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Did you ever wonder where the digits in your phone number come from, and what they mean? As you probably suspected, each segment has a reason for being there. Like most codes, it contains information in each part that allows it to function properly and to send your call to the right place. If you dial a phone number using even one digit more or less than the exact code (we’ve all tried it), then you quickly find that it simply doesn’t work. While we take it for granted that phone numbers work and don’t really think about how this number connects our call, the system is made possible by those groups of numbers working together in just the right way. Now you can finally understand what each part of the phone number means, and what it does. Call it Like it Is First things first—let’s name each part of …

  Your business depends on your phones, possibly more than any other system you have. Whether by network malfunction or act of God, there is no way to predict when the phones may go temporarily out of service—but you can prepare for it. Why leave it to chance?   Talkroute forwards your calls to any phone and any provider; that means you can use your cell phone, landline, or any other phone to take business calls while your primary system is down.   You can have a fully functional phone system that requires next to no maintenance, on deck and ready for those times when your primary phones unexpectedly go out.   HERE’S HOW IT WORKS   Pick a local or toll free number from our library of phone numbers, or transfer an existing number to Talkroute, which will serve as your main backup business line.   Add forwarding phones …

Many of the terms associated with telephony are self-explanatory and familiar, but occasionally you’ll hear one that you’re not quite sure of, which is why we’ve compiled a short list of commonly used phone system terms. If you’re already a Talkroute user, this will also help you understand your system. Please feel free to leave a comment below if you’re wondering about a term that isn’t listed here. Forwarding Phone Number As part of a virtual phone system such as Talkroute, your forwarding numbers are all the phones to which calls are routed. When calls come into the main line, they are routed to the forwarding numbers—these are the phones that will actually ring. Virtual Phone Number or Talkroute Phone Number Your main business line with a Talkroute account is your virtual number, otherwise referred to as your Talkroute number. You may have multiple Talkroute numbers on a single account, …

When you first hear about virtual phone numbers, you might be a little apprehensive about using them for your business because it seems as if this is an entirely different kind of number, but it actually works just the same, and in some ways better than a number you would get from a phone company. A virtual number is not a soft phone number, it is not a VoIP number, and it is even more versatile than a conventional number. A virtual number works just like the numbers you’re used to. When you say, “virtual number”, it sounds like it’s not quite a real number, or that there’s something strange about it, but this is not the case. You receive calls in the same way, and when someone calls your virtual number, they will be instantly connected to you from anywhere, as you would expect. They can also be local …

VoIP is an acronym that sounds weird at first—“vŏy’p”—but is actually fairly straightforward in application. It stands for Voice Over Internet Protocol, which, in the simplest of terms, means the type of phone service that works over an internet connection. To be clear, VoIP is the prevailing method of internet telephony that floated to the surface after around 20 years of a varied succession of attempts to make internet calls accessible to consumers, and I am admittedly glancing over many stages of its development. This type of phone connection has become increasingly popular in recent years due to its low cost to the user and its versatility for business, as well as personal use. It’s possible that you have used a VoIP connection without even realizing it. Have you ever used Skype? That’s a VoIP call—and in fact, they’re one of the companies who made it famous. VoIP phones have …

Though the connection is virtually instantaneous when you call someone, there is a surprising number of operations that have to take place before the call completes. Each of these operations is vital, sometimes quite complex, and they all happen in a fraction of a second. In this article, we will explore one type of call that, if you’re a Talkroute user, you’re probably very familiar with—an outgoing call from your Talkroute mobile app. Using your cell phone as a business line. As one of our specialties at Talkroute, the system makes it easy for business owners who have a cell phone that doubles as a business phone. The mobile app was created so that you are the only one who knows that you’re calling from a mobile phone. To your customers, you could be sitting at a desk in your office, wielding the handset attached to your corded desk phone—which …

Managing and transferring customer calls is a vital aspect of customer service. Not only do you have to provide helpful and accurate information to assist customers on the phone, but you have to make sure that, if you must transfer the call, that it actually gets through to the next agent and that the customer is taken care of throughout the process. The following are some points (obvious as they may seem) that will help you and your team to provide great customer service, even during a transfer. #1 Don’t hang up. On behalf of those of us who have been dropped by an agent while waiting on hold, please avoid this at all costs. Not only will it infuriate your caller, but if they hear a dial tone instead of being successfully transferred, you might have just lost this person’s business. It seems to me that while most of …

  This post will start with a few quick rules-of-thumb to help you create a professional and effective call menu. If you don’t have time for my rhetoric, then please feel free to skip down to the good stuff.   When labeling menu options, be concise and get to the point. Like a voicemail greeting, a good menu prompt immediately tells the caller where this option will send them and quickly states what number they should press.   Don’t be afraid to add more specific options, rather than fewer, general options. Most people are willing to wait just a little bit longer for the right prompt, and even if you only have 2 agents, you can break the menu into a bunch of specific departments and route multiple options to the same agent.   Use a calm and even tone. In the same way that callers on hold react better …