Dec 10, 2012
Recently, one of our favorite funeral bloggers, Caleb Wilde, shared a comical post about what happens when he is the only one at the funeral home to answer the phone and nature calls. Caleb’s satirical post brought to mind the many instances where having back up protection for your phone is a crucial must. In the funeral business, a missed call could result in a family calling another funeral home or a time-sensitive issue going unaddressed.
Fortunately, there are several call forwarding tools that can eliminate the risk of ever missing a call. Through your local phone company, you can set your phone line to ring a certain number of times and then forward to ASD. This option guarantees if you can’t get to the phone, or you forget to forward your lines, someone will always answer your calls. We recommend setting your line to ring 4 times before forwarding to us. These call forwarding features provided peace of mind to many funeral homes who lost power during Hurricane Sandy. Their calls were automatically forwarded to ASD after their phone lines went down so they had one less thing to worry about during the storm.
If you’re not sure if you already have this feature, it is easy to test. Simply call your main phone line from your cell phone during your regular office hours. Make sure no one in your building answers the line. What happens to your call? If your call was answered by ASD after it stopped ringing at your location, you have this feature successfully enabled. However, if your call rang forever, went to a voicemail, or was eventually disconnected, your Funeral Home is at risk. You do not have “No Answer Call Forwarding”. We recommend you call your phone company today and order this feature.
To order No Answer Call Forwarding, contact your local phone company and ask to add this feature to your account. You will need to provide them with your ASD call forwarding number and specify the number of rings to allow. We recommend setting your “No Answer Call Forwarding” to 4 rings. Be sure to enable No Answer Call Forwarding for every phone line at your funeral home that a family may call.
For more information about No Answer Call Forwarding and other call forwarding features available through your local phone company, contact an ASD Supervisor 24/7 at 800-868-9950 ext 2.
About The Author
Jess Farren (Fowler)
Jess Farren (Fowler) is a Public Relations Specialist and Staff Writer who has been a part of the ASD team since 2003. Jess manages ASD’s company blog and has been published in several funeral trade magazines. She has written articles on a variety of subjects including communication, business planning, technology, marketing and funeral trends. You can contact Jess directly at Jess@myASD.com
