A couple of times on the forum I see a post from an IVR developer mentioning why a transfer isn’t working. The developer mentions that when they transfer to local numbers, the transfer works just fine. However, when attempting to do a transfer to an 800 number, they are unable to connect.
Ah, there’s the problem. The IVR developer is most likely attempting to do a transfer from an 800 number to another 800 number.
US phone companies do not allow transfers to another 800 number from calls that came in on an 800 number. Let’s think about this for a moment.
Let’s say Person A makes a long distance call using a toll-free number to be transferred to another toll-free number. The call hits Phone Company A’s toll-free line and Phone Company A then forwards the call onto Phone Company B’s toll-free line. The problem here is: Who shoulders the cost of when Phone Company A is forwarding on to Phone Company B?
Because of this issue of which phone company takes the burden of this cost, the US phone system has declared 800 to 800 transferring as being not possible.
To get around this, there is the possibility of doing 800 to 800 forwarding. This process involves an 800 number first forwarding to a local number and that local number then forwarding on to an 800 number.
For IVR developers that want to implement this within their code, please contact your sales representative about this process.
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