Start here
The building blocks #
Phone systems are made of a small number of parts that slot together. Once you can name the parts, the rest of this guide is straightforward.
| Part | What it is |
|---|---|
| Number | A phone number the outside world dials. You may have one, or twenty. |
| Extension | One person, or one desk. The short internal number colleagues dial. |
| Menu | The recorded “press 1 for sales” options. Also called an IVR or auto attendant. |
| Ring group | A set of extensions that ring together, or one after another. |
| Queue | A holding line, where callers wait for the next free person. |
| Time condition | The rule that decides whether you are open, so calls go somewhere different at night. |
| Voicemail | Where a call ends up when nobody takes it. |
A call flows through these in order. It arrives on a number, hits a time condition to check whether you are open, may go through a menu, lands on a group or a queue, and if nobody answers it finishes at voicemail.
The parts
Extensions and numbers #
The distinction here trips people up constantly, and it is worth thirty seconds.
An extension is internal. It is the short number your colleagues dial to reach you, and it is attached to a person rather than to a device. A number is external, and it is what the outside world dials.
They are not tied together. You can have twelve staff and one phone number, or five staff and twenty numbers. An extension only gets its own external number if you specifically want it to, which is called giving someone a direct dial.
| You want | What that means |
|---|---|
| One main number | Everything comes in on one number and is routed by a menu or a group. Simple and common. |
| Direct dials | Individuals get their own external number. Good for salespeople and account managers. |
| Department numbers | A separate number for sales, accounts and support, each going straight to the right team. |
| Marketing numbers | A different number on each advert or campaign, so you can see what is working. |
Because the extension belongs to a person rather than a desk, they can be logged in on a desk phone, a computer and a mobile at the same time. All three ring, and they answer wherever they happen to be.
The parts
Menus, or press 1 for sales #
The recorded menu a caller hears. The formal name is an IVR, or auto attendant. It is the most visible part of a phone system and the easiest to overdo.
A menu answers the call, plays a greeting, and waits for the caller to press a key. Each key sends the call somewhere: an extension, a group, a queue, another menu, or voicemail.
What to tell us
- The greeting. Write it out word for word, the way you want it read.
- The options. Which key goes where.
- What happens if they press nothing. Usually the call goes to a default group, which is important for callers on an old rotary phone or those who simply are not listening.
- What happens if they press something wrong. Normally the menu repeats once, then falls through to reception.
Menus that lead to more menus are the most reliable way to annoy a caller. Four options at the top and nothing underneath is almost always better than a tree. If you find yourself needing a second level, that is usually a sign the first level is wrong.
“For sales, press 1” works better than “press 1 for sales”. People are listening for what they want, not for the digits, and they stop paying attention once they hear it.
Greetings can be recorded professionally, or by someone in your office. A clear recording from a quiet room on a decent microphone is perfectly fine and sounds more human than most stock voiceovers.
The parts
Ring groups and queues #
These sound like the same thing and behave completely differently. Getting the choice right matters more than almost anything else on the form.
A ring group
A set of extensions that ring when a call arrives. If nobody answers, the call moves on to wherever you have said, usually voicemail. There is no waiting: the caller either gets a person or gets the next step.
Ring groups can ring their members in different ways:
| Style | Behaviour | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| All at once | Every phone in the group rings together. | Small teams where anyone can help. |
| In order | The first person, then the second, then the third. | When there is a clear order of preference. |
| In turn | Starts with whoever is next in rotation. | Sharing the load evenly. |
| Longest idle | Rings whoever has gone longest without a call. | Fairness in a busy team. |
A queue
A queue holds callers in line. They hear music or a message, they can be told their position, and they are connected to the next person who becomes free. Nobody is dropped to voicemail simply because everyone was busy at that moment.
Queues also give you things a ring group cannot:
- People can log in and out, so calls stop ringing someone who is on a break or in a meeting.
- Callers can be told how long they are likely to wait, or where they are in the line.
- You get real numbers on how many calls came in, how long people waited, and how many gave up.
- An escape route, so a caller can press a key to leave a message rather than keep holding.
If your team is small and calls are answered quickly, a ring group is simpler and perfectly adequate. If callers regularly find everyone busy, or you want to know how long people are waiting, you want a queue.
A rough rule: under five people and calls almost always answered, use a ring group. Anything busier, use a queue.
A queue where everyone has logged out is worse than no queue at all, because callers wait for people who are not there. If you use queues, someone needs to own the habit of logging in each morning. See the next section.
The parts
Logging in and out of a queue #
If you are in a queue, you can take yourself in and out of it. This is the single most useful thing for anyone who takes calls as part of a team.
Logged in, queue calls ring your phone. Logged out, they skip you and go to your colleagues, while direct calls to your extension still come through as normal. It is not do not disturb, and it is not a divert. It only affects the queue.
When to log out
- Lunch, breaks, and the school run.
- Meetings, and any time you are away from your desk for a while.
- When you need an hour of concentration on something that is not the phone.
- At the end of your shift, if your team covers different hours.
Staying logged in while away from your desk is what produces callers who hold for four minutes and then hang up. The system is doing exactly what it was told: waiting for you. Log out when you step away, and back in when you return.
How you do it depends on your phone. On the softphone there is a toggle, and on most desk phones it can be put on a button so it is one press. Tell us who is in queues and we will set that up rather than leaving people to remember a code.
If you run queues, a live view showing how many callers are waiting, how long the longest has been holding, and who is logged in changes how a team behaves. It can go on a screen in the office or in a browser tab for a supervisor. Ask us if you would like one.
The parts
Business hours and out of hours #
The system knows what time it is and can behave differently when you are closed. This is usually the quickest win on a new phone system.
You tell us when you are open, and what should happen when you are not. Common answers:
- A closed message, then voicemail delivered to an inbox.
- A different message at the weekend to the one on a weekday evening.
- Calls diverted to a mobile, for an on call rota or an emergency line.
- A message giving your opening times and pointing people at your website.
Worth setting up while you are at it
- Lunch. If you close over lunch, say so, rather than leaving callers ringing an empty office.
- Bank holidays. These can be handled separately from weekends, with their own message. Worth doing once so you never think about it again.
- Christmas. Tell us the dates and we will set the message in advance.
- An override. A code or a button that forces the system into closed mode, for snow days or an unexpected early finish. Very handy, rarely asked for.
The manual override is the feature people wish they had asked for. Being able to put the phones into night mode from a handset, without ringing us, is worth having on the day the building loses power.
Using it
Everyday call handling #
The things everyone uses, on a handset or on the softphone.
| What | What it does |
|---|---|
| Blind transfer | Sends the call straight to a colleague. Quick, but if they are away the caller comes back to you or goes to voicemail. |
| Attended transfer | You speak to the colleague first, explain who is calling, then connect them. Almost always the better experience. |
| Hold | Parks the caller with music. They stay attached to your phone. |
| Call park | Puts the caller in a numbered slot that anyone can pick up from any phone. Ideal when you need to find someone in a warehouse. |
| Forwarding | Sends your calls elsewhere, always or only when you do not answer. Useful when working away. |
| Do not disturb | Stops your phone ringing at all. Remember to turn it off. |
| Intercom and paging | Speak through the speaker on one phone or a group of them, without them answering. |
| Conference | Add a third person to a call, or use a dedicated conference room number. |
| Busy lamp keys | Buttons on a handset showing whether a colleague is free, ringing or on a call. One press to transfer to them. Essential for a receptionist. |
The single biggest improvement most businesses can make to how they sound on the phone is to stop blind transferring. Twenty seconds telling a colleague who is on the line saves the caller repeating themselves, and stops them being dumped into a voicemail box they did not ask for.
Using it
Recording, reporting and the rest #
Things that are available, that you may or may not want, and that are much easier to switch on at the start than to retrofit.
Call recording
Calls can be recorded, either everything or only certain extensions and queues. It is common in sales and in anything regulated, and useful for training.
Recording calls brings UK GDPR obligations. You need a lawful basis, you need to tell people they are being recorded, you need to decide how long recordings are kept, and you need to be able to find and provide a recording if someone asks for it.
We can switch it on and set retention. Deciding whether you should, and telling your callers, is yours. Ask us and we will talk it through.
Reporting
You can see how many calls came in and out, when your busy periods are, how many callers gave up while waiting, and how long people spent on the phone. Reports can be scheduled to arrive by email.
Most businesses find the answer to “when are we actually busy?” more useful than anything else the phone system produces, because it is usually not when they thought.
Voicemail to email
Messages arrive in an inbox as an audio file, so they can be listened to on a phone, forwarded to a colleague and dealt with without dialling in. We turn this on by default because almost nobody checks a voicemail box the old way.
Other things worth knowing exist
- Hot desking. Log in to any handset in the building and it becomes your extension.
- Blacklists. Block a persistent nuisance caller.
- Custom hold music. Your own recording rather than the default.
- CRM integration. The system can pop up the customer record when they call, if your CRM supports it.
- Microsoft Teams integration. Make and take calls from within Teams, if that suits how you work.
Ask about any of these. Most are configuration rather than a project.
Your part
Deciding what you actually need #
You do not have to use any of this. The best phone system is the simplest one that solves your actual problems.
Do
- Start with what irritates you about your current phones.
- Keep menus to one level, or skip them entirely.
- Set your opening hours properly. It is the quickest win.
- Use queues where callers currently get a busy tone or voicemail.
- Ask for reporting even if you are not sure you will use it.
Do not
- Build a menu tree because the system allows one.
- Put everyone in a queue when a ring group would do.
- Turn on call recording without deciding why.
- Give everyone a direct dial without thinking about who should have one.
- Design around the one call a year that is unusual.
Set your opening hours, put voicemail into an inbox somebody reads, and make sure calls for each department ring the right people. That covers most of what a phone system is for. Everything else is refinement.
When you are ready, it all goes on the configuration form. See Setting up your phone system.
Getting help
If you are not sure whether you want a group or a queue, or whether a menu is worth having, describe how your calls work today and what goes wrong. That is usually all we need to make a sensible recommendation.