subject: What Is Time Of Day Routing? How Can It Improve Call Handling Efficiency For My Business? [print this page] Time of day routing is a service that allows you to route incoming calls to your non geographic number to different destinations depending on the time of the day. For example, during office hours you may decide that the calls must be answered by staff who are in the office. During out of office hours you may choose to route these calls to anther location that is staffed so that you are able to provide uninterrupted 24/7 service to customers.
An online call management system will allow you to configure different call flow patterns for incoming calls. The calls will take these preconfigured routes during specified times of the day. With time of day routing, the caller can be welcomed with a customised message, and routed to the preferred destination. You may also route the calls to a voice mail if you are unable to answer calls during a certain time. All of these are configurable not just by time of the day, but also different times of the week as well.
When a call is received, the first thing that the service does is look at the normal hours of the setting. If the time is valid, ie. if the call was received during the normal working hours as specified in the setting, it is routed to the user. The call may also be routed to the hunt group if the first user is unavailable or busy. The hunt group then performs the relevant checks within the predefined destination numbers within the group till the call is answered.
Time of Day Routing allows businesses to change the destination of calls for a single number at different times of day. You can make a schedule of time intervals depending on which of the calls need to be routed to different destinations. The intervals can actually be as small as minutes. The schedule can apply seven days a week unless other call routing patterns are set for the weekend or during holidays.
Time of day routing also allows you to have different start and finish times for office hours. You need not worry about whether the calls will be treated appropriately because regardless of when the customers call, you can have a predefined plan set in place to deal with the call appropriately. This smartens the way you deal with calls.
Time of day routing is available with all number ranges provided by telecommunication providers such as Numbertalk. To know more about the feature and 0845 Numbers, 0800 numbers, 0844 Numbers, premium rate numbers, freephone numbers and 03 numbers, visit their website.
