Add a voicemail dedicated line

[jstifane]

Hello !

We have 3 physical lines connected to our system, which means that a maximum of 3 calls from/to the outside can be received/made at any given time.

When a fourth call comes in, the caller hears the busy signal and has to recall at another moment.

As our company grows bigger, this is becoming a concern. We can have maximum of 4 physical lines connected to our system. We are thinking of adding that fourth line, but we don't want to face the same problem if a fifth caller tries to reach us. Would it be possible to have a voicemail dedicated to that fourth line.

So if a call comes in, the system cycles through our others 3 lines to assign one that's available, and if there is none, it assign the call to the fourth line, which then automatically sends the call to a voicemail...

I do not know all that's possible to do with our system, but it seems to me that is a functionality that could be very useful for any company.

Thanks for your help !

[Anonymous]

If you add a 4th line, that will only means you will have 4 lines to receive calls. You can set up the 4th line to go to VM, but if someone is leaving VM and you have a 5th caller call in then it will be busy and they will have to recall again. There is no way to control that 5th call not to be busy. You just have to have enough lines to the PSTN to accommodate your call volume. Hope that makes sense.

Not sure why you would want that 4th caller go to VM unless you don’t have enough people to answer that 4th call if it rings a phone. I would have it ring a phone like you do the other 3 lines, then if needed someone could put the othe call on hold to answer the 4th caller.

The 7100 can support up to 10 Analog PSTN lines. The chassis supports 2 lines and then you can buy 2 4 port modules to give you 10.

Let me know if you have any other questions or configuration help.

-Mark

[jstifane]

Hello Mark,

Thanks for your answer. I will give you a little more context. There are no dedicated receptionist at our office, callers are invited to input the extension number directly. Lets say we have 3 physical lines and 3 of my fellow co-workers are using the lines to talk with our customers. If our President is waiting for a very important phone call while the 3 lines are busy, he'll never get that phone call since our lines are occupied. Moreover the caller won't even be able to leave a message and we will never know that he called in the first. So a voicemail-dedicated line would solve that part of the problem. We don't want to give access to our employees to that 4th line so it is always free for taking messages when the other 3 lines are busy. There is always the possibility of someone calling us while the fourth line is already recording a message, but the risk is small.

So do you think that it is something that is possible ?

Thanks,

-JS

[jayh]

You might be better off adding central-office-based voicemail to your pilot number as a feature from the telco. This will likely be cheaper than a fourth physical line and will scale automatically. As you grow you won't need to keep adding one more line just in case. You'll get stutter dial tone (and maybe FSK message waiting depending on the CO) on the first line so you'll know when there is a message.

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Unfortunately it is not possible to dedicate a line on the 7100 strictly to voicemail. If the line is configured as part of the trunk group, it will be used to accept incoming and outgoing calls as any other line.

[jstifane]

Thank you for your answer. You make it very clear !

[rpitchford]

So, you can't add another trunk group with just that fourth line and have it do something different?