What is Time-of-Day Call Routing?
Time-of-day Call Routing is a business phone system feature that is used to manage calls differently depending on the time of day, day of the week, or specific days and dates.
Time-of-day call routing enables businesses to manage calls more effectively and efficiently by ensuring calls are directed to the most suitable individuals, team, department or even voicemail box both during the working day and after-hours.
How Time-of-Day Call Routing Works
To set up time-of-day call routing, a business most configure specific call rules which then determine where calls are routed to based on the time of day they are received.
Business Hours and Time-of-Day Routing
Businesses can define different routing rules for business hours and outside of business hours. At first glance, this is easy to imagine. However, there are other scenarios when Time Based Call Routing is useful.
Example 1: Opening Times / Business Hours
If your business operates a 9 to 5 schedule, you can configure your time-based routing to route calls to a receptionist or a specific team between the hours of 09:00 and 17:00 - this is referred to as using an action condition or time condition as illustrated here:
Simple Time Condition for Time-of-Day Call Routing
In the image above, the * means “All” and the time condition for “Open” has been set up to be active from Monday to Friday from 09:00 to 17:00, meaning that this time condition will be applied during those times Monday to Friday of every month.
All calls during the configured times can play a greeting prompt and then be routed onto a queue. Calls outside of those hours could be routed to a prompt saying.
“Thanks for calling pascom, our offices are currently closed. Please call back during our normal business hours which are Monday to Friday, 9 to 5”.
The call could then be ended by simply hanging up.
Simple Time-of-Day Call Routing Example
Advanced cloud phone systems, like pascom ONE, allow for a more professional approach, allowing calls to be forwarded to a designated after hours destination such as a mobile number or a voicemail box, where the caller can then leave a message. In the case of a voicemail box, the initial prompt would look like this:
“Thanks for calling pascom, your call is important to us, but our offices are currently closed. Please leave a message and a member of our team will contact you at the earliest opportunity”.
As voicemail messages can often be overlooked, pascom enables the message to 1. be forwarded via e-mail to the intended receipient and 2. transcribed and attached to the corresponding entry in the call logs within the pascom apps.
Example 2: Different operating hours per team
What if each of your business departments / teams, has different availability? For exampl, your sales team are available from 09:00 - 12:30 and from 13:30 to 17:00, but your customer service team is available from 09:00 to 17:00.
With pascom ONE, managing calls to each team is simple. You only need to use the same techniques as in example 1, but configure the time-based call time conditions separately per team.
Team specific Time-of-Day Call Routing time conditions
Example 3: Call Routing per Day of the Week
As eluded to in the examples above, time-based routing and time conditions can be used not only for time, but also days. Making it possible to handle calls differently during the week and on weekends.
A classic example of where using different time conditions for during the week and for on weekends is in the retail industry where weekend opening hours tend to be different to those during the week. Another example could be if your business runs a form of Contact Centre (e.g. support / customer service) where weekend availability must be ensured.
The example below shows how time-based routing and time conditions can be configured differently according to the day of the week for a customer service team.
Customer Service Time-of-Day Call Routing Week Days vs Weekends
Example 4: Public Holidays & Calendar Integration
If your business shuts down on public holidays, e.g. Bank Holidays in England of Feiertagen in Germany, then it may be wise to used the calendar function when configuring your time-based routing.
A simple google search will list all the public holidays in your area and you can then add this information to your phone system. Modern cloud phone systems, such as pascom ONE, all you to enter the information per hand directly into your phone system calendar or upload them using the Import function.
Once done, you can then configure your time-based call routing to call up the calendar and handle calls differently on public holidays. For example, playing a greeting stating that the offices are closed due to the public holiday and when employees will be available again.
Benefits of Time Based Call Routing
Time based call routing provides businesses with several benefits, from efficiency to customer satisfaction.
Improved Efficiency
When it comes to telephony, there are a few KPIs to consider, e.g. call handling times and time to answer rates. Thanks to time-based call routing, calls are directed to the first available, most appropriate person or department, minimizing wait times and call handling times, and therefore providing an efficiency boost.
Enhanced Customer Service
From the customer perspective, there’s nothing worse than calling a business and the phone simply ringing seamingly endlessly. Time based call routing helps ensure that your customers who call during business reach someone quickly.
Should a customer call outside of regular business hours, time-based call routing helps ensure that your calls feel like they have had a positive interaction with your business, even if it is just leaving an after-hours voicemail.
Providing your team then follow up accordingly, time-based call routing can have a significant impact on customer service how your customers view your business.
24/7 Availability
If your business is larger, operates in multiple time-zones or delivers a product or service that requires round the clock customer support, then time-based call routing can be used to provide a round-the-clock service.
On the smaller end of the spectrum, time-based call routing allows you to route calls outside of your normal business hours to a designated “on-call” or after hours phone.
Larger implementations could see calls being routed to employees in a different time-zones to cover calls to your business outside of operating hours in the customers own country.
Summary
The main benefit of time-based call routing is the flexibility such a call routing strategy provides, thus enabling your business to professionally and efficiently cover many scenarios when handling customer calls.
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