Call divert, also known as call forwarding or call diversion, is a convenient telephony feature that allows you to redirect incoming calls to a different phone number or destination. This can be incredibly useful in a variety of scenarios - whether you need to ensure calls are answered when you're away from your desk, want to leverage a professional answering service like CallChimps, or simply need to forward calls to a colleague or alternate line.
The process of "diverting" or forwarding calls is straightforward and can be set up on a wide range of devices, from mobile phones to traditional landlines. By configuring your call divert settings, you can maintain control over your incoming communications and never miss an important call, even when you're unable to answer your primary number.
Reasons for Diverting Calls
There are numerous reasons why you may want to leverage call divert or call forwarding features on your phone. Perhaps you're frequently out of the office or on the move, and you need to ensure that incoming calls are always answered and redirected to the appropriate destination, whether that's a colleague, your mobile number, or a dedicated call answering service.
Alternatively, you may find that a traditional answering machine or basic voicemail system is no longer sufficient to meet your communication needs. By diverting calls to a professional service like CallChimps, you can provide callers with a more polished, efficient experience. CallChimps' team of virtual receptionists can answer calls, take messages, and even forward important communications to the right person, ensuring your customers or clients never feel neglected.
Call diversion can also be invaluable during times when your primary line is busy or you're unable to answer the phone. At the bare minimum, you should forward calls to voicemail if you are unavailable.
Businesses need to avoid missed opportunities and maintain a consistent, reliable presence callers. This can be especially useful for small businesses, freelancers, or entrepreneurs who need to balance multiple priorities and may not always be immediately available to take every incoming call..
Ultimately, the ability to divert or forward calls is a powerful tool that can help you streamline your communications, improve customer satisfaction, and ensure important interactions are never missed. By taking the time to configure your call divert settings, you can enhance your overall responsiveness and professional image, while also freeing up valuable time to focus on other priorities.
Setting Up Call Divert
Activating call diverts on your phone is typically a simple process. The specific steps vary depending on what type of telephone line you're trying to set up call diverts on - an Android device, iPhone, or a traditional landline. We break each down below.
Diverting call from a UK landline
If you’re trying to redirect calls from a UK landline, the following steps (from BT) will enable this.
- Press * followed by 21
- Press * followed by the phone number to divert to (for example, CallChimps customers would enter their new CallChimps number here)
- Press #
For example, if your new CallChimps number is 12345678, you would pick up your landline and dial *21*12345678#
Diverting calls from an iPhone
- Open the Settings app on your phone
- Click Phone to open call settings
- Click Call Forwarding to toggle call forwarding on – this is turned on when the toggle is move to the right
- Click Forward To
- Then enter the phone number to divert to (for example, CallChimps customers would enter their new CallChimps number here)
- Once you’ve put your number in, just tap the back button and your changes will save automatically
NB – calls will only divert when your mobile phone is in an area with mobile phone coverage. For guaranteed call handling, we recommend providing your customers with your CallChimps number to call directly.
Diverting calls from an Android phone
- Open the Phone app on your phone
- Tap the three-dot icon (normally in the top-right)
- Click Setting to open call settings
- Click Calls
- Click Call Forwarding
- Click Always Forward
- Enter the phone number to divert to (for example, CallChimps customers would enter their new CallChimps number here)
- Once you’ve put your number in, click Turn On to activate this
- You can deactivate this by going through the same process and turning off the Always Forward option
NB – calls will only divert when your mobile phone is in an area with mobile phone coverage. For guaranteed call handling, we recommend providing your customers with your CallChimps number to call directly.
More detailed steps, and divert codes, are outlined in our article about call forwarding, where you can find out how to configure conditional forwarding options for both iPhones and Android devices.
Managing Call Divert Settings
To review or modify your call divert settings, simply navigate back to the relevant section in your device's phone or calling settings. You may see options to divert all calls, divert when your line is busy, or set up conditional forwarding based on certain criteria.
If you need to cancel or deactivate the call divert feature, you can typically find a "cancel divert" or "turn off forwarding" option, often accessed by tapping the three dots or menu icon next to the divert settings.
Leveraging Call Divert for Maximum Efficiency
By setting up call diverts on your mobile, landline, or business phone, you can ensure that important incoming calls are always answered, even when you're unavailable. This can be particularly beneficial when call diverts go through to dedicated call answering service like CallChimps, which can provide professional, personalised call handling on your behalf.
Which brings us on to...
Divert Calls to a Call Handling Service
There are a wide range of call handling services available for businesses. These range from basic call answering, transfers and message taking, to more knowledgeable call handling services which can answer questions about your business.
CallChimps takes the concept of call handling to a new level, with the ability to answer a broad range of questions about your business, scale to handle a virtually unlimited number of calls at the same time, and to do this at a fraction of the cost of traditional telephone answering services.
CallChimps works best when you divert all calls to the service. If there are specific numbers you'd like to be transferred to a specific telephone number (e.g. VIP clients), this can be configured in the call settings.
CallChimps uses AI to analyse a wide range of documents or web links you provide the service with, so it can learn and answer in-depth questions about your business. All calls are recorded, transcribed, summarised and task lists are produced and sent as part of the call notification generated after each call.
What is Call Forwarding?
Call forwarding takes call diversion to another level, through the capabilities of conditional call forwarding. This allows you to just divert calls if you are unable to answer them in time, or you are engaged on another call, rather than divert all calls automatically.
Moreover, call divert settings can be customised to suit your specific needs. You may choose to divert calls to a designated number, or set up conditional forwarding that only activates when your line is busy or you're unavailable.
This level of control and flexibility ensures that you can optimise your call handling strategy to best meet the needs of your business or personal communication requirements.
What's Best - Call Divert or Call Forwarding?
Whilst conditional call forwarding allows some level of control over conditions when calls are diverted, and allows you to see and answer calls that fall outside of these conditions, it isn't always the most useful for business. For instance, customer need to ring until the call forwarding kicks in and they may hang up before this. Also, there is typically a noticeable switch when a call is forwarded by conditional forwarding, unlike an immediate call diversion to another phone number.
Setting your number to divert all calls to a call handling service, such as CallChimps ensures all calls are answered within 3 rings 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. You can choose settings to transfer calls to another landline or mobile if the number you're diverting matches one you've specified in your preferences. When you divert calls there is no delay, unlike conditional forwarding which may pause for a specific condition to be fulfilled.
Diverting calls CallChimps also means you have a call recording, transcript, summary and task list generated from each call. These details are sent via email, SMS or WhatsApp message to one or a group of contacts after each call.
So, what's best really depends on where your call diverts or conditional forwards go. We would recommend you set up call diverts to a new mobile or landline number via the CallChimps service (this is free) and either using this as your primary business number, or diverting all calls to this. Then you can add as many numbers as you'd like to transfer directly through to your office phone or mobile number.
This gives you the best of both worlds - guaranteed call answering and the ability for VIP callers to get straight through to you, if you're available.
Why not check out a 30-day free trial of CallChimps to see how easy it is - no contract, no commitments - get started today!
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