Phone menu (IVR) duration calculator

How to use it

Time each part of your phone menu with a stopwatch or in an audio editor: the greeting, the recording and data protection notice, each announced option and any message between the choice and the queue. Also enter where the option to speak to a person is announced and how long the menu waits when nothing is pressed.

The tool calculates three paths: callers who ask for a person as soon as they hear the option, callers who listen to the whole menu and pick the last option, and callers who press nothing and hear the menu twice. For each one it shows the time until the queue and how much of the three minutes is left. If you work from the written script, the guide to designing an IVR menu (in Spanish) explains how to turn words into seconds, at about 2.5 words per second.

What it calculates and why it matters

Article 10.3 of Spanish Law 10/2025 requires the companies within its scope to answer 95% of calls, on average, in less than three minutes. The guide to Law 10/2025 on the phone (in Spanish) explains why it is best to measure from when the call comes in: the menu counts within those three minutes. Every second of recorded message is a second less for an agent to answer.

• Until the caller can ask for a person = greeting + notice + option position × seconds per option + message before the queue.
• Listening to the whole menu = greeting + notice + options × seconds per option + message before the queue.
• Pressing nothing = greeting + notice + 2 × (menu + no-input timeout) + message before the queue. The menu repeats only once.
• Threshold for the Erlang C calculator = 180 s − the whole-menu path. This is the time left for the queue.

Article 8 of the law also requires personal attention to be offered from the main menu. The tool only accepts the option to speak to a person among the first-level options and calculates how much is gained by announcing it first.

Worked example

This is the fictional case from the guide to recorded phone messages (in Spanish), the same as the default values: a 19 second greeting, an 11 second recording notice and a menu of four 4 second options with “speak to a person” last.

With 134 seconds left for the queue, the case in the law guide (150 calls in half an hour and 4 minutes of handling) needs 24 agents in the Erlang C calculator at 95%, compared with 23 if the call went straight into the queue. In that half hour, the menu costs one agent.

How to read the result and its limits

The calculation assumes that callers press as soon as they hear their option. In practice some people wait to hear the whole menu, especially the first time, and those who press the wrong key repeat part of the path. That is why the Erlang C threshold uses the whole menu rather than the fastest path. If you have a second menu level, add it to the message before the queue.

The tool does not check what the menu says or whether a voice assistant lets callers ask for a person. To measure the real result with your call log, use the three-minute indicator analyser, and to cut seconds without losing information, see the guide to recorded phone messages (in Spanish).

Common mistakes

• Measuring service level from when the call joins the queue: the menu is left out and the report looks better than the real experience.
• Announcing the option to speak to a person last, or only in a second level.
• Making the recording notice longer with the full legal text. The guide on recording business calls (in Spanish) explains what to say in the message and what can go in the privacy policy.
• Repeating the menu several times to callers who press nothing, instead of passing them to a person or a voicemail.

The values you enter are calculated in your browser and are not sent to CallsIQ. Google Analytics records visits and that the tool was used, never the values, as described in the privacy policy.