How Does Call Patching Work?

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Call patching (also known as “live transfer” or “warm transfer”) is a common way for an answering service to hand clients their calls.

There are three ways to do call patching with our answering service:

  • Using Your PBX
  • Regular Patch
  • Blind Patch

Regular patching is when a Customer Service Professional answers your call, puts the caller on hold (we never bill for hold time) and then attempts to reach you or a member of your staff on another line (e.g. back office line or a cell phone). If someone answers and is able to take the call, our CSP will patch the two lines together using our phone switch, drop off the line, and the call is now connected. The CSP is no longer a party on the call, but your call is taking place on our switch and ties up two lines for the duration of the call. This is why we bill our virtual services per minute rate for the duration of patched calls.

Blind patching is essentially the same thing. The only difference is that once we put the caller on hold, we dial the number to which we are supposed to patch, as soon as the line starts ringing, we patch the two lines, and drop off the line.

There is no introduction by our CSP; the call just rings through to your phone. If you answer, your caller is there, if not they get your voicemail greeting (if you have one).

We have many accounts at AnswerFirst that utilize call patching.

This feature is commonly used with calls where there is a potential new client inquiring about goods, representation or other services. Our clients like that we bill in true 1-second increments for both the live services and virtual services which include “patch” time, because answering in your company name and then only getting a name and number before patching the call, usually takes less than 30 seconds. Therefore, the bulk of each call is billed at our virtual services rate (which is significantly less than our live answering rate); and you control the amount of time you need to spend talking to the person with whom you are connected through our telephone switch.

The combined cost of both comes in at far less than securing office space, purchasing a phone system, and hiring a receptionist.

Would you like more info?

Please give me a call at 800-645-2616 or download our Pricing & Info packet.

Updated: 3-28-2024

Download AnswerFirst's Pricing And Info Packet