Call Forwarding: Best Practices

 

With mobile or remote workforces growing more and more common, call forwarding features allowed by a hosted VoIP system can do companies and their out-of-office employees a world of good if utilized properly.

Rather than juggling work and personal numbers for each employee, business VoIP solutions allow employees to route their incoming calls from their preferred phone number to any location so they can be as efficient as possible when out of the office. With call forwarding features available site-wide and also at the employee level, we’ve listed different ways businesses and their employees can customize their call experience to maximize business contact and productivity.

 

How to Use Call Forwarding Successfully

Featured in our How to Use Call Forward on VoIP blog, we’ve highlighted four core call-forwarding settings employees have access to: Always, Busy, No Answer, and Selective. Each of these four settings have their specific benefits as they pertain to the mobile agent and his or her particular situation or availability. Whether an employee needs to manage a high volume of incoming calls, needs an out-of-office routing solution, or simply prefers a more customizable approach to their availability, one of these four call forwarding settings are bound to put every call in their right place.

 

Call Forwarding (Busy) Best Practices – In a nutshell, employees can reroute incoming calls to an alternative number in the event their primary number is busy.

This setting is common for employees who are often on the phone but don’t necessarily want the incoming caller to go to voicemail. That said, we recommend that employees route those calls to another colleague who may be available to potentially close a deal, record important information, set a meeting, or achieve any other notable outcome.

 

Call Forwarding (Always) Best Practices – This feature is most commonly used to route incoming calls to an employee’s mobile phone instead of their office phone.

Like all the call forwarding features, employees can choose to activate this feature by dialing a feature access code into their phone or through the web-based user portal beforehand any time they’re out of the office. We think it’s best that employees have this feature set to ring their cell phone number at all times in the event they’re traveling, at a work site, or simply out to lunch. That way, employees will always be reachable and professional, even when they’ve got mustard running down their shirt.

 

Call Forwarding (No Answer) Best Practices – Call Forward No Answer allows employees to route incoming calls wherever they choose if they’re unable to answer the original call.

This feature is the most common feature for employees as it’s the most versatile and used often. For newcomers adopting VoIP, we recommend having this feature configured and enabled at all times in order to maximize potentially important contact. Rather than letting valuable calls live in a voicemail box (and therefore delaying a potential sale, opportunity, or other important information), employees will be able to quickly and actively attend to those calls.

 

Call Forwarding (Selective) Best Practices ­– Allowing users to fine-tune the criteria in which a call is forwarded, this feature is most useful for employees that have more specific requirements for a forwarded call. Mobile workers can adjust the settings based on incoming line identity, time of day, day of week, and multiple other criteria to ensure their specific needs are precisely met.

Our advice? Based on your preferences, think about when and where you’ll be throughout the week, as well as if you’d like to be reachable over weekends and holidays. After that, make your adjustments accordingly.

 

Want more call forwarding tips? Let’s chat.