison against an existing baseline.
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 worksOutbound campaigns
Recalls, follow-ups, arrears, and lead reactivation dialled automatically at scale.
Run outboundAfter-hours answering
Your menu leads to voicemail after close. See how the same front desk covers the overnight shift.
See after-hoursBest AI receptionist in Australia
Eight platforms Australian businesses shortlist, compared honestly.
Read the guideReady to Retire the Phone Menu?
Keep your phone system, lose the menu.