subject: How Do Hunt Groups Work? Will A Hunt Group Help My Business? [print this page] Hunt Groups are sometimes referred to as Find Me, Follow Me routing. They are a powerful call management feature which allow a business to have significant control over incoming calls. Using Hunt Groups, one person can be accessible via a single number, no matter where the person is. This means that even when an employee is on the road, he can be contacted on the same number which he uses whilst in the office. The only difference is, instead of answering his desk phone, he answers his mobile. Such is the power and flexibility offered by Hunt Groups.
The basic premise of Hunt Groups is in its name itself. It hunts for a logical end to the call, or a destination number if the primary number cannot be answered. In one Hunt Group, 40 different numbers can be added. That means there are 40 possible destination numbers that the call can be routed to. The system can be programmed in such a way that the numbers ring in a preconfigured manner till someone answers. 40 different numbers are accessible via the single number dialled by the caller. Your customer need not know about the intricacies behind each call, he also need not worry about whether or not there might be someone at the desk to answer the call.
Each number rings for a predefined number of times till the next one rings. The caller can also be routed to a voice mail or even cycled back into another queue that is handled by someone else if required. A hunt group has ten levels. Each level can accommodate 4 numbers. The numbers can be configured remotely and altered as and when the need arises.
Hunt groups will enable a business to get the right calls to the right people every single time. They significantly reduce the number of missed calls and calls that do not get answered by the right person or department.
There are two methods of call hunting - linear hunt and circular hunt. The linear hunt first calls all the level one numbers in each of the ten levels at the same time. then it moves on to the level 2 numbers in all ten levels if the none of the first 10 numbers are answered within a stipulated number of rings. It continues in this fashion till all the numbers ring and then loop back to the beginning. The service can also be programmed to perform a circular call hunt. The system will call one number from each level at a time. This is continued till the final level is reached, then the process goes back to the first level. The numbers are skipped if they are disconnected or busy.
Telephone systems that are used by multiple staff members who work in different shift timings can take advantage of hunt groups. To know more about how Hunt Groups can help your business contact Numbertalk.
