Phone.com has a dedicated team of service agents trained to support our more complicated deployments. When these agents configure a new account, they typically port the customer’s original phone number over to Phone.com without any interruption to their existing phone service.
This article is primarily written for our agents who are assisting their customers however, all customers can benefit from this bit of knowledge regarding our porting process. It offers guidelines on how to maintain phone service during the porting process and highlights common issues that may arise.
Tasks Outside of the Phone.com System
Before porting the number to Phone.com, be aware of the following points:
- Prior to porting any numbers, check for contractual obligations or pending orders with the prospect’s current phone provider. Some companies will not release numbers, claiming that they own the number or that the customer’s contractual obligations do not allow porting at that time.
- Make sure the number that you want to port is currently active. Inactive numbers cannot be ported.
- Never try to close an existing account with any phone company before porting the number over. If you close the account before porting, you run the risk of losing the phone number.
- Always forward the original number to Phone.com before starting the porting process. Some companies may not let you set up call forwarding once you’ve started the porting process.
On the Phone.com Side
Before porting the number, be sure to consider the following when configuring the customer’s Phone.com account.
- When setting up the Phone.com trial account, create a virtual extension and place all your call handling rules on that extension. We call this a Mezzanine Extension, as it sits between the phone number and the rest of your menus, IP Phones and so on.
- Do not set any call handling rules on Phone.com temporary numbers, other than simple forwarding to the Mezzanine Extension. If you eventually delete a temporary number, you will lose the rules associated with it.
- Use call handling rules presets. When deleting an extension or number that has call handling rules on it, the rules will be deleted also. However, if you stored them as a preset, they will be saved on the account under the Presets list.
- When porting the original business number to Phone.com, the process creates an additional temporary number that will be replaced by the incoming business number. Be sure to forward that temporary number to the Mezzanine Extension you created.
Once the number is ported over, it will replace the temporary number. All calls will be routed to the Mezzanine Extension and all phone functions will continue to work flawlessly.
Once you confirm that porting is complete, delete the original trial phone number from the account and place a test call to the ported number to make sure everything is working properly. Also be sure to call the other phone company and tell them to close the account. Many companies will continue to charge the customer every month, even if the customer has no phone numbers with them.
These days, more and more people are working out of their offices or in the field. Few companies need a receptionist or a physical answering machine to take messages.
