Use it with your phone system
If your office has a business phone system (PBX), like 3CX, FreePBX, Avaya, Mitel, NEC or Cisco, the forwarding codes won't do it. Whoever runs your phones sets it up instead. This page is written so you can send it straight to them.
For whoever runs the phones
This business uses Jesse, a receptionist that answers calls, takes messages and puts callers through to the team. It has its own phone number, an ordinary ten-digit number. You'll find it on the Jesse home page after signing in.
- Add the Jesse number as an outside number, the way you'd add a cell phone or an answering service.
Send calls to it from one or more of these:
- Unanswered calls from a ring group, in place of voicemail.
- After hours, from the time-of-day or holiday rules.
- A menu option, like "press 0 to reach the office."
- Every call, as the first stop for incoming calls.
Missed calls plus after hours is the usual place to start. The phones ring like they always have, and Jesse catches what nobody picks up.
- Keep the caller's number on forwarded calls. Make sure a forwarded call shows the caller's own number, not the business's main number. Systems call this caller ID pass-through, or forwarding the original caller ID. Calls still work without it: when the caller ID is the business's own number, Jesse knows it isn't the caller's, so it asks every caller for the best number to reach them and reads it back. Pass-through saves callers that step, and lets Jesse offer to text them a link right away.
- Test it. Call the main number from a cell phone outside the office and let the call reach Jesse the way you set it up. It should pick up and go straight to helping you, without asking for your number. The call summary emailed to the owner should say "Called from" with that cell's number. If it asks for your number instead, or the summary says "Number they gave", the phone system is sending the business's number: go back to step 3.
To turn it off, take the Jesse number back out of the rules.
Your directory
When a caller asks for someone, Jesse rings the number in your directory for that person. Put callers through to your team says how to fill it in. Behind a phone system:
- Use each person's direct line, their DID, or their cell.
- Don't list your main number on its own. If the main number sends calls to Jesse, the transfer would come right back, so the directory won't save it without an extension. It won't save your Jesse number at all.
- Someone with only an extension gets the main number in Forward to and their extension in Ext. That works when your phone system answers the main number itself, with a menu or by letting callers dial an extension. Once it answers, Jesse dials the extension, and if the person doesn't pick up, the caller lands in their voicemail on your phone system. If your system needs a menu key first, or
#after the extension, the Ext. box takes that too. See Someone with only an extension.
Busy signals
On older office systems, a forwarded call can tie up two outside lines while it lasts: one for the caller coming in and one for the call out to Jesse. If you only have a few lines, callers could get a busy signal on a busy day. Your phone person can tell you how your lines are set up. A system with SIP trunks usually has room to spare.
If it doesn't work
- The phone system's voicemail still answers. The voicemail rule comes before the forward. Ask your phone person to send unanswered calls to the Jesse number instead.
- The receptionist asks every caller for their number. Your phone system is sending your main number as the caller ID, not the caller's. Nothing's broken: callers just have one more question to answer, and your summaries show the number they gave ("Number they gave"), or no number when they didn't give one. To save them that step, turn on caller ID pass-through (step 3).
- Still stuck? Email hey@leftjoinstudio.com with the name of your phone system, and we'll help you and your phone person sort it out.
Didn't find it? See all the help pages, or email hey@leftjoinstudio.com.