Hang Up Notification Lets You Know
When You Have Missed a Call

When a business owner calls and wants to talk about a Virtual Receptionist for his business we help him decide what is best for his business, an Auto Attendant, a Backup Attendant or just voice mail. They work in different ways and solve different problems for each business.

"Please hang up and call your pharmacy. They will contact us on your behalf if necessary..." This single phrase was the response to 70 percent of the calls to a local medical office I setup this past week. The physician in the office told me her lines (and her staff) were to busy answering the phone and repeating that phrase to take care of patients in the office.

Routing for IT support calls can be hard to manage. Internal phone systems can direct calls to an extension when someone makes a selection. And it may be able to ring several phones at once so all of the support staff can take turns with calls. But after hours are a different issue. Routing calls to a single phone after hours may not be a good option. Rotating calls to the support staff cell phones is the solution.

We just finished a Virtual Receptionist system for a real estate team of three women that are specialists in short sales. They needed one central phone number to advertise on their brochures, website, cards and property signs. The number had to give caller the options to reach each of them and rings their cell phone or get information about their business (office location, website, fax number etc.).

Large medical office have phone systems that can password protect a voice mailbox for physicians so patients may leave messages with confidential health information. Small offices have a dilemma

I was contacted by an office manager for a doctors office and she was trying to figure out how to add an auto attendant to the office phone system. She had many quotes for new office equipment and all much too expensive and complex for their needs. After talking for a few minutes we had just the solution she needed without changing her equipment.

Phone systems have limitations that may choke a small business. During normal call situations a small business phone system should be capable of handling several calls at once. If the system can't manage more than a couple of calls then the system may be loosing customers.

Do you know haw many calls you are missing? If you line is busy and someone gets your voice mail do you get notified? We have a new feature for our clients, Hang Up Notification. This new feature will send an email to you, as if the caller had left a message.

Small business phone systems quite often fall short when handling calls after a business is closed. They do not give the caller options to efficiently resolve the issue they are calling for. For some offices a simple voicemail will suffice for most of the calls. The caller can hear the office hours and leave a general voice message that someone will check in the morning.

Many phone companies have basic call routers called Centrex. They are a very simplified PBX allowing their customers to have basic call routing to phones in an office without having an internal phone system. These Centrex services usually have a single recorded menu and have hard coded call routing to the phones in the office.