Power failures – How to cope with your telephones

It’s been just over a month since 50 million people had to go without power for several hours and even days in parts of Canada and the United States. At Extend, years of experience, training, planning, and a fantastic effort by staff paid off. Our emergency generators kicked in automatically and ran throughout the crisis. Many staff members showed up for work when they weren’t even scheduled to be there. It was hot, and call volumes were double and triple the usual amounts. Callers were patient if they experienced a few extra rings on the line – and we didn’t miss a single phone call.

HOW DO I CALL FORWARD MY PHONE WHEN I DON’T HAVE HYDRO?

As you may know, a “regular” residential style telephone does not require electricity to operate. Business telephone systems are plugged into hydro, and unless you make plans ahead of time, you will have no phone service during a power outage. This also means that you cannot forward your phone to us if the power is off!!

WHAT TO DO: – Keep a regular telephone on hand around your office. This must be one that doesn’t require electricity (ie. Not cordless, etc). – Find your telephone system in your basement or equipment room, and look for the phone jack that it is plugged into. You can unplug the phone system and plug the regular phone into this jack. Call forward using *72 like usual. You can also talk to your telephone supplier about a “power fail” set. This type of set can be installed in your office for use during power failures. Please don’t hesitate to call us if you have any other concerns about what procedures should be in place on your account to deal with hydro outages. With a little bit of advance planning, our staff can help you minimize the effects of this kind of crisis.