After dialing in to a vendor’s tech support line a few days ago, I was greeted with the usual set of options. Press 1 for sales, press 2 for billing, and so on. However, the way they handled the tech support option left me puzzled.

The tech support choice started out with “For technical support on…”, listed virtually every product they offer, and finished up with “…or any other product.” If there’s only one option for tech support, then why bother making people listen to a bunch of information that isn’t relevant to their menu choice?

Putting this another way, if a phone menu selection encompasses everything in a category, then there’s no need to include a bunch of examples from inside that category. By following this recommendation, you’ll make your phone menus shorter, while saving time for customers and reducing the amount of money you spend on inbound toll-free calls.