How to set up your answering service

Dialed's answering service feature allows you have a simple automated system "answer" incoming calls with a prompt where callers can select from a menu of options that you define.

The most common use case for the answering service is to forward the caller to another number, e.g. "Press 1 to speak to customer service, press 2 to speak to sales." 

How to set up the answering service

1. Open Dialed and navigate to Settings. Under the Unknown Callers section, tap Send to Answering Service. Note: do not turn the answering service's switch on just yet, that is the last step.
2. Think about which actions you want a caller to be able to take. Dialed current supports the following actions
   1. Connect Call. This action allows the caller to connect the call to your Dialed number directly. The caller will be connected to you.
   2. Forward to another number. This will allow the caller to connect to another phone number, perhaps someone else on your team.
   3. Text caller with my business info. This option, which selected by a caller, will send them the business information that is set in Dialed Settings > Your Business Name > Information.
3. Once you've decided on the actions you want, tap a digit on the keypad. An alert will show asking which of the actions you want to assign to this number. Pick the one you want and follow any additional instructions. For a forwarding number, enter the number you want the action to forward to.
4. Once you've repeated step 3 for any other action you want, you are ready to record your greeting. The app will give you an example script based on your defined actions, but you can say whatever you want. An example answering service greeting would be "Hello you've reached {business or your name}, press 1 to talk to {forwarding number}, press 2 to get a text with our business information, press 3 to connect directly to us.
5. Now that all the information is set up, you can turn the answering service switch "on" and you are good to go!

A few things to remember:

1. The answering service does not replace your outdoing greeting message in every instance. If you have an action that is "connect the call" and you don't answer the call, the caller will be routed to your outgoing voicemail. You can configure your outgoing message in Settings > Voicemail Greeting > Greeting settings
2. You need to set a answering service greeting message, otherwise the answering service will not work.
3. The answering service is currently only available for unknown callers. Contacts you have in your Dialed contacts list will bypass the answering service even if is switched on.