With the holiday season rapidly approaching, use 3CX to re-route calls (call flows) and better manage caller expectations. 3CX breaks calls into three time windows: global office hours, specific office hours and holiday days. The Intermediate training covers off how these differ. It is a fantastic resource to utilise, especially during the planning stage for a new install.
This is also an opportunity to catch up with existing customers to implement the new dates into their system. Some holidays occur on different days throughout the year. Calls during a holiday within 3CX, are treated as being outside of office hours for that inbound rule. You can access this via the 3CX Management Console – Time, Office Hours & Holidays. To add a new holiday into the system, click the +Add button.
After clicking add, you will see the following pop up to create the holiday hours.
From this pop up, a name can be given to the holiday as well as defining whether it is a single date, or a range of dates (i.e. a known office closedown window) and its recurrence. A custom .wav recording can be uploaded from here. It will play the file to the caller before the call is routed to the outside office hours rule, which can mention that the system has been reached during a stated holiday. Perhaps explain when the company will be back in the office. This can also be recorded from an extensions handset by clicking the record button, and entering in the extension number. The extension will ring with a prompt to record the message, and a key to enter to save the message. Finally click OK on the pop up, to save the holiday. Simple!
We’ve also seen a lot of customers switch their phone systems to a digital receptionist / IVR with a similar recorded prompt. And add the option to press a key to forward the call somewhere else (e.g. an on-call engineer or emergency number). This involves setting up the IVR ahead of time, and then switching the main inbound rule to the IVR when the leave period occurs. Remember to switch it back to normal call flow rules when the company is back in office. How do you set your holiday hour call flow? Let us know in our poll!