Call Forwarding 101

Clients that hire new receptionists often have difficulty understanding how call forwarding works, along with how it relates to the answering service. In short, the call forwarding feature is a service provided by your local telephone company and has been available for about twenty years. It was incorporated into modern telephone digital switching technology during the 1980's.

This change replaced hard-wired “secretarial lines” eliminating the need for answering services to be physically located near a telephone company’s central office. Call-forwarding was a huge change for our industry. Answering services can now serve clients located anywhere in the country. Initially, it took time to catch on as people had to understand and learn how to use it.

Now call-forwarding has evolved further into a value added feature called “Ultra Forwarding.” Ultra Forwarding allows you to forward your calls from any phone line. Standard forwarding requires you to use the phone line that you wish to activate and cancel call forwarding. Ultra Forwarding is beneficial in case you are not at your office when the phone lines need to be forwarded to the service.
Once your office calls are forwarded to us, you cannot answer them until you deactivate call-forwarding. You will receive a short ring to remind you that your line is forwarded, but the call itself is switched instantly by the phone company over to us. Call-forwarding is a monthly recurring charge that will appear on your local telephone bill. It may be incorporated into a “package” of calling features and not separately itemized. Any toll charges to forward the call are charged to the forwarded number. For many clients, the recurring monthly charge for the call-forwarding service is the only additional cost and no toll-charges need apply.

You must have call-forwarding enabled on your main business number in order to use this feature. It is only necessary to forward the main published number, the number that you give to your clients to reach you, usually the main line. Simultaneous calls normally transfer to us without the second caller receiving a busy signal. Make some test calls using a couple of cell phones and check to see that both calls go through. If the second call gets a busy signal, contact your local phone company business office and ask to have one or two additional “talk paths” added to your line.

In most areas to activate call forwarding, just lift the receiver and press *72.

After you hear a second dial tone, enter the phone number that you wish to forward your calls. Then, wait for us to answer. Let us know you have forwarded your lines to the service, who is on call and when you will be returning. It is highly recommended to confirm your call forwarding has been activated successfully. You can do so by using an alternate phone line and dialing the number you wish to be forwarded. In the event you cannot get call forwarding to activate, try cancelling call forwarding and then re-forward your line. When you cancel call forwarding, it will reset your line.

In most areas to cancel call forwarding, just lift the receiver and press *73.

Two tones tell you call forwarding is off.