Airtel Nigeria has unveiled “Call Assist”; a newphone call management Value Added Service, VAS, specially designed for the convenience of top corporate and business executives.

The Tecommunication Company stated that with the Call Assist service, customers with very busy schedules can transfer calls from their phones to designated assistants who will take messages on their behalf when they are busy and cannot take calls.

The assistant can either be a secretary, personal assistant, family member or anyone preferred by the customer.

To sign up for the service, customers are enjoined to subscribe by sending *464# to the short code 38464 and will be charged N750 per month irrespective of service class or tariff plan.

Commenting on the product, vice president:segments, usage & retention, Airtel Nigeria, Mr. Dinesh Balsingh noted that the new service offers busy executives the flexibility and freedom to manage incoming calls for them while at social functions or in very serious meetings where it might be difficult to receive calls.

“As an organisation which is committed to providing exceptional services to its customers, we have created this service with the aim of ensuring that our customers never miss important calls again, irrespective of their busy schedule. All they just need do is to assign the call to an assistant who will receive the message and pass it on to them at a more convenient time,” Balsingh said

According to him, the service is available in three options; Live, Controlled and Timed. With the ‘Live’ option, phones of the call owner and his assistant rings at the same time. If the call is picked by the call owner and he does not wish to engage in long discussions with the caller, the call can be transferred to the designated assistant by dialling*1. However, if the assistant picks the call and needs to transfer the call to the call owner, then the assistant will need to dial *2 on this phone

Balsingh explained further that:
“Under the Controlled option, the call owner’s phone rings, but he either drops or rejects the call, and the call is automatically transferred to his assistant to talk to the caller. For the ‘Timed’ option,when the call owner does not pick his call after about 10 seconds, the call is automatically transferred to the assistant.
Customers can also choose to unsubscribe at any point by sending ‘ON’ or ‘OFF’ to 38464. There is also the option of restricting the service to work only week days (Monday to Friday, from 8am to 5pm) and in that case, the customercan subscribe by sending “ON WD” to 38464, and unsubscribe by sending “OFF WD” to same number”.

If customers desire to white-list or privatise a number, such that only their phones ring when such numbers call, they would be required to send ‘PRIVATE’(and the numbere.g 0708XXXXXXX) to 38464, Balsingh said.