atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums TDM Business Telephone Systems Samsung Telephones & Systems Forwarding Trunks to Answering Service

I have a OS7100 and I'm looking for a better way to forward after-hour calls automatically to an answering service.

1st attempt had me routing the calls after hours to a Virtual extension which was set to "Forward All - 9 xxx-xxxx" The problem is the caller hears a click and silence before they hear ringback tone, when the phone system is grabbing a second analog trunk. Of course this made customers think they were disconnected

2nd attempt had me routing the calls after-hours directly to the VM/AA. From there the calls would get routed to a Dial Block, the caller would hear "Thank You, One moment Please" and the call would be transfered. (The customer didn't like the "Thank you please hold" message.) I guess I could remove that prompt from the Dial Block.

Again I'm looking for some advice on how you folks would do it. Keep in mind the system is utilizing Analog Trunks.

72# and let the telco do it. Many of my Dr's do it that way for the same reason.

Just build a key for speed dail.

Thanks ... That what they were doing originally, out here it is *72 xxx-xxxx. However, they were occassionally forgetting to do that so instead of setting up a check list for their personnel they wanted me to fix their problem by automating it.

I would love to do a centrex type forward or transfer so I don't tie up 2 lines but I haven't figure that out yet.

We have a few customers (some doc's also) who wanted to provide after hours call out functionality, but didn't want every call to go to the answering service (which charges per call even if its a hangup or wrong number).

First, we had the telco turn on "CO Transfer" which changes the 'flash treatment' to transfer. Then we set up a night menu to play a greeting saying if your call is urgent and you need to speak with a doctor right away press 1 (or whatever)which sends the caller to an intermediate menu with no choices to play a greeting that says something like "you will hear a click and some silence while we transfer your call, please continue to hold". That menu then goes directly to the dial block (greeting disabled) where the system does a centrex transfer to the answering service, and releases the call. Free's up the line so zero trunks are used, and provides connectivity but no hangup calls to the answering service/doc's home.

Takes a little bit to set up, there's no music on hold, and sometimes up to 10 seconds of dead air (which you could mention in the greeting, because of the system dialing the number) before ring to the answering service, but it does work, and its automated and controlled by ring plans.

Spoke to tech support about this the other day, here is what they suggested. Send it to a awnser only mailbox, in the No message left section send it to a V Ext with you forward set.
And remove the one moment please from Eclass.

Thanks everyone. What I did is just send it back to the Voicemail/AA which routed it to the Dial Block and removed the "Thank You, One Moment Please hold" prompt in that Dial Block. Now I just need to remember how to eliminate the MOH from playing. :bang:

Either turn off Transfer MOH or change the MOH source for the VM ports to be nothing.

This will however mean you will have no MOH at all for any calls transferred if you choose option 1, or out of the vm only for option 2

Cheers