On Wednesday, June 25, 2014 12:17:44 PM UTC-4, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
> "Can you please transfer my call?"
> "No. I can't transfer a call to another building."
I've had that happen to me many, many times on calls to banks, department
stores, utilities, hospitals, colleges, and other large organizations. It
seemed easiest just to get the number of the desired extension and hang up and
dial it myself. Trying to
teach someone over the phone how to transfer a call was difficult.
Interestly, when dealing with City of Phila agencies, it was not a problem.
Of course, with their system, transferring a call meant simply flashing the
hookswitch once and hanging up; the City Hall operator would come on. This
applied whether you
dialed in directly or was connected by the operator.
Years ago, when I began work in industry, part of my orientation included a 3
minute explanation on how to use the company phones--how to answer them, how
to transfer calls, make outgoing calls, etc. It wasn't rocket science.
Indeed, it seemed most
office workers served by PBX way back when knew how to do that stuff; the
procedures were standard.
As Stephen noted, the fancy new PBXs with numerous features with special dial
codes weren't easily used. FWIW, I knew people served by such PBXs and had no
clue on the special features that were available to them unless their job
specifically required
it. They might have had a booklet buried in the desk. However, I have no
accurate way of knowing what true user experience was with rank 'n file served
by advanced PBX systems like Dimension, and I wonder about it. For instance,
it offered automatic
call-back to extensions that were busy by re-dialing the number plus a code--a
useful feature, but was it widely utilized?
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