If customers call your business, can they quickly reach the right person or department? Or are they frustrated because they have to be transferred from one person to another, explaining why they’re calling each time?
Phone extensions are an easy way for customers to self-serve when they call your main business line. Most people are used to phone extensions (e.g., “Press one for customer support”) and will listen to a short phone menu greeting.
If you’ve not used phone extensions before, we’ll walk you through some of the best use cases and how to set them up for your small business.
What is a phone extension?
A phone extension is a number assigned to a department or specific employee of your business. Instead of talking to a receptionist or dialing an employee’s direct phone number, customers can dial a phone extension to easily and quickly connect with the person who can help them.
Businesses can also use extensions instead of adding more phone numbers for individuals or departments. The business’s main phone number can have many extensions.
How do you dial an extension number?
Extensions are typically short numbers — a few digits — added to the end of your main business phone number. If you’re using an interactive voice response (IVR) menu, you can let customers know how to reach different people or departments using the extension. Many phone menus also let customers know they can bypass listening to the menu options if they know their party’s extension and can dial it at any time.
With OpenPhone, you can get up to 10 when adding extensions to your phone menu, which would be on your phone menu as items 0-9. For example, you might let your customers dial extension one to reach the sales department. OpenPhone doesn’t support multi-digit extensions at this time.
The differences between phone extensions and virtual phone numbers
Both physical phone and virtual phone systems can use phone extensions. On physical phones, extensions are tied to a specific phone line. On virtual phone systems, you can make and receive calls from any device that has an internet connection. Phone extensions can connect or forward calls to any device or location.
In a virtual phone system, each user is assigned a virtual phone number. With virtual phone extensions, you can direct calls to a specific user’s phone number or entire departments or forward them to a mobile phone.
4 use cases where you need to use phone extensions
Think of phone extensions as a type of call routing: you’re helping customers get to where they need to go, but without manual call transfers by your employees.
If you aren’t sure where to start, here are a few ways you can make it easier for customers with phone extensions.
1. Provide customer support after business hours
Let’s say you have regular support hours from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM but still want to provide after-hours support. In a virtual phone system, you can use business call forwarding to send a phone extension (“Press one for customer support”) to a mobile device or a third party if the call comes in after-hours.
2. Offer self-service options
Most customers would rather quickly dial a specific extension than talk to a human. If they have to speak to a receptionist, they’ll need to explain their reason for calling and wait to be connected to the right person or department. A self-service phone menu with extensions is much faster and doesn’t require a resource on your end to answer every call and connect customers to the right resource.
3. Quickly connect your customers to the right person
A short phone menu allows customers to listen to the telephone extension options and select the one that matches their reason for calling. If they call your business frequently, they may remember the short extensions to reach the right person or department, allowing them to bypass the menu.
Many businesses also offer “Press zero to talk to someone” so customers can talk to a person in case they aren’t sure which option to choose or have a unique situation. That lets your customers feel like they can connect quickly and interact with a human if they need to. In your phone menu, you can direct these incoming calls to someone in customer support who is prepared to answer the questions.
4. Appear more professional to customers
A self-service phone menu with phone extensions gives your business a more polished, professional appearance. It shows that you’re trying to make connecting with people and departments easy — even if a department is only one person!
How to set up phone extensions in OpenPhone
If you’re an OpenPhone business customer, here’s how to set up phone extensions within your IVR menu:
- Go to Settings in the workspace, tap Phone numbers, and select your main business phone number.
- Set your business hours so you have the option to add a phone menu during or after your company’s working hours.
- Scroll down to Call flow and click Edit call flow to start setting up your menu. You’ll be taken to the call flow builder that lets you map out your call routing.
- Drag and drop the Phone menu block on the right hand menu below either during or after hours
- Add an auto-attendant that callers will hear when they call your phone number. Click Add greeting message to upload an audio file, record a message, or type out a message to generate an automated voice recording.
- Under Menu Options, you can add up to 10 extension options including the numbers 0-9) the specific keywords customers can say if they select option by speaking.
- Next you can route callers based on the menu option simply click Replace step below each menu option.You can choose from these other phone menu options: Voicemail, Ring users, Play audio and route to default action, and Forward call.
- Once you add extensions to your phone menu, you can choose a default destination for callers who don’t type or say any command. By default, if a caller stays on the call without selecting a phone menu option, the call flow builder will default to a Voicemail step. Under No selection you can set a destination when a caller stays on the call without selecting an option. You can change this destination by selecting the ellipses (three dots) menu on the top right-hand corner of the step.
- Hit Save and toggle on the phone menu.
💡With our new call flow builder, you can create phone extensions to provide customer support after business hours. For example, you can play an audio recording for them, provide them the option to leave a voicemail, or forward the call to another number.
Connect customers to your team faster with OpenPhone
You don’t want your customers to struggle to connect to the right department or person when they call your business. Phone extensions provide a better customer experience because they make it easy for your customers to self-serve from a phone menu. It will also reduce the demand on your team members since you’ll spend less time transferring calls around.
If you’re not an OpenPhone customer, you can sign up for a free trial. IVR menus with phone extensions are available on Business and Enterprise plans.
FAQs
Phone extensions are used in traditional and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phone systems. Using a short numerical code after calling a main telephone number, you can route calls to another physical phone (traditional) or another person or department (VoIP).
If you’re adding a phone number to your contacts on an Android device, you can add a semicolon or comma after the phone number. Then add the extension. For example, if the number is 012-333-4444, you would add 0123334444;1 or 0123334444,1 to dial extension one when you call the number from your Android phone.
Adding a semicolon ensures you’ll hear the automated message before you’re routed to your destination. If you don’t want to hear the message, add a comma.
You can use VoIP extensions from a phone menu to route callers to a specific person or department. Common examples are for phone menus to include extensions like “one” for customer support, “two” for sales, etc. A voice menu provides instructions for extensions to callers.
Whether you’re using a landline or a VoIP phone system, the admin portal of your business phone system will allow you to configure and assign extensions to specific desk phones, users, or departments. The exact functionality and setup will vary by service provider.
