Let’s say that you’re an equipment manufacturer with multiple products. You have a division that builds rockets, another that builds washing machines, and another that builds garage door openers. Each product has its own toll-free support Number for customers to call for assistance. Each of those numbers rings into your in-house telephone answering service, where you have different groups staffed with stellar agents that have expert knowledge of a single product.

Your business is booming! You receive hundreds of calls daily on each number, so each of these calls needs to go to the appropriate agent. How does the answering service software know which number your callers dialed in order to route the calls correctly? If you guessed Dnis, then give yourself a round of applause!

Dialed Number Identification Service is a feature offered by telecom network providers that allows the recipient, in this case the answering service, to determine the number each customer dialed to reach you. It works by transmitting the DTMF digits to a decoder that will make them available to a device on the receiving end. So, when the phone rings at the Private Branch Exchange (PBX), the DTMF is transmitted along with the call, telling the PBX if the call came in on your rocket line, washing machine line, or garage door opener line. Based on that information, the system will route the call to an agent who is using the corresponding support script.

If you’re setting up DNIS at your own business location, here’s a great infographic to explain a bit more about how DNIS works.

In addition to DNIS giving virtual receptionist businesses the ability to answer for more than one customer, it can be used as a means to improve productivity in the call center itself. Accurate call routing means that the right agent gets the right call every time, increasing productivity and decreasing the time agents spend on calls.

Read our extended resource to learn more about how DNIS works and how it’s used by call centers.

If you’re writing about DNIS on your own website, please copy the code below to use this infographic:

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Image originally posted on The SAS Blog

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