Overflow Answering Service

Overflow Answering Service: Telephone Answering Service Support When You Are Unavailable

Traditionally companies have employed telephone answering services for after hour’s emergencies. In years past most offices would answer their own telephones during the day and have the answering service take over. Thanks to many advances in technology and telephony, answering service has gone beyond the one size fits all mentality. Many companies still use the answering service only on when their office is closed. Yet, others use the service to answer their calls 24 hours a day. In these types of cases the service will act as a receptionist, take messages, dispatch calls and even transfer callers directly to key personnel.

An overflow answering service is another way that a call center can be utilized. One of the newest and most exciting ways that companies utilize an answering service is to have the service handle overflow calls. In these cases companies will program a call forwarding variable so that calls will ring to the answering service if the office staff is unable to answer the phones in a certain amount of rings. These calls will then transfer to the overflow answering service. The service will act as office staff, answer calls and act appropriately on each call.

Getting Your Phone Calls to the Answering Service

Recently the telephone carriers began to offer call forwarding variables. These variables include two features that are vital to the use of an overflow answering service.

• No Answer Call Forwarding: No Answer Call Forwarding allows companies to redirect incoming calls to another phone number when the phone is not answered within a predetermined set of rings. If the company answers the phone within the set amount of rings, the phone call is not forwarded. The redirection on No Answer Call Forwarding remains in effect until the company cancels the forwarding option
• Busy Call Forwarding: Busy Call Forwarding allows companies to redirect incoming calls to another phone number when the phone is not answered due to a busy signal. If the phone line is free and the company answers the phone within the set amount of rings, the phone call is not forwarded. The redirection on Busy Call Forwarding remains in effect until the company cancels the forwarding option.

In addition to call forwarding methods, companies can also program their phone system to have unanswered phones transfer to an outside extension (the overflow answering service) as opposed to being transferred to voicemail.

We Help Save Phone Calls

An overflow answering service is a far more effective way to turn telephone calls into messages than a voicemail. Voicemail is only partially effective in capturing messages. Generally voice mail only has a thirty percent success ratio. That results in a seventy percent failure. An answering service success rate is two to three times more effective than voicemail.

Overflow Answering Service Saves Money

An overflow answering service is a great way to save valuable payroll dollars. By using an answering service to do the work of an extra employee can save a company thousands of dollars every month. In the case where a company’s phone traffic cannot be handled by one person, but two people is more than is necessary most times, an overflow call center is a dynamic solution.