Number of rings doesn’t always work the way they expect when cell phones are involved.
Many agencies rely on “number of rings” to forward hotline calls to backup advocates, but it often doesn’t work as planned. In this article, a former crisis coordinator shares their experiences with this method. This guest post comes from someone who has worked at a non-profit agency assisting survivors of sexual violence. The insights shared are the author’s personal views. They were paid for writing this article.
Do you count the number of rings on the hotline?
Some agencies have a system where both the primary and backup advocates are called at once for a hotline shift. The primary should answer right away, while the backup jumps in if it rings too long. At a rape crisis center I worked, daytime hotline calls went to all office phones at once, but that approach wasn’t effective for us.
Counting rings reduced the quality of service
When I was on a call or in a meeting, the office phones would all ring, distracting everyone. I often had to prepare to answer the hotline. The ring system stopped advocates from focusing fully on survivors. Since we depended on it, if we missed a call, we couldn’t quickly get back to the caller.
Counting rings limited the agency
When hotline calls came in, our team would count rings, waiting to pick up after six rings. This didn’t work during busy times—calls went unanswered because we couldn’t keep up!
Counting rings was not possible during work-from-home
The system got tougher with remote work as calls were sent to personal phones. Hotline calls often appeared as “Spam Likely,” causing staff to miss calls. Plus, not all phones rang simultaneously—mine might ring four times, while my coworker’s only rang twice. This meant some advocates answered more calls, even off-shift.
Switching to HelplineSoftware.com solved all of our problems
It turns out that the reason our phones were ringing a different number of times was due to reception issues. Helpline Software worked with us to resolve that issue. Furthermore, they update us in real time when an on-call advocate's phone is out of reception.
For a complete framework on designing reliable routing—including escalation patterns, fallback logic, and what to require from any system—see call routing solutions.
If you are interested in solving similar issues please email us at sales@helplinesoftware.com or schedule a meeting today! CONTACT OUR TEAM
