A phone tree is a system of delivering the same message to a group of people. Traditionally this has been done by networking people in such a way that allows message recipients to become message deliverers. For example, the person initiating the message would call two people, and then those two people would each call two people with every message recipient repeating the process until the entire group is reached. Common problems inherent in this type of system are message recipients who do not answer their phone, thus breaking the chain, and message recipients who do not pass on the message correctly. A far simpler, faster, and more reliable solution is to use an automated phone tree.

Automating a phone tree allows one person to record a voice message and send it directly to the entire group in a short period of time. This eliminates all of the problems associated with manual phone trees. The message is delivered much more quickly, and every person receives the exact same message.