Chorus Freephone numbers

Set up and initial costs:

A new line incurs a one off cost of £20 to set up.

Ongoing line rental falls into one of 2 bands:

  • Contact Point - Sometimes termed ‘point and shoot’, any call to the toll-free number is delivered immediately to its terminating extension.
  • Contact Pro – This service also allows you to deliver your calls immediately to a terminating extension.  However, you also gain access to an online portal that allows you to manage your calls.  As this is a service provided at the carrier level, you are able to direct calls to a mobile, landline, or other destination in the event that the Chorus telephony service is down.  You are also able to run statistical reports on call volumes.

Call costs

As incoming calls to toll-free numbers are free to the calling party, the cost incurred will be charged to the owner of the service, as part of the calling bundle.

Call costs are charged at the same rate as outgoing calls from University extensions, please see details of call costs and note the fair use policy.

You will be asked to provide a cost centre when you request a new toll-free number.

 

What is the terminating extension and who will answer the calls?

Calls to toll-free numbers need to be answered, which means that the call needs to be delivered to the University in such a way that it can be handled by an individual or team.  To enable easier ongoing management of who answers these calls, the terminating extension will be a hunt group pilot number.  Hunt groups are a method of distributing telephone calls from a single phone number to a group of several phone handsets. When a new toll-free number is requested, the Chorus team will ask you who should be taking the calls (ie, who should be part of the hunt group) and whether a voicemail service will be required.  Once this has been set up for you, your local phoneman administrator will be able to manage the members of the hunt group thereafter.

If you want callers to your freephone to be greeted by messages, a selection of menu options, or to have their call handled differently based on the time of day, please specify this when placing a request for a toll-free number.  To incorporate this added complexity, you will either require the Chorus team to set you up with a Contact Centre or configure the required behaviour in Contact Pro.  It is also possible to configure this behaviour using Telephony over Teams, but please contact the Chorus team for advice on which solution is most suitable for you.

How to request a toll-free number

Please raise a Service Request for a toll-free number via self-service.  This will automatically raise a task with the Chorus team based on the information you provide, and they will contact you when the toll-free number has been set up.

Get support


If you cannot find the solution you need here then we have other ways to get IT support

Get IT support