How many times did you experience bad telephonic service and had to on hold for a long time? The pulse sound is sure to annoy anyone. As a business owner, you need to avoid this at all costs. A good call should have customers satisfied at the end, engaged throughout, and help them feel important. All their doubts must be clarified, and they must be persuaded to avail of your service. One needs to learn how to call forward to ensure a good flow of service and avoid the clashing of multiple lines.
With the development in technology, features like call forwarding have become essential to maintain interaction. More than 96% of consumers prefer telephonic service. To help keep your work and life separated and use many devices for the same number.
This ultimate call forwarding guide will help you do the following:
Small business entrepreneurs efficiently manage incoming calls
Guide you through the different features when it comes to calling forwarding
Help increase customers by keeping them satisfied.
What is Call Forwarding?
Call forwarding is a phone management feature that helps direct and forwards an incoming line of calls to a different line or alternate number as per requirement. In businesses and offices where there are many incoming calls simultaneously, this is a desirable feature to manage the hoard of calls.
The featured helps agents from companies to divert calls to a different destination with a short hold period. For businesses using Voice Over Internet Protocol and cable telephone systems, call forwarding helps to connect other devices. A preset menu can precede the feature with dial pad configuration, network message, music on hold, and distinct ring signals.
How is Call Forwarding important?
Customer service is an essential goal of any business. A telephonic conversation helps in better engagement for interaction with clarity. To maintain a good relationship with customers, smooth operation and informative communication are important. You need to create a positive impression on the customers for a profitable impact on the business.
For effective customer satisfaction, one must answer customer calls immediately with a proper greeting. The agent should deliberately pay attention to what they have to say and intently listen to their customers and their problems or inquiries. Once done, they should respond politely with proper information and make sure that they understand and get their answers.
When a customer calls for an inquiry or complaint, the following can make them disappointed/ unsatisfied:
Long hold time
Constant redirection
Confusion in the automated menu
Late answering or not answering calls
Rude conversation
Call diversion increases a company’s availability to their callers. In unfortunate circumstances, where call diverts to voicemail are common, the business loses customers. Most of the callers do not want to leave prerecorded messages.
They prefer live answering and conversation as they suspect the company won’t return their calls with efficiency. Hence, call forwarding is a beneficial feature for any business.
Examples of Call Forwarding
Call forwarding is essentially made up of two calls. They get connected by your service provider. The incoming call comes from the customer to the company, and the company redirects the call to the desired destination constituting the outgoing call. They both get bridged together, and the person calling reaches the destination to talk to the executive.
The company pays for the outgoing call in the forwarding service. Using a virtual or online number for the forwarding purpose helps in the easier and effective diversion.
Examples of call forwarding include, but are not limited to:
Out of scheduled hours or outside the office, when the office phone isn’t accessible, one can forward the call to their phone, home line, or the agent directly.
If no one is available to answer the call, it can finally be directed to voicemail. There can be a voicemail greeting and thorough reassurance that the business will listen to their message and get back with a proper solution or the necessary information.
When a business gets many calls simultaneously, the different lines can be forwarded to the needed destinations for efficient customer service.
How to do Call Forwarding?
Even for your personal mobile number, there are usually many calls meant for colleagues or business inquiries. In such cases, here’s how to set up call forwarding for your android phone.
Open the phone app and click on the menu button.
Select Settings and press on Calls.
Tap on Call forwarding to open a menu with several options, including:
Always forward: If you choose this option, any and every call will get directed to the selected secondary number.
When busy: if this option is selected, calls get forwarded when your line is already engaged.
Forward when left unanswered: If you don’t pick the call, this option directs the call to your secondary number.
When not reachable: This option forwards calls if your network doesn’t have access to the proper network, your phone is on airplane mode or turned off.
Enable and turn on the forwarding for your Android device.
How to forward calls to a number?
For your device, follow the steps mentioned above and enter your secondary number to forward the incoming calls.
Sometimes, you’ll need to forward the calls to your personal number or a business executive’s number for important investor calls or clientele service out of office hours. For this, you can forward calls from your business number directly to the other number.
To set this up,
Use your business number to dial *72.
Once you hear the normal dial tone again, enter the destination number you want to forward all the calls to.
For long-distance calls, add a 1 in front of the number for extra charges.
Wait for a ring at the secondary number.
Pick the call from the device to turn on call forwarding for your business number.
If the line is busy, unavailable, or can’t pick up the call, repeat the steps.
How to forward calls to voicemail?
When you can’t answer calls or prefer to take a look at them later, you can direct them to voicemail for the caller to leave a message. You can listen to them later and get back to the caller.
To forward a particular number’s call on your android device,
Open the contact of the person and open the menu.
From the options, select to send calls directly to voicemail.
Any calls from the number will be directed to voicemail. This can be done for any number of contacts for callers to record a message.
Use the do not disturb mode from your device settings or access it quickly from the control center for your iPhone or iPad.
By turning on airplane mode the same way, all calls get forwarded to voice mail.
In your iPhone settings app,
Select the phone app
Silence unknown calls to send all unknown numbers to voicemail.
This feature is especially useful for business entrepreneurs who get a lot of spam calls.
Depending on your network provider, you can access specialized codes and dial them to enable the voicemail feature.
Also, you can get a special voicemail number from your service provider. After that:
Open your settings app, select the settings for the phone app.
Click on call forwarding and click on forward to.
Enter the new voicemail number to enable redirection.
How to forward calls to multiple users?
For any business, customers will have a wide range of reasons to call. Inquiries, complaints, clarifications, and information all can’t be handled by the same executive. In an office setting, all the calls need to reach the assigned agents. A business needs to get a virtual online number from a cloud service provider to achieve this.
By getting virtual online numbers, one can access various features, including customization of the automated menu, call forwarding and redirection, call scheduling, demographic analytics, and recording. It helps in better organization, overall ease, and better customer service and satisfaction.
It uses a broadband connection for calls; it’s easily portable and can operate and redirect multiple lines at once. The number can be connected to several devices at once, in the office, and to many personal devices – laptops, PCs, phones, and landlines.
Cloud services like LimeCall also provide auto attending features to prevent longer hold time for customers. They offer a personalized business menu with the inclusion of frequently asked questions for quick solutions and automatically routes callers to specific agents without needing a receptionist in between.
Step by Step Guide on How to Forward Calls
As business owners, our personal contact numbers and virtual contact number might end up tangled with each other. Hence call forward is a desirable feature to have on your phone. While on an important colleague, investor, or sponsor call, other lines may interfere with the call. This is how to forward calls on your landline when busy to avoid this:
Wait for the dial tone and call *90
Once you hear another dial tone dial the number, you want to direct calls to.
The feature is now activated, and all calls get forwarded to the 2nd number whenever your line is engaged. To deactivate the call forwarding, dial *91 and wait for a confirmation tone.
When you’re unable to answer calls, there’s an option to redirect an unanswered incoming call to another designated number. To activate this feature,
Wait for the dial tone and call *92
Once you hear another dial tone, dial the number you want to forward the call to.
Now any unanswered call can be forwarded to the second number. To deactivate the redirection. Dial *93 and wait for a confirmation tone.
Depending on your service provider, you can also forward calls from your personal number to your business number when you don’t have access to the proper network.
When your number is not reachable or if your mobile is switched off, the incoming calls get forwarded to the selected number. To activate this feature:
Wait for the dial tone and dial *58
An automated menu will explain all the different options, including activation, deactivation, editing, and changing numbers.
Select activation, then add your desired number to enable the feature.
All calls get redirected to your business or secondary number if your number is unavailable. To deactivate the feature, dial *59 and select deactivation from the menu options.
Sometimes some calls need to be redirected to certain numbers or your virtual business number for better service.
Instead of individually selecting contacts, you can enable the feature by:
After you hear the dial tone, dial *63.
An automated menu will explain the various features.
Use the prompt to activate the feature.
Enter all numbers whose calls need to be redirected.
Enter the secondary number you want to forward the calls to.
Any calls from the selected numbers will directly be forwarded to the selected number. To deactivate the feature, dial *83 and use the prompt “3”.
For business landlines and toll-free numbers, and other virtual online numbers, phone management is very important. Customer calls need to be forwarded to the required agents or executives. The simultaneous lines of calls from customers and partners need to be quickly and efficiently forwarded and redirected.
To enable call forwarding on your business number,
Browse through plans: look into plans from your service provider and other providers if needed. Find the right plan that has all your desired features.
Look for add ons: some extras can be added to make your call forwarding suitable for customers. Find the right ones from your provider and consider their uses and if they’ll help customer service.
Set-up: After selecting your plan, you’ll have to specify the options in the menu and addition of frequently asked questions for time management. Once done, collaborate with the team to decide where the calls need to be directed.
Benefits of Call Forwarding
As every business’s objective is to enhance customer experience, we need to ensure lucrative communication methods while making our job easier. Understanding how to call forward from your business line enables easier accessibility and ensures versatility for callers. Call forwarding also helps in the better distinction of personal and professional lives.
The technology used can also reduce the number of handling staff needed to work on the call. With automatic redirection and simple prompts, customers can be assisted to choose the right agent for solving their problem, answering their questions, and offered other services without an answering agent.
With call forwarding, one doesn’t need to physically connect with any business or make multiple calls. With their direct inward dial (did) number, they can simply be forwarded to many lines without charges or having to make many calls. This, therefore, increases productivity. More calls can be answered in a shorter period, ensuring that no query goes unanswered.
By learning how to call forward your business number, you can explain your company’s presence and make it accessible worldwide. Customers find it easier to have one number related to your business and carry on from there. Uses a toll-free number that can be called worldwide is a great plus point for customers.
To benefit you and your colleagues, you don’t have to reschedule any family time or holiday reservations. Everyone needs a break, and call forwarding can help you do that. You can either forward all calls from the person’s line to other available staff or forward inevitable calls to their devices wherever they are.
Expert Tips on Call Forwarding
To take the use of call forwarding to the next level, a few expert tips and tricks can do the job. You can help elevate your phone management and customer satisfaction many folds by:
Test and trail: Discuss with your provider about their forwarding protocol to check if it’s suitable for your company and target demographic. Some complicated and time-consuming procedures might affect the quality of telephonic service. Before subscribing to a full-time plan, have a short testing period to see if it checks all the boxes. The trial services from various companies also help in the same.
Choose the perfect plan: With the availability of various plans on the market, looking through the pros and cons of choosing the right type for you helps a ton. Be familiar with the options provided before committing.
Make it user-friendly: The message guide for the menu should be simple for customers to understand. The prompts should be clear, and there should be a clear division of possible areas. The hold time should be kept short, and monotonous ringing should be avoided during forwarding. Instead, playing pleasant music or reciting attractive offers help.
Limecall as a call Forwarding tool
With a number of providers in the market, choosing the right one for your business might be consuming. Companies like LimeCall offer various services along with call forwarding that may help out the overall contact management for your company.
Along with Interactive Voice Response (IVR) guides, you can personalize welcome greetings and the menu. They also help in data capture, management, and instant web conversations. For easier recording and access to analytics, such services come in real handy.
Conclusion:
For any business entrepreneur that values efficient management and top-tier service, choosing trustworthy service providers helps utilize the best call forwarding features available in the market.
Check the various options and select suitable plans
Ensure that interaction turns callers into customers
Handle multi-forwarding with ease.
, July 10, 2021, Team LimeCall
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