I have a customer we upgraded from an SX-50 to an ICP with EMEM. The old voice mail was an Active Voice Replay Plus. The old VM had supervised transfer with recall to auto-attendant. If a caller dialed "0" for operator it would ring the console 4 times and recall to auto-attendant where they could hold or press 1 to leave a message, if they stayed on hold they would hear music on hold until the system tried the console again (every 30 seconds or so). This process would repeat indefinitely until the console answered or the caller left a message or hung up.
The staff frequently does not answer calls for long periods due to short staffing. (Only one person on duty).
With the EMEM the call does not recall to the auto-attendant so if the attendant does not answer we send the call to a mailbox and tell the caller to leave a message at the tone or press 0 for the attendant. Option 2 is to dump the caller to a RAD. This is not what the hotel owner wants so I would like to try to program the EMEM to mimic the AVT.
I checked with Tech Support but they have not come up with an acceptable work around.
Any good ideas for the EMEM or a cheap auto-attendant to put in front of the ICP to get this feature?
I know the real answer is "pick up the damn phone", but they don't want to hear that.
All suggestions appreciated.
Use the call fwd n/a feature for the console.
Make sure the recall timer is shorter than the n/a timer, in the voice mail's COS.
That way, the call fwd n/a will occur prior to the recall, and you'll have the same effect.
With the active voice I used to do this kind of thing with Transaction boxes, but it seems to me that you should be able to route Attendant automatic call forward no answer to a box with a message that the attendant is busy and to continue to wait for the attendant dial O again. Might be able to give another option for leaving a message. If not just get a viking aca-1a (or something similar) as the automatic no answer point and tell them to continue to hold for the operator dial O or dial xyz to leave a message. That would allow you to utilize the embedded AA. Or you can put the stand alone AA in front of the system and set up supervised transfer, but you could run into other problems. Better to set up the AA as the console no answer forward point. Just make sure that you have camp on enabled on the trunks to allow them to camp on to the hunt group with the AA in it so the calls will queue if the AA is busy. Best I can do.
Thanks, good ideas.
The main objection by the owner is he does not want the caller to have to press any keys to stay in queue for the console, (says people driving will not want to keep hitting keys on the cell phone to stay on hold and they will hang up and call a different hotel).
The Viking may work, that was where I was going with this.
Of, course, he wants us to supply the Viking at our cost. Errrrr!!!
Buy one used and with the viking you can program bin 00 to route to 0 and that's where the caller will go if no digits are dialed so the message can say "please remain on the line if you wish to continue to hold for the attendant." However make sure that dip switch 4 on the rear of the unit otherwise if no digits are dialed the unit will just hang up on the caller.
Don't get all "wrapped around" the auto attendant capabilities.
Get a Viking LP announcer, and use the
"attendant overflow recording option".
The caller will hear the message, then MOH, while the console continues to ring!
The viking should cost about $90.00.
Yeah, but the overflow option will not work because the console is not occupied. As long as the console is not in use a call will ring on the console. Only when it is occupied will it overflow over to recording then cue for the console. To the best of my recollection anyway.
The overflow feature is just a timer option. Once the timer expires, the announcer kicks in, while the console keeps ringing.
Again, great ideas, Thanks!
Last hitch, the owner does not want to hear continual rings. (Annoys the guests and staff).
That is why the Replay Plus was so good. It would pull the call back and then re-transfer after a time out expired. (20-30 seconds). This went on indefinitely.
Oh, we are so close!
You know I worked with a property in Houston for a couple of years. the manager had us doing all kind of things to route calls different places, etc. He kept telling me he just couldn't get his employees to answer the phone. Of course what I wanted to say and couldn't was "Fire their butts". My point being that you can't get the phone system to do all the work. If he doesn't want to hear continual ringing then he doesn't seem to be worrying about servicing his guests. Even if there is only one desk clerk how difficult is it to answer the darn phone and ask somebody to hold.
If this is a brand name hotel and you go with the auto attendant box on the "Attendant Automatic call forward no answer" you can add a menu item for them to press a digit to transfer to central reservations. Then you can send it to and ext that is Call FWD Always to speed dial which will dial the central reservations number. Just a thought