When someone calls a LeadSimple number, several things happen:
A notification call immediately goes out to any LeadSimple users assigned to that number, letting them know about the inbound call.
The caller is placed in a queue for 35 seconds.
If a user answers the notification call within these 35 seconds and presses "1", they will be connected to the caller.
If no user picks up and presses 1 on their phone in time, then the caller will be sent to voicemail.
If you hear the following message when you pick up the notification call, "Caller has already been transferred to voicemail," it means that the caller was on the line for 35 seconds without hearing a response, and therefore has been sent to voicemail.
How can this happen if I picked up the phone immediately after the first ring?
Phone networks are not perfectly reliable, and it can take 10-15 seconds for the notification call to start ringing your phone. This delay can be exacerbated by a few factors:
Poor cell coverage
Voice-over-IP phones may also add delays to the call routing process
If it takes many seconds for the phone network to start ringing your phone, it is possible for you to pick up after the first ring to your phone but still not in time to reach the customer before they go to voicemail.
Why does LeadSimple send callers to voicemail after 35 seconds? Couldn't it wait longer?
While LeadSimple could keep callers in the queue for longer, this would not always solve the problem and will also cause other problems.
Callers can still hang up whenever they want, so if the ring tone lasts too long, they may still hang up before a user has a chance to connect with them.
If callers are kept waiting too long, they will hang up rather than leave a voicemail. You would stop receiving voicemails from most callers.
See below for a workaround if you would like to increase the hold time.
What if I want the caller to be sent to voicemail sooner or longer than 35 seconds?
You can shorten the call hold time by customizing your hold music and uploading music shorter than 35 seconds. Conversely, if you want to lengthen the hold time, you can upload longer hold music (up to 1 minute). The length of the hold time will match the length of the music.