Where a transfer goes wrong
Menus and extensions built around what callers ask for rather than how you are organised internally.
Read about auto attendant
Spokane, WA
Business VoIP in Spokane, WA
509 covers the whole eastern half of Washington with nothing laid over it. The useful thing to understand about a phone here is not the code, it is that a lot of the calls arriving are somebody being sent to you from a long way off, and a call that reaches the wrong desk usually does not get made a second time.
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One code for half a state
509 has covered eastern Washington since 1957 and nothing has ever been overlaid on it. Seven digits still reach locally, anything printed years ago is still complete, and there is no reprinting job in your future. The west side of the state is more crowded: Seattle runs 206 with 564 over it, and the codes there change every few years.
What 509 cannot do is place you. It reaches from the Canadian border to the Oregon line and from the mountains to the Idaho state line, which is a great deal of ground and several hours of driving. A caller who reads it has learned that you are east of the mountains and nothing narrower.
That is worth accepting rather than fighting. Keep a 509 number if you hold one, port it when you change provider, and stop expecting it to answer questions about where you are. It is on business phone numbers.
The failure that costs the most here
Most pages about business phones assume the expensive mistake is a call nobody answers. In a regional hub that is not quite right, because a large share of the calls are not first contacts at all. They are handoffs: a patient referred in from a clinic two hours away, a supplier passed on by a distributor, a contractor recommended by somebody in another state.
A caller in that position has already spent effort getting to you. They have a reference, a case number or a name, and they are usually working through a list somebody else wrote. If the call is answered fast and then sent to the wrong desk, they do not experience that as good service. They experience it as being back at the start, and a meaningful share of them go back to whoever referred them and ask for a different name.
So the thing worth building carefully is the routing rather than the pickup speed. That means a short set of options that match the way callers actually describe what they want, not the way your organisation is structured internally, and it means whoever answers being able to transfer to a person rather than to another queue.
Two questions to ask a provider directly: can somebody transfer a call and stay on the line long enough to introduce it, and what happens to a transferred call that is not picked up. If the answer to the second one is that it goes to the transferred person's voicemail, that is the exact place referrals disappear, and it should fall back to the person who transferred it instead. Auto attendant and extensions covers the front of that.
None of which makes the service local
There is no Inland Northwest phone product. The software is the same one a business in Florida is sold, it runs a long way from here, and the only thing your address decides is the three digits on the front of the number.
How it works and what it asks of your connection are on the main business VoIP guide. The rest of the state, which is a different economy on more crowded codes, is on business VoIP in Washington.
Who gains here
The working economy here is built on being the largest city for a long way in several directions: healthcare and medical services, higher education, professional and financial services, distribution and freight, and the manufacturing and agricultural supply businesses that serve a very large rural catchment reaching into two neighbouring states.
Nearly all of that is referral or appointment work, which is why the section above is where the attention should go. Beyond routing, the things that earn their cost are a direct number for people who are regularly asked for by name, and a message that reaches somebody the same day rather than a box opened tomorrow. Virtual phone system covers the first.
There is one practical caution about the catchment. Callers may be one, two or three hours away and ringing to find out whether a trip is worth making. Whoever answers should be able to say plainly how far you travel and what you can do remotely, because that is the question underneath most of those calls and the area code cannot answer it.
Who should not bother: one person, one phone, customers who already reach you. And if the connection into your building is unreliable, deal with that before the phones. VoIP vs landline is the honest case for keeping copper.
The decisions behind the number
None of these are about Spokane. The first two are where a referral is most often lost.
Asked for by name
Direct numbers for the people referrals are sent to, without publishing a personal mobile.
Read about virtual systemsThe number itself
Keeping a 509 number you already hold, and what porting one between providers involves.
Read about business numbersWhether to switch at all
The honest case for keeping a copper line, which still applies to some buildings and connections.
Read VoIP vs landline
Common questions
Spokane VoIP questions
What happens to a transferred call that nobody picks up?
Ask that specifically, because the default on many systems is that it lands in the transferred person's voicemail, and that is exactly where a referral disappears. The behaviour you want is for it to come back to whoever transferred it, so a person is still holding the call. It is usually configurable and almost never the default.
Does a 509 number tell a customer we are in Spokane?
No. 509 covers the entire eastern half of the state, several hours across, so a caller learns which side of the mountains you are on and nothing more. Say the towns you actually serve and how far you travel, because a caller two hours out is usually ringing to find out exactly that.
Is a second area code coming to eastern Washington?
Nothing has been laid over 509 and none has been announced. The west side of the state has been through it more than once, so the pattern is familiar there: no number changes, but every local call needs all ten digits afterwards.
Check where your transfers land
Tell us what happens today when a referred caller is passed to somebody who does not pick up. If it already comes back to a person, we will tell you to leave it alone.