What kind of phone systems do people use?

[Kevin Flowers]

Gavin
most of it can be done by the Telecoms supplier, either by hi tech phones or at the exchange. May be worth a call to them first

Kev

[Alan Wharton]

iv got call waiting so when you are on the fone it beeps to let you know there is some1 holding/calling and i can put the current caller on hold while i see who the other caller is and call them back if i carnt sort it quick, cost an extra £2 a month i think it is.
Or are you thinking along the lines of 1 fone line into an internal exchange so you can pass the other call/s to other various fone extensions, surely carnt be that expensive but saying that BT are a nitemare.

[Dermot Howard]

I got a pabx on e-bay for 300 squids and its great, you can press 1 for … pres 2 for … so on and so forth. allows you to pass calls through to different extensions etc, As i work from home its also a link to the house if Linda is looking for me. It works great for us.

regards

Dermot

[Russell Huffer]

We just bought a cheep pay as you go mobile thats left in the office for anyone to answer and divert main line on busy to mobile.

If only 2 just divert on busy to your own mobile.

Regards

Russell.

[Peter Dee]

quote Alan Wharton:

iv got call waiting so when you are on the fone it beeps to let you know there is some1 holding/calling and i can put the current caller on hold while i see who the other caller is and call them back if i carnt sort it quick, cost an extra £2 a month i think it is.

Personally I detest call waiting.
It just seems rude to put someone on hold to see if a more important caller should be dealt with instead, especially as the person can tell whether it is a second caller on the line.

As for press 1 for this and press 2 for that.
Don’t we all hate dealing with automated phone systems?

[George Elsmore]

2 tins and some string 😀

sorry i’ll get me coat

[Bob Clarkson]

My phone company "Talk Talk" gives me second caller alert, and answerphone.

If I’m chatting to someone I know fairly well I’ll say I’ve got another call, I’ll give you a ring back in a minute, If I’m on an important call, I’ll just ignore the beep.

If the second caller has left a message, all well and good, if they haven’t I’ve still got their number so either way I can ring back and apologise, usually blaming the person I was on the phone to.

It also cost £21 a month, including line rental and broadband.

If I ring a large company, I accept all the press 1 for customer service etc, if I rang a small company and got that, I just couldn’t take it seriously.

[Gavin MacMillan]

Bob, what you have sounds along the right lines.

I don’t like press1/press2 any more than the next irrate call centre customer but the 2 of us who answer the phone deal with different jobs and tend not to cross over, I would like to avoid listening to his voicemail and having to give him messages all the time.

I was hoping that when calling the phone would ring as normal with no auto pick-up or music or anything and the press 1 or 2 scenario would only come into play when we are engaged to leave messages for a specific person.

I don’t know if this is possible or how to go about doing it, or if there is a much better idea out there that I just don’t know about.

Forwarding to mobiles and things, while useful in many situations doesn’t solve the main problem of being hard to reach, I guess we could have voicemail on the mobile but it puts me back at passing on messages not intended for me.

Cheers for the input, any more gladly taken!

G

[Ian Johnston]

phone bt they put it on automatically for a few pounds, call waiting and 1571 call answerphone

[David Rowland]

well we have a multiline toshiba strata pbx but it is being few with 4 BT phone lines, sounds overkill but its because of what happened with the company years ago.

BT provide a service call "Bonding" where at the exchange they will combine 3 telephone lines to one phone number, the bad news is call services like 1571 are not compatible with it. So when we are on the phone the second BT line rings.

We rang business services up and got them to "Channel bond" or "Line bond".. something like that. it was easy.

[Bob Clarkson]

BT done or do a system where you could have two numbers for the same phone, but it used to ring differently dependent one which number had been dialed. I don’t know if they still do, or who else does that sort of thing, do remember it wasn’t very expensive though.

I was going to have it when I lived at home so my parents would hopefully remember to answer the phone to at least some professional manner if it was specifically for me.

[Johnny Alston]

http://www.voipfone.com

multiple numbers, extensions, voicemail, call divert.

cheers

[Nigel Hindley]

quote Bob Clarkson:

BT done or do a system where you could have two numbers for the same phone, but it used to ring differently dependent one which number had been dialed. I don’t know if they still do, or who else does that sort of thing, do remember it wasn’t very expensive though.

I was going to have it when I lived at home so my parents would hopefully remember to answer the phone to at least some professional manner if it was specifically for me.

Aye they still do it we have it on one of our other business lines where we have yet a different business numbered diverted to it as said the numbers ring differently so you know how to answer. Its called call sign. I don’t think it was meant s a business service more for families not having to answers their kids calls but handy none the less but cant see this is what Dave is looking for.

You can pay for a service where a third party takes calls its quite reasonble this can be set up to take calls when lines are busy or unanswered etc.

[Peter Mindham]

Give these guys a call. They can do everything you want and more for very cheap. They answer all my lines when I am out or busy and it works great. Ask for Karen she will be able to help.

http://www.starvirtualoffice.co.uk/

They can help with a host of services in addition to call handling.

No I don’t have a vested interest, but they handle calls for two of my companies and also handle appointments etc.

Peter

[Bob Clarkson]

Nigel, do you know if you can do that set up but have an on line answerphone for each phone line. Surely this would solve Davids problem very cheaply and in house. If that was possible, I think I might go that route myself.

I would personally feel uncomfortable having a 3rd party answer my call through a centre, not that I do anything wrong, just don’t like other people knowing my business.

[David Rowland]

just want to point out something about voip.. i have a number of outgoing voip lines but they are useless at the moment as I have a bit of a dispute with Eclipse internet, for the first time we had loss of internet service which is potentially related to snow so the blame game has started.

So glad I still have my advertised numbers on BT.

[Alan Drury]

I have call sign here, the second number is for the fax, if I get the different ring tome I know to leave it and let the fax machine have it. Works very well for me and is cheap.
Alan D

[Gavin MacMillan]

Brilliant stuff here, I reckon looking into the options given I will be able to get a system that works for us.

Thanks for all the help !

G

[Nigel Hindley]

quote Bob Clarkson:

Nigel, do you know if you can do that set up but have an on line answerphone for each phone line. Surely this would solve Davids problem very cheaply and in house. If that was possible, I think I might go that route myself.

I would personally feel uncomfortable having a 3rd party answer my call through a centre, not that I do anything wrong, just don’t like other people knowing my business.

To be honest I’m not sure though I would doubt it bob as it’s just one line but maybe each number could have a voicemail attached. It might be worth giving them a shout.

I don’t use any third party services but I’m tempted it would save a lot of time answering nonsense and sales calls.

Nigel