Did you know there are several call forwarding tools that can eliminate the risk of ever missing a call? These options can eliminate on-call headaches while ensuring that you never miss an opportunity to serve a family who calls on your funeral home.
No Answer Call Forwarding
Through your local phone company, you can set your phone line to ring a certain number of times and then forward to ASD. This option guarantees if you can’t get to the phone, or you forget to forward your lines, someone will always answer your calls. We recommend setting your line to ring 4 times before forwarding to us. These call forwarding features provided peace of mind to many funeral homes who lost power during major weather events in the past. Their calls were automatically forwarded to ASD after their phone lines went down so they had one less thing to worry about during the storm.
If you’re not sure if you already have this feature, it is easy to test. Simply call your main phone line from your cell phone during your regular office hours. Make sure no one in your building answers the line. What happens to your call? If your call was answered by ASD after it stopped ringing at your location, you have this feature successfully enabled. However, if your call rang forever, went to a voicemail, or was eventually disconnected, your Funeral Home is at risk. You do not have “No Answer Call Forwarding”. We recommend you call your phone company today and order this feature.
To order No Answer Call Forwarding, contact your local phone company and ask to add this feature to your account. You will need to provide them with your ASD call forwarding number and specify the number of rings to allow. We recommend setting your “No Answer Call Forwarding” to 4 rings. Be sure to enable No Answer Call Forwarding for every phone line at your funeral home that a family may call.
Multi-Channel Call Forwarding
Are you aware that you could be losing business due to restrictions from your local phone company? Many phone companies will not forward multiple calls at the same time to ASD or to your cell phone unless you request it. This means if two callers happen to dial your funeral home’s number at the same time while your lines are diverted, one of the callers will hear a fast busy signal or error message.
ASD has the ability to answer 1 to 100 of your calls simultaneously but this feature must first be set up by contacting your local phone company. Tell them you would like to have the ability to forward multiple calls at once. This feature is known in some areas as Multi-Channel Call Forwarding. You can easily test if your phones are protected first by following these steps:
1) Call forward your main phone line.
2) From other MULTIPLE phone lines, simultaneously place calls to your call forwarded main phone line. If all calls are answered, you have Multi-Channel Forwarding enabled. If you receive a busy signal or an error message, contact your local phone company to add this feature.
Ultra Call Forwarding
After a long day, it is easy to forget something on your way out of the office. Whether we leave behind a sweater or forget to turn off a light switch, the consequence is usually minor. For funeral directors that forget to forward their phone lines before leaving the office, the resulting outcome can be much more serious. The hassle of having to drive all the way back to the office, coupled with the anxiety of knowing an urgent call could come in at any time, is a steep price to pay for such a small oversight. If this has happened to you, it’s time to contact your local phone company and ask them to enable Ultra Call Forwarding for your line. This gives you the ability to divert your phone lines from anywhere, giving you more flexibility to do business on the go and saving you from unnecessary trips.
