Winter is finally abating and warm days, long holiday weekends, and summer vacations lie ahead. As companies prepare for barbecue season, setting up call forwarding and preparing holiday phone schedules should be on the to-do list. The good news is, a unified communications (UC) platform like UCx can help companies manage all of these needs through complex call routing and collaboration, so your team can enjoy the summer season without impacting productivity or your customers’ experience.

First and foremost, companies can better serve their customers and partners by letting them know when the office or store is closed over long weekends and during summer breaks. Much like an out-of-office responder for email, a holiday greeting means that callers won’t be left wondering why no one has gotten back to them. For example: 

“Thanks for calling Our Amazing Company! Our Main Street office will be closed on Monday, May 27th in observance of the Memorial Day holiday.”

And for some businesses, the doors may be closed for the day, the weekend, or even for the whole week, but callers may need to still get through to you if necessary. In this case, you’ll want to communicate that too:

“To leave us a message, please press 1. If this is urgent, we’re still here to help — please press 2.”

If you’re a UCx user, off-hours greetings and call routing can be set up in the Auto Attendant and Call Forwarding functions, respectively.

For the Auto Attendant, you can set up separate holiday, vacation, and off-hours greetings and save them in the Announcement Repository ahead of time. You could even program a special message for the annual company picnic if you choose.

Companies can also make sure calls are properly routed during off-hours by programming alternate dialing menus in UCx’s Call Forwarding feature.

Call Forwarding allows you to redirect incoming calls to another number you specify, which could be anything from your mobile phone to a colleague’s extension. There are several different types of Call Forwarding to choose from, including options to forward all inbound calls or just calls from certain numbers.

Comprehensive UC systems also make it possible to set up geographic routing, or georouting, to forward incoming calls to their destinations based on their originating location. For example, you might want to have calls from California go to your sales rep Jack in Los Angeles, and have calls from any of the six New England states go to your sales rep Jill in Boston.

When the time comes for being out of the office, it’s a simple click to activate the right greeting and call forwarding pattern for the occasion. You can also automate when these call flows kick in by scheduling your business hours into an automation system.

If you’re a TPx customer, simply log in to the UCx Web Portal and click “Schedules” on the profile home page. By clicking “Add,” you can enter a new Schedule Name (such as “Vacation” or “Memorial Day”) and select a Schedule Type (Holiday or Time), and click “OK.” Once it’s added, you can access it from the Schedules page, click “Edit” and enter starting and ending times.

Regardless of which UC platform and provider you use, it’s a good idea to test your greetings and call flows before you need them – it’ll help reduce some of the stress that comes with getting ready for a holiday or vacation. Enjoy your summer!

About the Author

Nicholas Clapper is a Senior Manager of Product at TPx. He has more than 10 years of experience in product management, and in that time he has built up his expertise in hosted voice services, particularly the BroadSoft platform. Nicholas leads a cross-functional project team at TPx that manages the company’s hosted communications products, including the UCx Hosted Unified Communications Service, SmartVoice SIP Trunking, and Internet access circuits. He is always looking for ways to help businesses communicate more effectively and more efficiently.