Managing your SAS Flex Number

When you sign up with Specialty Answering Service, you are given a phone number that you can either forward your business lines to or advertise so your customers can call it directly. For each account you have, you will be given a new forwarding number. Forwarding numbers are US-based and can be either local or toll-free, depending on your preference. 

In this tutorial we'll show you:

Where to find your SAS number

1

Within SAS Flex, go to your User icon in the upper right-hand corner and click Settings. 

2

Then, on the left-hand side under Telephony, select Numbers.

3

Listed on this page will be your leased SAS number(s), as well as some quick reference details, such as if a recording is attached and the Alias you may have given your number. 

How to configure your SAS number

You have total configurable control over any numbers you have through SAS. You can do things like turn recordings off or on, and add or remove upfront greetings, change the music that is played while your callers are waiting for an operator, and more.

To configure your number, you can either click directly on the phone number, or click the 3-dot menu icon on the right-hand side and select Edit. This will take you to the configuration screen.

Choosing an Alias

An alias is a friendly name for the number, which will appear throughout the SAS Flex system. 

How should I name an alias?

The alias can be the name of your company, or if you have multiple accounts, you may want to label them accordingly to help tell them apart. For example, if you have one number for your sales department and another for billing, you could label them as such.

If you need to re-assign any of your SAS numbers to a different script or advanced IVR, follow these instructions.

Turning call Recordings on or off

If you want your calls to be recorded, simply check off the Record Calls check box. When active, callers will be notified that their call is being recorded for quality assurance. This can be played via a pre-recorded audio file or can be read by the system via Text-to-Speech in the voice of your choosing. If you want to be able to listen to calls after they have been transferred, check the Record calls after transfer option.

If you have a Spanish account, you can select the Call Record Alert Audio (Spanish) or Call Record Alert Text (Spanish) options instead.

If there are any Appointment or Website blocks in your script, call recordings will automatically turn off once the agent leaves the script, and they will stay off for the remainder of the call for security purposes.

If you are a medical account you will see the following HIPAA Compliance Alert.

Choosing a Voice Synthesizer

If you choose to use any of the Text to Speech options within your Number Settings, you can also customize the voice and/or language that synthesizes the text. To listen to examples, simply choose a voice and click the adjacent play button.

Update your Front End Greeting

If you want your callers to be greeted by a personal message prior to speaking with an operator, you can add a Front End Greeting. You can also choose to have an All Day greeting, which will play 24/7, or a Business and After Hours greeting. 

If you choose to have a different greeting play during business hours and after hours, you'll need to select your timeframe, then choose your greetings for both Business Hours and After Hours.

Once you check the Recording check box, the subsequent fields will become accessible:

  • Select greeting: If you’ve already uploaded a greeting, it will be available to select in this dropdown list. If you haven’t already uploaded a custom greeting, check out this article.
  • Fallback text to speech: In the event that your recorded greeting is not working, our Text to Speech system will recite your greeting for you. Just type in what you want your greeting to say, and our system will relay the message.

  • Text to speech: If you don’t wish to upload your own recorded greeting and just want to use Text to Speech, select this option and type in the greeting you want our system to say.
If you are including a phone number in your Text to Speech message, you will need to follow the format in the picture below.

If you do not wish to have any Front End Greeting play on your line, you can select the No Greeting option. However, we don't recommend doing this as customers won't know they've reached your business. 

Adding your own Queue Music

Before a caller reaches an agent, they may be placed in the queue. You can customize the music they hear while they wait. Select an option from SAS's music library:

Or you can add your own. 

You'll need to upload your music file in the Music Library section under Settings before you can select it as an option here.

Adding a Periodic Announcement

Play an announcement in between queue music loops while the caller is waiting for an agent, e.g., "Thank you for your patience. We will answer your call shortly." For this to be effective, we recommend selecting queue music from the  Short Loops for Announcement Use category or trimming the length of your own uploaded music to around 45 seconds.

Adding your own Hold Music

Occasionally, callers will have to be put on hold during a call. Customize their hold music with an option from SAS's music library, or add your own. If you haven’t already, check out our article on how to add your own custom hold music.

Activating a DTMF Tone

If you are forwarding a Google Voice number, or if your calls require agents to accept calls from bots, agents may need to press a number on their keypad to accept the call. Activating the DTMF Tone in your Number settings will allow our system to accept the call on behalf of agents. Simply click the checkbox to activate, and then choose the Tone (which number will be required to push to accept the call) and the Loop (how many times you want the system to try accepting the call). 

Set the Call Transfer Caller ID

If you plan on setting up a Transfer within your script, you can decide which Caller ID pushes through during the call. Our system will automatically default to the Flex Number (your forward number), but you can change this if you'd like to see the incoming Caller's Number instead. 

  • Callers Number - will display the caller's Caller ID
  • Flex Number - will display your SAS forwarding number

Add your own High Volume Announcement

In the event SAS is experiencing longer than normal queue times, the High Volume Announcement will automatically play, which informs callers there may be an extended wait, and to please hold. 

If you don't want the standard announcement to play, you can customize your own message by uploading a recorded greeting, or using the Text to Speech option. 

The High Volume Alert is based on a global value, and this greeting will play based on queue times that exceed it. If the previous call exceeded the threshold within the allotted time frame, the next caller will hear the high volume alert audio. If the previous call did not exceed the threshold, the next caller would not hear the alert, even if that caller's queue exceeded the threshold.

Press 1 Callback

If queue times are longer than normal, callers may decide to hang up instead of wait. Activating our free Press 1 Callback feature will prompt callers to press 1 for a callback, or press 2 to continue holding. For more information on how to activate this feature, check out these instructions.

Queue Callback

When activated, Queue Callback (also known as virtual callback or virtual queueing) will dial your callers back if they hang up while waiting for 30 seconds or longer while in queue. For more information on how to activate this feature, check out these instructions.

If callers don’t answer the callback the first time, you can activate a Second Callback if no answer. If activated, this setting will apply to both Callback and Queue Callback type calls.

How to Block Callers

If your SAS line is getting spammed with robo-dialers, prank callers or telemarketers, you can block specific numbers or country codes right from your SAS Flex portal! For more information, check out this article.

Forwarding SMS Messages to Email

If you want you and your staff to receive email notifications of new inbound SMS messages from your customers, you can activate the Forward SMS messages to Email option, and include up to 5 email addresses to receive notification. All new incoming SMS messages to your SAS number will trigger an email to be sent to the addresses you have listed.

Adding a Simple IVR

A simple IVR allows callers a Press 1 or 2 option that will route to another one of your SAS numbers. For more information on how to configure the simple IVR, check out this tutorial.

If you wish to change your current number or open up an additional account with SAS to receive another number, contact Customer Support at 866-688-8912 or via email at service@specialtyansweringservice.net.

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