4 Call Forwarding Strategies to Manage Calls Faster

 

We’re all familiar with how useful call forwarding can be for handling business calls. You can give customers one central phone number to call, and then send the call to pretty much anywhere you want, depending on how good the system you’re using is.

No matter how capable your system is, though, it’s really only as good as your forwarding strategy. How you’re routing calls can make all the difference.

 

1. Ringing All of Your Phones Simultaneously

The classic method of forwarding calls to your phones by ringing them all at the same time is effective because calls are more likely to be answered quickly. It’s uncomplicated and direct—someone calls in, and somebody will answer.

 

2. Ring Each Phone in a Specific Order

There are usually going to be members of your staff who take calls more often than others because that’s their role, and those are the people to whom you want to send calls first. This is a case in which it’s much better to forward calls to each of your phones in a certain sequence.

Not only will calls reach the right staff members first, but it also allows you to add less active staff at the end of the sequence as a reserve, in case the call goes unanswered.

 

3. Set Forwarding Schedules for Each Phone

Many businesses have multiple employees who are only available to answer phones at certain times, and if those times vary from one employee to another, then it can present complications.

This is when a scheduled forwarding strategy can be immensely helpful. With a Talkroute system, for example, you can create custom schedules for each of your phones, so that they only receive calls during the times when they are available.

 

4. Utilizing Conditional Forwarding

This is one of the most practical and commonly used types of call forwarding for businesses, even though they may not even realize that this is what they are doing. A “conditional forward” generally means to ring a primary phone for a certain amount of time, and then forward the call elsewhere if unanswered.

It’s really useful when you want to send calls to a receptionist first, for example, and then ring other phones if that person can’t get to the call.

 

 

Call forwarding has been around for quite a while now and is considered to be a staple of call management. The method is not new, but the technology that supports forwarding functions has advanced a great deal, enabling businesses to route calls to any destination, in almost any configuration.