The auto-attendant or digital receptionist is a great way to route calls without having someone tasked to sit and answer the phone all day. When the phone rings, the auto-attendant answers and presents the caller with a list of options, such as which department he wishes to speak with.
You don’t have to use the auto-attendant of course, but it’s there if you need it!
You can have one auto-attendant setup all the time, or have a different one when the office is closed.
Each auto-attendant can have up to 12 menu options (one for each digit, one for * and one for #) and each option can be one of
- Transfer call to an extension, phone number or hunt group, or another menu
- Transfer call to an operator
- Allow caller to type in extension number
- Allow caller to type in user name
- Repeat the greeting message
- Exit
Your Horizon phone tells you when a call has been forwarded to your extension from an auto-attendant, so you can differentiate between incoming calls from customers, and direct-dialled calls, for example.