Introducing Live Transfer

When we first launched Smith.ai, we spoke with numerous pros about the features they found important. Surprisingly, live transfer (also known as “warm phone call transfer”) was not at the top of the list. Instead, our pros wanted an answering service that would free up their time, and reduce the amount of calls they received. As our business grew, we decided it was time to revisit this feature. Now, after some significant updates to our already streamlined system, we introduce Smith Live Transfer.

Your All-Around Receptionist

Smith’s primary goal is to free up time for you to handle business. However, we realize there may be times you want to talk directly with certain people. Similar to how a front-desk receptionist knows when to take a message and when to send the call to you, our Smith agents are now equally empowered.

When we receive a call, our expert virtual receptionists identify the call’s priority, and if urgent, can contact you to connect the call. Because of Smith intelligence, they will be able to quickly identify which calls and callers justify live transferring. You can even let your receptionist know which calls to escalate to you.

An Industry Standard

Live transferring is not new. It is based on a switchboard-based system used by many businesses a few generations prior. This generation is fortunate enough to have that same concept hosted in the cloud. The result is a virtual call switchboard system, known as a PBX, that is used by many virtual receptionist services.

How Does It Work

1. When an urgent call comes in, a single click by our agents automatically dials out to your number. If you are available to take the call, you are connected. Then, our receptionists end their call, leaving you and your client to engage in a private conversation.
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2. If you are not available, we will send you an instant message via SMS or
   with “urgent” priority in the email subject, together with all the client’s contact information, so that you can get back to them ASAP.
   

To make this a simple one-click process for our agents, we built our system using an advanced Voice-over-IP platform with dynamic call routing. We are combining multiple channels of communications like voice, SMS and email to handle different call priorities. Because of our intelligent software architecture, we are able to deliver this feature without any extra charge to our pros.

It is just another example of how Smith plans to be the new standard for virtual answering services.