The Best VoIP Auto Attendant Features

The Best VoIP Auto Attendant Features
In VoIP, auto attendant phone systems are pre-recorded voices which serve as a virtual receptionist for businesses. If a company is considering switching to a VoIP phone system, then an auto attendant makes great business sense. Auto attendant phone systems don’t use valuable business resources that can be used elsewhere, directly contributing to profit. Auto attendant systems also very efficiently direct calls to the correct departments and parties sans any confusion, saving a lot of time, energy, and money.

The cost-effectiveness of auto attendant phone systems
Auto attendant phone systems allow businesses to not have to employ phone switchboard operators or receptionists. Having call routing abilities 24/7, this allows their employees to effectively receive calls anywhere in the world at any time. Auto attendant phone systems also ensure that businesses never miss any calls since each call is routed and directed to the correct person, department, or information, thus offering customers better service. VoIP auto attendant phone systems are easily programmable and, thus, are the wave of the future.

The best auto attendant features
Businesses, however, need to make sure that their auto attendant provides the full set of all the best features that such systems can possibly have. Read on to know some of the best features and practices of the best auto attendants.

Auto attendants’ features and practices can be split into 3 logical categories –settings, basic, and advanced.

While choosing VoIP services, settings are the most overlooked factor, but in reality, they can include some of the most essential and valuable tools within a phone system. The best auto attendants have the following settings:

• Adding/removing users 
  With scalability being one of the selling points of VoIP, systems should be able to add or remove extensions or users as and when required.
• Greetings 
  Good auto attendant systems allow for recording professional-grade, high-quality, competent, and clean greetings which are quite indistinguishable from the human voice. Custom voice prompts and multiple greetings offer the best in terms of flexibility.
• Business hours 
  The best auto attendant systems also have separate day and nighttime messages, specifying the company’s business hours to let customers know when the company is open when it is closed. It is also important for holidays and weekend calls.
• Operator extensions 
  Great auto attendant systems allow users to set any employee extension to be the operator, making life easier for everyone when the office uses a rotating phone schedule.

While auto attendant systems have many basic features, the best ones offer customers all of the below mentioned:

• Voicemail 
  Voicemail is literally the most important factor in an automated phone system, and without which the system loses much of its resourcefulness. Systems should allow employees to record different messages for their extensions, while also having separate voicemail inboxes for different divisions, which makes returning calls extremely effective.
• Notifications 
  A whole gamut of notification systems exists in the best auto attendant systems, which use phone rings or lights. However, the best ones also include a voicemail-to-text alert for smartphones and a voicemail-to-email feature for laptop and desktop PCs.
• Call forwarding 
  This feature in auto attendant permits forwarding a users’ calls from their office extensions to another line or a mobile phone which can be better or quickly answered at that point in time.
• Information lines 
  The best auto attendant systems have specific lines playing pre-recorded messages which direct the caller back to the main menu once they are done.
• Precise options
  The best auto attendant systems recognize that their customers’ time is valuable, so they offer a few, well-thought, and comprehensive options instead of similar, confusing ones. For instance, good auto attendant systems do not have selections for ‘Troubleshooting’ and ‘Support’ in the same menu and include failsafe options as well.

There are a set of advanced features that may require paying additional charges per month, but the fact that they are present is an indicator of a great auto attendant system. These include:

• Conference calling 
  Some auto attendant systems offer an unrestricted number of outside lines and in-house extensions which can be added to a single conference call for important group meetings. So, if a company does a large amount of business overseas or has many field offices all over the world, it becomes easier for them to hold meetings.
• Smartphone apps 
  Good auto attendant systems also have smartphone apps allowing employees to tap into their phone systems from their mobile devices, thus offering unified connection on-the-go.
• Multiple phone numbers 
  Since some companies prefer to have both local and toll-free numbers, some auto attendant systems also offer this feature.