Data reveals that 85% of customers whose calls are unanswered won’t call back. This is particularly alarming for small businesses that are consistently looking for new customers to scale up. That’s where the phone network features as the simultaneous ring come in.
A simultaneous ring helps businesses make sure all their incoming phone calls are answered and that too, by appropriate staff. In this article, we’ll look at what a simultaneous ring is and how to forward calls to more than one phone using this feature.
That said, let’s roll in.
What is a Simultaneous Ring?
A simultaneous ring is a specific method to forward calls to more than one phone, including telephones and mobile phones. Many telephone networks & phone systems are compatible with this feature and most phone service providers allow users to configure this feature freely, themselves.
Subscribers can configure a simultaneous ring on analogue as well as digital telephone networks. In most cases, it’s easy to customize the phone numbers that the incoming call is to be forwarded. When it comes to setting up a simultaneous ring on a phone system, it doesn’t even require users to set up a network.
How Does Simultaneous Ring Work?
The operation of a simultaneous ring may be different across telephone networks and phone systems. Here are the details of both these options:
Simultaneous Ring as a Phone System Feature
The execution of a simultaneous ring on phone systems may vary across different providers and types of phones. Both conventional phone systems (operating on a PSTN network) and modern cloud phone systems (operating over the internet) support this feature.
When you form a simultaneous ring using a simultaneous ring app, you’re free to select how many internal extensions and external connections should ring when a call passes in.
Please note that there are two voice channels in the case of external connections. This is because the call is first received by a telephone and then forwarded to an external connection, using a different channel.
Simultaneous Ring as a Telephone Network
When you configure a simultaneous ring on a telephone network, you can set any other numbers to ring. These could be connections over a wide area or cell phone numbers. Unlike an external connection in a phone system, answering a call takes up a single voice channel, when a simultaneous ring is formed.
That said, how many phone numbers can be set to ring when a call passes may be different for each provider. The different providers also limit the range of cell phone numbers and numbers abroad that can be added.
Benefits of Simultaneous Ring
A simultaneous ring is a must-have for all businesses, particularly the small ones. Here are the top benefits of a simultaneous ring for businesses:
Answer the Incoming Calls From Anywhere
As in call forwarding, the simultaneous ring feature lets the subscriber freely answer their incoming calls from anywhere. They no longer need to be on their office desk to answer the B2B and client calls. Instead, they can configure multiple devices like their web phone, office phone, landline, and personal mobile phone.
More Productive Phone Support Environment
Sometimes, support agents have to forward incoming client calls to their colleagues. Sometimes, it’s because of their busyness but it’s also because their colleague is a more appropriate agent for the call – think of a sales agent forwarding the call to a technical agent in case the caller is facing a technical issue.
In such cases, a simultaneous ring helps to form a productive customer support environment that can eventually improve the user experience of your business.
Never Miss a Customer/Client Call
As mentioned, a study reveals that 85% of unanswered calls won’t pass in again. Answering B2C calls or calls from your B2B catalog appropriately improves your retention rate. When a customer is satisfied with your service, they help your business acquire more customers through referrals. Therefore, a simultaneous ring is a must-have for businesses looking to scale up.
But, what’s an effective phone service that supports simultaneous ringing? Let’s explore.
Simultaneous Ring with Community Phone
Community Phone is the best business phone service in the United States. Their landline base connects your business phones to cell towers, eliminating the need for internet or copper connections.
With coverage across 99% of the US and superior voice quality in rural and low-reception areas, Community Phone supports various advanced features like call waiting, call routing, call forwarding, voicemail-to-email, spam call blocking, and more.
How Does the Community Phone Simultaneous Ring Work?
With the Community Phone call routing or forwarding feature, you can configure several phones in your business to ring simultaneously. This feature enables any available representative to answer the call.
You can also have your landline, cell phone, and any other number of your choice ring together by turning this feature on.
Setting Up Simultaneous Ring With Community Phone
Here are the steps to configuring simultaneous ring with Community Phone:
1. Call their customer care at 866-412-5279 and speak with a business specialist.
2. Check your area for coverage.
3. Once the rep confirms coverage, sign up with Community Phone.
4. Pick a custom phone number from a database of over 30,000 phone numbers.
5. Choose the best plan after choosing features that suit your business needs.
6. Configure your custom dial menu and set up call routing or forwarding.
7. Add multiple phone numbers in the call routing settings to ensure they ring simultaneously to alert you or your team of an incoming call.
Benefits of Switching to Community Phone
Here are some benefits when you switch to Community Phone
Unlimited nationwide calling: Engage with your customers, share important announcements, collect feedback, and perform market outreach with unlimited minutes from Community Phone.
Unlimited texts: Send personalized text messages to customers to wish them on special occasions, inform them of offers and discounts, and collect feedback without fearing a massive phone bill.
No internet required: You do not need to worry about internet outages, uptime, network issues, or provider apathy, as the Community Phone landline base does not require internet to work. Keep your communication lines open for your customers always with the unique wireless technology that works off cell towers.
Quick setup: Gone are the days of expensive technician-led, messy, wired telephone installations. You or anyone in your organization can install the Community Phone landline base in 30-seconds and be ready for business.
24/7 reliable customer support: Say goodbye to the customer apathy you have faced from your previous provider with the 24/7 reliable customer care from Community Phone. Experience world-class support from a live rep (not a bot) when you contact Community Phone via email, phone, or chat.
Works during power outages: The 12-hour backup battery of the landline base ensures your phones continue to work during power outages and blackouts.
Note: Cell tower outages in your area will not negatively impact how you service your customers when you sign up with Community Phone. When you enable the voicemail-to-email feature, customers can leave a voicemail if they cannot reach you during an outage in your area.
You can access these voicemails as audio files and transcripts (text) in the mail ID associated with your Community Phone user account. This feature enables your team to respond to customers promptly and on priority.
Talk to Community Phone business specialists today to learn more about their 14-day FREE trial!
Simultaneous Ring FAQs
How do I set up simultaneous ringing?
To set up simultaneous ringing on a network, look for the Call Forwarding settings and select Simultaneously Ring.
On the Select Number screen, click New Number and set the numbers you want to ring when a call comes in. You can also set up a Voice Mail to deliver your voice mail to the caller.
Once you’re done with the configuration, select Apply Settings.
What’s the difference between simultaneous ring and call forwarding?
In call forwarding, you can forward an incoming call to a single cell phone number or more than one number sequentially, such that a single phone rings at a time. Whereas, in simultaneous ringing, you can set multiple phones to ring at once when a call comes in.
What is the difference between a simultaneous ring and a sequential ring?
In a simultaneous ringing, multiple phones ring at once. But in sequential ringing, multiple phones ring one by one in case the first phone in the loop is busy. To be clear, all the phones configured ring at once in simultaneous ringing but a single phone rings at a time, in sequential ringing.
Can you link 2 phones together?
Simultaneous ringing is the perfect way to link 2 phones together such that both of them ring when a call passes in. Whether you want to link two conventional phones or modern cloud phones, simultaneous ringing is a good way to go. But your service provider and the phone systems should support it.
