What is time-of-day routing in the context of VoIP services?

Time-of-day routing is a VoIP feature that allows you to distribute incoming calls to different numbers depending on the time of day or day of the week. For example, let's say your company provides international services, but you don't want to receive calls outside of business hours. Or do you find it convenient to allow incoming calls only during a certain period of the day?

In this case, time-of-day routing will help provide better availability and quality of customer service depending on the time when you are ready to provide such service.

What is the time-of-day routing function for?

Routing by time of day is implemented in several ways. The simplest is to use a comparison table to identify time intervals with specific numbers or directions.

More advanced systems may use complex algorithms that take into account factors such as the location of the subscriber, the type of call, or the condition of the equipment. Most often, time-of-day routing works thanks to the ability to bind to CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and Partition time stamps.

Benefits of technology:

• Provides better availability and quality of customer service at different times. For example, after 00:00, calls can be redirected to voicemail or an on-duty employee.
• Saves costs on telephone service.
• Improves quality of service by diverting calls to specialists best equipped to handle them.

If used correctly, the function can be very useful for any business that uses VoIP services to communicate with clients.

When should a business use time-of-day routing?

Time-of-day routing can be used in any business where it is necessary to create conditions for better customer service at different times of the day and night.

In companies with 24-hour operation, it provides subscriber service 24/7. In companies with geographically distributed offices - customer support is based on their location. For example, in Europe calls can be redirected to European offices, and in Asia - to Asian ones.

It is logical for representatives of seasonal businesses to use the function during the holidays, forwarding calls to additional lines or employees specializing in processing holiday orders.

When choosing routing by time of day, it is important to take into account such factors:

1. The complexity of the business. The more specific it is, the more difficult it will be to set up the technology.
2. Call volume. If a business receives a large number of calls, routing may be difficult and costly.
3. Type of equipment - not all VoIP systems support time-of-day routing.

Overall this feature is quite simple, but setup can be tedious when there is a lot of CSS to change.