Introduction
A phone extension or simply an extension is a criterion of grouping together phone numbers either belonging to a similar geographical location, organization or any other such category to ensure effective and quick communication. Extensions are a way of diverse classification of phone numbers, making international communications between continents to continents, countries to countries and organizations to organizations become less complicated and less complex.
Word-Wide Extensions: Geographical region-based extension
A worldwide directory exists which has pre-assigned country codes. Each country is assigned a word-wide accepted, generally similar countries are grouped in the same zone or continent. There are a total of 9 zones- North American, African, European, Regions outside North America, Southeast Asia and Oceania, parts of the former Soviet Union, East Asia, South-Eastern Asia, Middle East, some special forces and even regions having no code at all. Usually, these zones are having either 2, 3 or 4 digit extensions starting from +1 to +9. For example, the India code starts with +91 and the Japan code starts with +81, making it easier for a person, sitting in Europe, to call someone in these countries much easier. Furthermore, these codes could even be divided further for international state calling. These are divided even further, forming a 10 digit or 6 digit phone number which depends upon the telecommunication service provider country to country.
Organizational Extensions: Business phone extensions
To ensure cheap and effective communication, organizations have opted for VoIP based phone with extensions services rather than telecommunication services. It has happened because telecommunication services cost higher for audio and textual communication. Moreover, telecommunication services don’t provide organizations with the features of auto responders, virtual assistance, HD video calling, ringing customization and group conferencing. So, VoIP has come into play to provide the above-mentioned services along with many other services at a lower subscription fee which is billed either annually or monthly. VoIP extensions remove the tiring task of remembering and managing, either professional or personal, phone numbers of the members working within the company irrespective of the department and geographical location of the same organization and maintaining an internal directory.
These extensions exhibit the potential of internal as well as external communication. Internal communication refers to the communication within the organization, either between two different departments or in between the same department. Same departments have similar extensions mapped into the personal as well as professional phones of the working members. Different departments have different extensions but they do resemble the main official extension of the company.
External communication refers to the communication between the people interested in the company. They can be customers, suppliers or potential investors etc. Whenever these people call, they are assisted by the virtual receptionist and are asked to press buttons leading them to speak to the working member of the relevant department. This saves time for the customer, working member and improves productivity as well reputation of the business in terms of quality and professionalism.
It can be concluded that whether it is a Zone based worldwide extension or business phone extensions, both of the concepts ensure quick and effective communication, whether it is international or local.