Many businesses use answering services for call forwarding to screen their calls and respond to their clients. If you’re wondering what call forwarding is, don’t worry. You have come to the right place for answers.
Call forwarding is an essential service available with most answering services. It allows you to forward all your calls to an alternate number. For example, you can forward incoming phone calls from clients and customers to your cell phone or another phone number. You can also use call forwarding to deliver all calls from an office in one city to another office in another town. Working with this service requires planning, and there are some things you should know before doing so.
Call forwarding is a great tool that many businesses utilize daily without even realizing it. This can be attributed to the fact that call forwarding is a feature available on most small business phone systems. Call forward is an essential feature for answering services but can also be used to improve your own business’s productivity and efficiency.
For instance, call forwarding, also known as call transfer or call transfer to another number, is a feature that allows you to forward dialed calls to a different destination(s). For example, you may have an office but no employees. You can use call forwarding to deliver all your incoming calls to an answering service, so they can answer the phones while you’re busy doing other things.
5 Tips on Call Forwarding with an Answering Service
Coordinate With Your Answering Service and Phone Provider.
Before deciding to use an answering service, check with your phone provider if they can forward your calls to you. While this should work for most of your providers, some may have more complicated procedures that could potentially take longer than what you had anticipated. For example, if you were looking to forward your line under most phone providers, you would dial *72 followed by the number you wish to deliver calls to, and it’s done. Also, some providers have set maximum numbers of days to keep forwarded numbers, so make sure to check with them on how long they will keep the forwarded number active.
Regardless of the protocol, you can coordinate forwarding with your answering service and phone provider. While you may want to be hands-off when it comes to the call forwarding feature on your business phone, you shouldn’t neglect this important feature. The last thing you want is for your clients and customers not to understand how to reach you because of a misunderstanding in the forwarding feature. Therefore, it is best to call the providers to verify all the necessary information and steps. However, if you are unsure what your provider’s procedures are and want to do business with an answering service, you can always ask the answering service, and they can do the research. This way, no time would be wasted trying to get the line forwarded only to find out a week in that you will have to wait longer than expected.
Understand the Different Types of Call Forwarding.
When you receive a call, it’s essential to have a plan. Unfortunately, many companies will just let the customer leave a message. Some might even tell the customer to try again later. Therefore, you need to have a call strategy that focuses on customer experience and customer service. To offer the best of these critical customer support tactics, we must understand our phone providers’ different types of call forwarding. Understanding these options will allow you to customize an answering service more effectively to suit your needs and preferences.
The different types of call forwarding include manual, automated, and ai-assisted. Each one has its own set of benefits as well as drawbacks. In manual call forwarding, you must initiate the call forwarding sequence to your preferred line. In automated call forwarding, the lines will automatically forward at pre-determined times, and this service can often include interactive on-call scheduling. Finally, ai-assisted call forwarding blends the automated call forwarding options with an IVR to direct callers exactly where they need to get the help they require. Sometimes you can combine different features from each option. It is essential to understand the type of calls your receive to determine which option is best for your business.
Call forwarding is a way to connect your business with callers. It is beneficial for those with multiple locations or even multiple lines. For example, if your office number was not in service and a customer called, you would be forwarded to an alternate number. In addition, this allows you to deal with some employees on vacation or out sick.
Always Test a Line Before Going Live With Call Forwarding.
Once your line is set up, give the line a listen to ensure it was connected to your service successfully. Call your number and listen to the first greeting or message if you’re not sure what you should be listening for. Whenever you are testing a call forwarding phone number, you will want to ensure that the line will ring and connect to the appropriate destination. This connection will ensure that there aren’t any problems on their end and that the call should be going through smoothly.
Testing phone lines can feel a bit like a redundant job. You know, the kind of job you take to avoid real work after a while. After all, aren’t phones supposed to work? Well, yes. In theory. They are supposed to do their job of connecting one caller to another without fail. (And ideally without you asking them to.) But, we live in the real world, and sometimes that is not the case. We have issues such as dropped calls, slow connections between transfers, bad audio quality, and more. But, it is essential to ensure that all your customers are getting the most out of their experience when they call you.
Get a Vanity Phone Number.
Keep your business number private. Any reputable answering service will give you a vanity phone number that you can use. A vanity phone number is a phone number for your business that is not based on your ten-digit number. For example, your business number might be 123-456-789. Your vanity number might be (555) 123-456-789, or 123.456.789, or even 1-(555)-123-456-789. A vanity phone number makes incoming calls to your business more personal and is an important part of call tracking and call analytics technology.
Although it is unnecessary to have a vanity phone number, it will make life a lot easier. Vanity numbers are better at making sure that someone is available to answer, and it gives your business a more professional look. This number is also significant because it will be harder for thieves to steal your actual number. Finally, it’s easier for a scammer to call your exact number, but when you have a vanity phone number for your business, they have to know how to get in touch with you.
Finally, vanity numbers and toll-free lines are open 24 hours a day. Being available 24/7 is especially important if you’re going to use the vanity numbers and toll-free lines as “emergency” contact numbers because people won’t be able to reach you if they call and discover your business isn’t open.
Make Plans if Your Phone Goes Off Call Forwarding.
There’s a lot of things that can happen to your line that can disable call forwarding. It’s essential to know the difference in these situations. They all may affect what you need to do with your line.
You should also be aware that your provider won’t always be able to manually fix your line and forward it for you. So, if something goes wrong it’s best to have plans for if your phone goes off of call forwarding.
First, it is essential to consider the causes of an outage. These may include a disruption in phone service related to weather, environmental attributes, or phone provider coverage issues. Second, to resolve these issues, you may consider an on-call schedule. This guarantees that your answering service is aware of a disruption of service to forward all calls to a specific number. At a minimum, you should assign an emergency contact. That way, you can notify your contact if call forwarding fails. And, the same contact should receive all calls until services are restored.
Your phone is not just a tool; it’s your lifeline! You need to know that everything is going to work as it should. Having an answering service with call forwarding can help alleviate the stress of managing your customer experience with outstanding customer support. In addition, call forwarding can answer many of your business needs and add support during extended outages to ensure that your company’s communications stay up and running.
