Cisco Hunt Groups

CallTower is proud to unveil a new feature functionality set within CallTower Connect for our Cisco customers. 

You are now able to easily create Cisco Hunt Groups from within CallTower Connect. 

CallTower Connect simplifies the setup and management of CallTower solutions facilitated within one easy-to-use web or mobile application. 

CISCO HUNT GROUPS

In telephony, Hunt Groups are used to distribute phone calls from a single telephone number to a group of several phone lines. Specifically, it refers to the route used to select which line will receive a call.

A Hunt Group is not connected to a particular handset, rather to a specific number. Calls placed to that number can be routed to a predefined group of extension numbers. A call coming in on that specific number can be broadcast, or rotated through, the pool of lines until a free phone line is found, and the caller is connected.

There are four ways a call can be distributed between the phones in a hunt group:

1. All the phones in the hunt group ring at the same time.
2. Top-Down. The call is first sent to the first phone in the list. If that phone is busy (or rings unanswered) the call goes to the second phone, and so on through the list of extensions.
3. Longest Idle. The call is first sent to the phone which has been idle the longest. If that is busy (or goes unanswered) the next longest idle phone rings, etc.
4. The first call rings one phone first. The next call rings the second phone in the group first, etc.

When calls are sent to a hunt group, the phone system rings any number of phones in sequence until someone answers or the call is sent to voicemail. For example, if Dave, Mark and Eric handle incoming calls, the system might ring Mark’s desk four times first. If he doesn’t answer, Dave’s phone would ring and so on.

This solution ensures customer inquiries are met with more direct results. It also offers managers the ability to control the order in which the phones will ring.

HUNT GROUP BENEFITS

• No need for new phones to use hunt groups. Compared to shared lines
• The handling of multiple calls is more elegant than with shared lines
• Improve business efficiency 
• Improve call answering efficiency
• Low cost to implement
• Easy to manage on CallTower Connect

Ready to learn more?