At Broadvoice, we believe in creating meaningful connections with our customers so they can create meaningful connections with their customers. We’ve designed our products and services around the desire to be connected — to collaborate and communicate from anywhere at any time. We talk a lot about how b-hive allows customers to text, email, chat, and video conference on one interface, but those are just the tip of the iceberg. Today, we’d like to highlight one of the platform’s most efficient and productivity-enhancing features: the auto attendant.

Our auto attendant acts as a dedicated employee to greet each caller and route calls to the appropriate extension, person, or department using custom menu options. This not only frees your staff from being glued to the phone all day — allowing them to focus on critical tasks — but it also increases efficiency since calls are directed to the right person on the first call.

Here are some of the ways our auto attendant can improve the day-to-day workflow of your business:

1. Custom greetings and announcements.

   Using the b-hive platform, all your greetings and announcements are quickly and easily customized to fit the needs of your business. Are you planning a work social and need to close the office early? You can configure a custom greeting or announcement that alerts your customers to the change in hours and when they can expect to have their call returned. Does your business have a dedicated lunch hour? You can indicate that in a greeting as well.

2. Limitless extensions and call destinations.

   The b-hive platform lets you configure your menu options and call destinations to fit the scale of your business. Extensions can be up to six digits long, which means the destinations are almost limitless. The best part is that extensions aren’t just limited to people — calls can be directed to departments, specific voicemails, and even off-network numbers such as after-hours maintenance numbers.

   The auto attendant itself can even have a destination, allowing callers to return to the main menu if an incorrect option is selected. This means employees won’t waste time jockeying calls back and forth to the main menu, and customers don’t have to hang up and call again.

3. Custom menu setups and configurations.

   There are a few setup options available to ensure you always meet the needs of your employees and customers.

   Always-On. Just as the name implies, this configuration ensures that your auto attendant is always the first to answer incoming calls. There’s no need to hire someone to answer phones all day or put your employees into a phone queue — they can answer the calls directed to their extension because they are best equipped to handle the call.

   Schedule-Based. The auto attendant doesn’t have to be the first to answer calls if you don’t want it to be. You can configure the auto attendant to only go into effect during specific times, such as during a receptionist’s lunch hour or during all-staff meetings. Outside those times, calls will be answered as usual.

   No Answer. This comes in handy when an employee or department misses a call to their extension. With this setup in place, you choose where the call should be rerouted — even back to the auto attendant or a voicemail extension.

The auto attendant is a unique feature within the b-hive platform that lets you create custom call routing options to meet the needs of your business and provide customers with a streamlined customer service experience.