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Small businesses often understand the way they handle calls isn’t effective, but aren’t aware of the options and implications. Here’s how your business can answer calls and the benefits of each:

Ring Everyone
The most basic setup is when a call comes in, every phone rings and everyone tries to pick up. This is common with 4 line business phones like the AT&T 1070 as they often aren’t capable of more advanced call routing. The advantage here is cost, the disadvantage is the concept doesn’t scale well and ends up distracting your staff with calls that aren’t for them.

Ring a Receptionist
A single receptionist routing calls out to extensions is a classic way to manage calls. The advantage is the personal touch and they can screen calls to protect the time of the staff. On the flip side people can really only talk to one person at a time leading to juggling calls, less than ideal service, and generally inefficient call routing. Bottom line is the value of a receptionist is to screen calls from highly valuable staff, if that’s not an issue then a receptionist probably isn’t the optimal solution.

Ring an Answering Group
Incoming calls ring a group of staff, this makes sense for service companies like HVAC or plumbing where most of the calls are for service appointments and anyone in the answering group (ring group) will be able to help answer questions and schedule appointments. If most incoming calls are for a certain group of people then this solution works well. Also a good idea in this situation is a call queue, so in cases where all your staff are busy on the phone it will keep callers in a queue for the next available person.

Autoattendant
Autoattendants often get a bad wrap due to their misuse by large corporations. Autoattendants are truly cost effective and efficient means of routing calls, callers can either dial an extension, listen to options, or use a dial by name directory to reach the right person/department. Autoattendants are usually the right option if the three options above aren’t right.

Direct Inward Dial (DID)
Direct Inward Dial is an option where each person/team has their own phone number which rings directly to their phone. This is commonly desirable for offices with independent sales staff, like real estate agents or mortgage brokers, who want to ensure their callers reach only them. I don’t like DIDs for more unified offices as customers tend to learn only one number - so they call their salesperson even when they need the accounting or service department. DIDs also have the disadvantage of generally using a T1/PRI for “carrier grade” service which is expensive for a very small office. Alternatively DIDs can be accomplished using VoIP without a T1 for less money but without the guarantees of call quality or service uptime.

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