The following is an in-depth technical article nearly virtual phone extensions; hither is a quicker read on the topic.

  • What is a Phone Extension?
  • How Do Phone Extensions Piece of work?
  • Is a Virtual Telephone Number and an Extension the Same?
  • How Easy Is It to Add Extensions?
  • How Are Calls Routed to Extensions?
  • What Are the Benefits of Having Extensions?

Equally an entrepreneur looking to finer run their business organisation, getting a virtual phone system is one of the best decisions to brand. At that place are a lot of carefully thought-upon and well-designed features that come with your phone system to help your business organisation. One of those features is telephone extensions or extension numbers.

The bigger your company grows, the more than employees or departments within the concern; yous volition need to connect them all, with the connection nodes all linking to and from you. With proper organization, you lot go central command.

Phone extensions assistance you conveniently link every point of your company together effectively. Customers and diverse callers can be directly connected to different sections of your organization, according to their need.

What is a Telephone Extension?

An extension is a short internal number assigned to an employee, a project team, or a department of your chief concern number. It is called an extension because it takes its source from your principal business concern number and it can extend to every bit many sub-divisions or employees in your company as possible.

If a client or any caller wishes to phone call your company looking for a specific employee, or needs the services of a particular division of your visitor, they tin exist automatically routed to the right destination by knowing which extension to follow.

Phone extensions allow companies to be able to connect callers to different sections and employees within the company. There are a lot of routes and shortcuts specifically designed for extensions to take to save time for you and your callers.

users groups and extensions mightycall

How Do Phone Extensions Piece of work?

Extensions are basically numbers which stretch from your business organization number. Generally, extensions tend to be four-digit numbers. In MightyCall, extensions tin can be made up of different numbers of digits, so if you want someone to accept extension 2 or 11 or 942, that's possible.

How these extensions work is very elementary.

Let's say Arthur and Belinda are employees within your company and you assign them extension numbers 130 and 123, respectively. Whenever Arthur needs to call Belinda, he simply dials 123, which is her extension number, and the telephone call is put through.

If Arthur and Belinda happen to exist in different departments of the company and you've assigned different extensions to these departments, the extensions of these departments are put into consideration. Say Arthur is from the Sales section with an extension of 12 and Belinda is from the Finance section with an extension of 14. Arthur would have to punch something akin to xiv-123 to reach Belinda.

If it's an entirely external phone call from another company or customer, your main business telephone number is added. Say your business organisation number is the hilariously straight 123-4567, and you lot want your customers to be able to admission your Sales department directly from sure campaigns or ads, you tin list the extension with the number, posting 123-4567-12 as the number to call. Of grade, if someone dials 123-4567-14-123 it means an external caller is trying to reach Belinda from Finance.

The proficient thing about having a virtual telephone system is that these extensions are non limited by geographical locations. This is in the sense that you lot can accept dissimilar branches of your company in different locations and there is no need for an employee to take to add another physical extension to call other employees within the visitor.

Since your company volition operate from a single phone arrangement, an employee – John, calling Mary, whose extension is 140, would only have to dial 140 to reach her, fifty-fifty if they are non physically in the same area. Y'all can also have several phone numbers in a unmarried phone organisation.

It is possible to brand a telephone call to a certain employee or section within a visitor without knowing their extension. Let's say someone wants to contact the Finance section of your company, and they only know the company's main business organisation number; that is where the auto attendant will play a meaning role.

The motorcar bellboy or voice receptionist will assistance route the phone call to the particular individual or department needed. Incoming callers tin also skip the auto attendant to go directly to exactly where they need to call if they know the phone number and extension.

Information technology is appropriate to have specific extensions for your visitor'due south divisions to brand marketing campaigns more than effective and your phone call menses more digestible.

Is a Virtual Phone Number and an Extension the Same?

Basically, aye. The major deviation between them lies in the context in which both are used. One thing to note is that both a virtual telephone number and an extension are numbers, and beingness part of a virtual phone organization, they are both virtual.

'Virtual', in terms of VoIP, suggests that calls are forwarded to another device, one connected to your business phone number (and so you lot won't accept to carry around multiple phones all the time). This telephone number connects to the Internet Protocol (IP) address of the connected device, whether a telephone, tablet, or computer. The telephone number is said to be dedicated to this device.

When you dial a number from VoIP, the connection is carried over the internet to locate the IP address of the phone or device connected to the number dialed.

You are charged by your VoIP provider according to the agreed-upon rates. Your virtual telephone number is the number yous choose from your VoIP system to be shown to those you call from the system as opposed to your personal mobile phone number.

The same also goes for extensions. Phone extensions similar virtual phone numbers also frontward to another device, their voicemail box, or just to their number. In the example of extensions, however, they are not dedicated to one device, merely rather the virtual phone arrangement itself.

When callers call to a virtual phone number, the phone call tin can only be forwarded to the device you associate with this virtual phone number in the organization, but when a caller dials your company phone number and uses any of your company'south extensions, the telephone call can exist forwarded from the office to your phone or any other device.

And so extensions and virtual numbers basically practise the aforementioned thing: frontward calls. In business, extensions can forward anywhere, including unlike devices at call centers, or "dead end" extensions, like voicemail boxes and messages, since those are not dedicated to i device. In non-business settings, virtual phone numbers can relieve friends and family members money by having them only pay local charges to reach phones far away.

How Easy Is Information technology to Add Extensions?

Pretty piece of cake, especially on MightyCall. Unlike in well-nigh virtual phone systems, you tin conveniently scale your MightyCall phone system up and down. And just similar many other MightyCall features, extensions are limitless! This means you lot can have multiple extensions, adding equally many as possible every bit your business grows.

phone extension

Managing business expansion is not one of the things you will take to worry near when getting your virtual phone system. MightyCall has already taken this into consideration, then you tin can sit back, relax and residual assured that communication within your business will always exist inside your control no matter how quickly your business expands.

Information technology is simply every bit easy to delete an extension equally it is to add one, if business goes south. All you lot have to do is get to manage users section, select the user whose extension y'all would like to remove from your directory and click delete.

You will be shown a confirmation message asking you if you are sure you lot desire to remove this extension from your business organisation number. Only after your confirmation is the extension removed.

How Are Calls Routed to Extensions?

Routing calls to different extensions available within your company is a simple task. MightyCall makes it easier by providing a quick call directory. When a customer calls your visitor, they volition be given this directory where they tin can choose where they desire their calls to get.

For example: a client calls, the directory is provided, if they enter an extension, say '4' to communicate with the sales manager, the MightyCall telephone system will forward this call to every device connected to that manager, including their computer (web phones), land or mobile lines, and their mobile app (if it is installed).

All these continued devices volition then ring either simultaneously or one afterward the other until the call is answered.

When a caller wishes to contact a team or a department, MightyCall distributes this call among the employees at that place to find the most available person to answer the call.

MightyCall makes use of iv calling algorithms for you to decide how y'all want calls to be distributed within different teams in your company. These algorithms are:

  • Simultaneous
  • Round-robin (circular)
  • Sequential (by qualification)

group calling

Simultaneous: All squad members receive calls at the same fourth dimension, irrespective of their present task.

Sequential: Here the call goes from ane member of the team to another in sequence, based on sure criteria that you have defined. For instance, yous may desire every call going into each section of your company to be directed to the managing director of each section offset. Only in the instance where they are decorated can the call be channeled to other members based on your discretion.

Circular-robin: The call goes in a circular path from one member to another until it is answered. If all members are busy during the first cycle, the call repeats the cycle.

Extensions can be changed at whatsoever betoken in fourth dimension. If information technology happens that you demand to change an extension assigned to a item employee or to an entire department within your company, this is easily possible. All you have to practise is go to the manage user widget, go to extensions, click on edit and yous can modify the extension to a more user-friendly ane for you.

What Are the Benefits of Having Extensions?

Extensions are of import for businesses with many employees or sub-divisions or businesses that are oriented towards growth and expansion. Having extensions helps manage many users within the business telephone system. Some of the business values of extensions include:

  • Improved client experience and client service: your customers gain the ability to call a particular employee or group straight by dialing the extension.
  • Better internal communications between team members: yous can telephone call or transfer a call to a co-worker by tapping a short internal number. It is important for squad collaboration, especially with remote and mobile teammates.
  • More convenient and cheaper communications with remote offices: you can create remote sales, service, or engineer teams with mutual extensions for better customer service.
  • Extensions aid improve business productivity: with extensions, a considerably big corporeality of fourth dimension is saved during transactions, since customers are able to directly contact their department of choice within the company. Your employees salve fourth dimension routing calls themselves besides. Time efficiency yields productivity.
  • Finally, extensions help you manage calls in an easier, more convenient, and error-free way.

G2

Switched over from Google Vocalism to Might phone call mainly for the phone call flow capabilities merely found the additional features extremely useful. Phone call Recording and Team Management both come in extremely handy. Well worth the toll vs google vocalisation. Professional Telephone service, all-time value per $ we found.

Read the full review on G2