Call waiting seems to be something that brings about a few different feelings for folks.
When on the normal telephone network and you call someone who’s on the phone - you get simple ringing - you have no idea if they are on the phone or not - and this makes sense for privacy reasons.
I’m assuming this is why the default in Vital is the same.
In Late 2022, Vital added an option to provide the “call waiting beep” to callers calling an internal extension that was on the phone.
Using the call waiting beep is a challenge for many people - in the case of Vital’s implementation - the calling party hears silence for around 8 seconds before they get their first beep. New users to the system are left wondering if the system is broken, and rarely stay on the line long enough to hear “the beep of call waiting.”
The beep tone seems to be the same one used to notify the receiving party that there is a call on the other line. I’m not sure why the same tone would be used for both? They serve different purposes. Clearly the long delay beep does well for the receiver as it allows them to continue on their current call with minimal interruption, while still getting the notification.
The calling party though is left with no information for 8 or so seconds.
I request that the beep be changed to every 1 second, or at least .5 seconds after the line is connected to call waiting, then every 2 seconds after that.
This would allow the calling party to know the line isn’t dead.
This has recently come to our attention that when outside callers call into our IVR, and use Extension dialing, if the person they are calling is on the phone - that outside caller just hears dead air for 8 ish seconds - in which case they almost all hang up thinking something’s broken.
Please understand that our internal staff LOVE that there is some type of notification to the calling party that the receiver is on the phone… therefore we don’t want to return to simple ringing as that provides zero knowledge (in a corporate environment this lack of privacy is anticipated and desired).