All About VoIP Extension Dialing – How Does it Work?

In the world of enterprise communication systems, extension dialing has been around for a long time. If you’ve worked in an office at any time, you have probably used it at least once or twice. But while extension dialing is not new, VoIP technology certainly is. As with many other phone features, VoIP has changed the rules of extension dialing. What was a mere convenience before has now become a time-saving and efficiency-enhancing feature for the entire office.

Evolution of Extension Dialing

Extension dialing means different things when it comes to residential phone lines and business lines. For residential users, an extension is a second phone that is wired to the same line as the main instrument. When a call comes in, both phones ring. If a user makes a call on the extension, the line is busy for everyone else as well. Extensions allowed for users to receive calls in any room in the house.

In a business context, an extension usually refers to an internal line that is connected to the PBX but does not have a separate outside line. This allows businesses to share a few lines among many employees since not everyone will be making external calls at the same time. The conflagration allows users within the same office to call each other by dialing three digit extensions instead of hunting in the entire 10 digit phone number.

The power of VoIP and the Internet allows businesses to streamline communications with extension dialing. The new technology offers more flexibility and breathes new life into an old feature. Let’s take a look at what VoIP extension dialing can offer:

Three, Four, and Five Digit Dialing

VoIP service providers typically offer four-digit extension dialing. But enterprise vendors also offer other options such as using three digits or five digits. You can choose the alternative that fits the needs of your business. What’s more, you can easily change from one to the other later on.

Location Doesn’t Matter Anymore

Few businesses operate in the traditional manner of having all employees come into the office from 9 to 5 every day in today’s world. Even a small business might have employees working from home, a few who work at the client’s site, and some workers who are traveling for work purposes.

VoIP extension dialing allows the business to act as one location – regardless of where the employee is actually situated at the time. You may have offices across the country and callers can reach any user by dialing the correct extension.

Take Your Extension with You

VoIP extensions are mobile – users can take them anywhere. As long as you have an Internet connection to make calls, your extension will behave as usual. You can work from your home, a coffee shop or the desk in your office without the worry of missing important calls.

Benefits of VoIP Extension Dialing

Perhaps one of the most important benefits of extension dialing is that users save time. It’s much easier to dial three numbers than ten. And for a colleague down the hall! It may not seem like much but precious seconds quickly add up across all users.

People in certain roles like customer service, tech support, executive assistants, and receptionists benefit more from extension dialing. These users handle hundreds of calls each day and transfer them to other users. Three or four-digit extension dialing allows them to transfer calls faster and makes for fewer mistakes.

Suppose a service agent is transferring an irate customer to a manager to resolve their issue but makes a mistake while dialing that sends the caller to accounts instead! A bad situation becomes worse and it could easily be avoided with 3 digit extension dialing.

Many enterprise VoIP vendors offer unlimited extensions for clients. This allows users to connect multiple devices to the same line for extensibility. For instance, suppose an executive has a business mobile phone, a personal phone, a desk phone in the office, and another in the brand office. Incoming calls can ring all the devices at once until they answer or ring each device in a specific order previously configured. All the extensions behave as one line and the caller doesn’t have to worry about the location of the recipient at any time.

Unified extension dialing across the board also means that employees don’t have to worry about managing different area codes while calling each other. Whether you’re calling a colleague in another department in the same building or a team member working out of the branch office in a neighboring country, all you need to do is dial the 4 digit extension.

VoIP forward extension dialing brings new tricks to the table while extending an old feature that has been around for decades. Try it out for your business and see the difference it makes!