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.