Your number is on the van, on the sign, in the directories and on the map listing. "Give your customers a new one" ends the conversation about automation in the first minute — and it should.
So it works the other way round. The agent gets a number of its own, and calls reach it through forwarding you set up on your side: your phone rings for a set number of seconds, nobody answers, the call goes to the agent. Nothing changes for the caller — they dialled the number they have always dialled.
Four modes, and you usually need one
On GSM networks these are standard MMI codes, not something your carrier invented, so the same strings work on most mobile operators. You dial them like a phone number and press call.
| Mode | Code | When to use it |
|---|---|---|
| On no answer | **61*number**15# | The default. Whoever is at the desk still answers as before |
| All calls straight to the agent | **21*number# | Nights, a second line, vacation |
| When the line is busy | **67*number# | Adds to the no-answer mode, does not replace it |
| When the phone is off | **62*number# | Flat battery, basement with no signal |
To see what is active, dial *#61#. To clear every rule at once, ##002#. To cancel just the no-answer rule, ##61#. Some carriers — legacy CDMA networks in the US in particular — use their own short codes instead; the dashboard prints the exact commands for your number.
Ring delay: fifteen seconds, not thirty
The number before the hash in the first code is how long your own phone rings before the call moves on. Carriers default to thirty seconds, and that is too long — not every caller waits that out.
Fifteen seconds is three or four rings. Someone at the desk still has time to answer, and the caller has not yet started to feel unwelcome. The delay only accepts multiples of five, from five up to thirty; anything in between is rejected by the network.
Four places this breaks
Unconditional cancels the rest
You switch on "all calls" to test something, and the no-answer rule silently disappears. Clear everything with ##002# and set it up again rather than stacking rules.
Your carrier bills the minutes
A forwarded minute is charged on your plan and lands on your bill. Finding that out from the invoice rather than up front is an avoidable annoyance.
Landlines do not work this way
MMI codes never reach a landline. There, forwarding is switched on by the carrier or in your PBX console.
Your number instead of ours
The code takes the agent's number, and this is exactly where people slip. The dashboard prints each command in full, with the number already filled in — dial it from there.
Forwarding is the only setting that lives on your side. The number, the script and the agent itself are ours, and there is nothing else to change on the phone.
Confirming it worked
Dial *#61# and the network will read back the active rules and the number calls are going to. Then call your own number from another phone and let it ring.
That call should show up in the dashboard with a summary of what was asked and how it ended. If the agent answered but nothing appeared, the code was almost certainly dialled with the wrong number in it — check it against the one printed in the dashboard.
Switch-over day
There is nothing to turn off, and no reason to save it for a weekend. The no-answer mode takes nothing away from you: while somebody is there to answer, they answer, and the agent picks up only what did not reach them. If anything goes wrong, ##002# puts the phone back the way it was in a second — which is the best argument for starting with that mode.