Connecting a Landline Number

If allowed by your organization, Hearsay Relate offers you the ability to connect your landline number and configure extensions. To do so, simply follow the steps below so you can start conversations within your Hearsay workspace: 

To connect your Landline number:

1. Log into Hearsay Relate on desktop.
2. Click Message & Call or Text Message in the left navigation bar.
3. Select Connect Landline when prompted.
4. Enter your landline number.
   • Note: If you are prompted with an alert, stating your number is ineligible, please review the section below, titled, Enabling Texting With an Incompatible Landline Number
5. Hearsay Relate will call your landline number and provide a 3-digit number.
6. Enter the 3-digit number into Hearsay Relate, proving you have physical ownership of your landline number. Within 60 minutes, your Hearsay Relate number will be fully synced with your landline, and you'll be able to begin sending text messages on behalf of the number.

Enabling Texting With an Incompatible Landline Number

In few, but some cases, a landline number may not be compatible for texting in its current state, due to how the number has been configured by the service provider. This scenario can feel frustrating, but have no fear, Hearsay’s Product Specialist team has compiled next steps you can take to resolve this issue.

One of the fastest ways to resolve this issue is to:

• Contact your service provider directly.
• Kindly request that your provider enable Third-Party Texting on the landline number.
• In addition, request that your provider update your landline’s underlying carrier to Level 3 access.

The above changes will still allow you to make and receive phone calls on your landline number as you always have, but now, your landline will also be configured to send and receive text messages which will be visible within Hearsay Relate.

One thing to keep in mind is that service providers may take a day, sometimes a week or more to update your underlying carrier or to enable third-party texting.

Pro Tip: If you’re preparing to use Hearsay Relate for the future, reach out to your service provider ahead of time to confirm whether your landline number is properly prepared to send and receive text messages.

If your service provider was unable to help, please reach out to our Customer Support team. When reaching out, be sure to include:

• Your landline’s number
• The name of your service provider

Configuring Landline Extensions

Hearsay Relate allows calls to be forwarded to office landlines.

If your office has an extension system, you can enter your extension into the Extension field to ensure the pin validation goes to the right phone line. Most phone systems have one of two options for entering an extension:

1. The phone system allows for the extension to be entered right away. This type of system usually says, “If you know your party’s extension, please enter it now.” In this situation, you can enter your extension digits into the Extension field. The characters # and * are allowed here.

Example:

Your extension is 234 followed by #. You would enter 234# into the extension field.

1. The phone system has a menu to navigate to the extension line. This is more complicated and we recommend calling your own extension to time the seconds between each step. You will need to enter “w” to represent the pause time between each extension digit to make sure the call goes to the correct destination. Each “w” represents a 0.5 second pause.

Example:

Your system has a series of steps to reach your extension line.

Step 1: Thank you for calling Financial Services, INC. If you are trying to reach 401k plans, press 1. If you’re trying to reach whole life insurance, press 2. (Approx. 11 seconds)

You want to reach 401k plans. Since this message takes 11 seconds, you need 22 “w”s before the next digit. This looks like: wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww1

Step 2: Welcome to 401k plans. For John Smith, press 3. For Jane Doe, press 4. (Approx. 8 seconds)

To reach Jane Doe, you need to wait 8 seconds and press 4. This looks like: wwwwwwwwwwwwwwww4

For the inbound call handling to direct the call to your extension, you will need to combine the extensions from steps 1 and 2. The combined extension you will enter into this field is: wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww1wwwwwwwwwwwwwwww4

This means the system will wait 11 seconds before entering the first number and then wait 8 more seconds before entering the second number.

Here are some things to remember:

• Use numbers and the characters * and # for extensions 
• Use “w” to signify a pause of 0.5 seconds between extension steps
• If your extension allows entering your extension immediately, place your validation code directly in the extension field 
• The “w”s need to be used if your extension system needs to pause through navigating the process