With Retell, we’ve increased scheduling NPS by 38%, and filled underutilized provider capacity, allowing our team to focus on meaningful patient care instead of phone tag.
-p-130x130q80.avif)
Enterprise IVR: An AI Front Door for Large Contact Centers
5.0
ON G2
For contact centers with many queues, sites, or brands. The AI agent answers first, asks why the person is calling, checks who they are against your records, and finishes routine requests on its own. Everything else reaches the right queue on your contact center platform with the reason and account attached, so nobody asks twice. Roll it out one queue at a time.
Trusted by over 4,000 businesses powering 100+ million calls per month.
.svg)
.svg)
.svg)
.svg)
.svg)
.svg)
.svg)
How It Works
Put an AI front door on an enterprise contact center in four stages, from your call reasons to every queue.
Map call reasons to queues
List the reasons people call and the queue each belongs to, decide which ones the agent resolves, and connect the systems it needs for verification and lookups through custom functions or native CRM and helpdesk tools.
Test verification and routing
Run simulated calls for every call reason, failed verification, mixed requests, keypad entry, callers who ask for a person at once, and transfers to every queue, and grade each run before live traffic.
Connect queues over SIP
Connect your carrier or contact center platform over SIP, set concurrency for your busiest hour, reserve capacity for inbound calls, and send one queue's traffic to the agent first.
Expand queue by queue
Every call is transcribed and analyzed, so you can track containment, transfer reasons, and verification outcomes by queue, and supervisors can listen to live calls or take one over.
Use Cases
What an AI enterprise IVR does before a caller reaches an agent
One number, many queues, routed by what the caller says
Need callers sorted by intent, not by how well they remember a menu. The agent asks why the person is calling and routes on the answer. Where routing has to be exact, a conversation flow keeps strict branches, and logic split nodes pick the path from what was said or from data passed in. Specialist AI agents for billing, claims, or orders can take over on the same call through agent transfer, with the full transcript, so one number covers every agent. The AI IVR page covers the basics.
Verify callers before account details
Need callers verified before the agent reads out anything about an account. The agent asks for what your policy requires, such as name, date of birth, and phone number, or an account number or PIN on the keypad, and checks it against your records through a custom function during the call. If your carrier or current IVR already identified the caller, custom SIP headers pass that into the call as variables, so verified callers are not asked twice. Your system makes the match, and you set what happens when it fails.
Self-service for the top call reasons
Need routine calls finished without a queue. For requests such as order status, billing questions, appointment changes, or claim status, the agent reads and updates records through custom functions or native tools for Salesforce, HubSpot, and Zendesk, and answers policy questions from a knowledge base. On an SMS-enabled number it can text a payment or tracking link during the call. After hours, it can open a ticket for the morning team instead of attempting a transfer.
Transfer to the right queue with the context
Need transfers that land in the right queue with the reason attached. The agent transfers to a queue's number, extension, or SIP address, and the destination can be a variable set during the call. A warm transfer waits through your queue until a person answers, then briefs them in a whisper the caller does not hear, and custom SIP headers carry the call reason and account ID when the destination is a SIP endpoint. Retell's docs include SIP setup guides for Genesys Cloud, Five9, Avaya, and Amazon Connect.
Capacity for the opening-hour spike
Need the front door to hold when volume jumps at opening, after an outage, or on a billing date. Concurrency is set per workspace and adjusted from the dashboard, and burst mode lets calls above the limit through during peaks, up to three times your limit or your limit plus 300, whichever is lower. Reserved inbound concurrency keeps outbound campaigns off inbound lines, and if no slot opens after about 40 seconds, the call goes to a fallback number, such as your current main queue.
Supervision and a rollout you control
Need to see what the AI does on live calls and expand at your own pace. Supervisors can follow a live transcript, listen in silently, or take over a call from the dashboard or from your own tools through the API. A/B testing splits a number's traffic between agents or versions, so a new script reaches a share of callers first. To keep your current IVR and add AI in front of it before replacing anything, see hosted IVR solutions.
Built for Contact Centers, Not Demos
Retell is the AI Voice Platform Enterprise Contact Centers Run On
Retell lets you build, test and deploy AI phone agents that handle real call volume, so your team spends its time on the conversations that need a person.
Feature
Why large contact centers choose Retell AI for enterprise IVR
Call reasons in place of a menu tree
An enterprise menu grows a branch for every team until callers press zero. You give the agent each queue as the reasons people call, a knowledge base for questions it can answer itself, and specialist agents it can hand the call to without a new phone leg. Logic split nodes keep routing exact where it has to be.
Verification wired to your systems
Account details should only follow a match. Custom functions check what the caller says or keys in against your records, inbound SIP headers and the inbound call webhook bring in what you already know before the agent speaks, and the agent's next step depends on the result.
Guardrails and calling rules
A public front door hears from every kind of caller. Input guardrails catch attempts to manipulate the agent, output guardrails block regulated legal, medical, or financial advice in its replies, and each number can limit which countries are allowed to call it.
Queue by queue, sized for the peak
Start with one queue's traffic, using an A/B split on the number, and raise the share as results hold. The calculator on the Limits page suggests concurrency, inbound reservation, and calls per second from your busy-hour volume, and a fallback number catches calls if every slot is busy.
Containment you can report by queue
Post-call extraction records fields you define, such as call reason, verified, resolved, and destination queue. Webhooks report each transfer started, bridged, or cancelled, the analytics dashboard compares agent versions, alerts flag drops, and live monitoring lets a supervisor listen in or take over.
-p-130x130q80.avif)
-p-130x130q80.avif)
-p-130x130q80.avif)
- Hubspot
- Twilio
- Vonage
- Go High Level
- n8n
- Zapier
- Salesforce
- Hubspot
- Twillio
- Vonage
- Go High Level
- 8n8
- Zapier
- Salesforce
- Avaya
- Genesys
- Five9
- Amazon Connect
- Telnyx
- Make
- Cal.com
.svg)
- Avaya
- Genesys
- Five9
- Amazon Connect
- Telnyx
- Make
- Cal.com
Pricing
Cut Costs by 90% with AI phone Agents
Pay as you go
$0 to start.
$0.07–$0.31 per minute – Pay only for what you use.
60 mins of free access.
20 concurrent calls.
10 Free Knowledge Bases.
Enterprise Plan
For companies with large volumes, data or deployment requirements, or support needs.
White glove service for your use case.
Premium support with dedicated solution engineer teams.
Custom pricing and concurrent calls based on your needs
FAQ
Frequently asked questions.
What is an enterprise IVR?
An enterprise IVR is the front door of a large contact center: it answers every call, works out what the caller needs, verifies them, and routes them across many queues, sites, or brands. Traditional systems do this with touch-tone menus and recorded prompts. An AI enterprise IVR on Retell lets callers say what they need in their own words, resolves routine requests, and still accepts keypad input.
How does the AI agent verify callers?
With your rules and your records. The agent collects what your policy asks for, by voice or on the keypad, and a custom function checks it against your system during the call. Keypad entry can end on a digit limit, a termination key such as pound, or a timeout. Data your carrier or IVR already has, such as the calling number, can arrive as SIP headers, and PII scrubbing can remove personal details from stored transcripts and recordings after the call.
Which contact center platforms does it route to?
Any platform or carrier that supports SIP. Retell's docs include setup guides for Genesys Cloud, Five9, Avaya, Amazon Connect, Twilio, Telnyx, and Vonage. These are SIP connections, not prebuilt app connectors. Transfers go to a phone number, an extension, or a SIP address, and custom SIP headers carry call data when the destination is a SIP endpoint.
How many calls can it handle at once?
Concurrency is set per workspace and can be raised from the dashboard, where a calculator suggests values from your busy-hour traffic. One agent takes any number of calls within that limit. Burst mode lets extra calls through during spikes, reserved inbound concurrency keeps outbound traffic from crowding inbound lines, and a fallback number catches calls if every slot stays busy.
How is an enterprise IVR different from a hosted IVR?
Hosted describes where the IVR runs: in a provider's cloud instead of on your servers. Enterprise describes the job: one front door for many queues, sites, or brands, with verification, self-service, and routing at contact center volume. Retell is hosted either way. Teams that want to keep their current IVR and add AI in front of it start with a hosted IVR setup.
How much does an AI enterprise IVR cost on Retell?
Retell voice agents are priced per minute of conversation, from $0.07 per minute, depending on the language model, voice, and telephony you choose. Enterprise plans have custom pricing for high volume or custom deployment needs. When the agent transfers a caller and drops off, the AI agent fee stops and only telephony continues. See Enterprise plans.
