What Is Call Pickup and How Do You Answer a Colleague's Phone?
Call pickup is the ability to answer, from your own phone, a call that is ringing at another extension — without getting up and walking to a colleague's desk. You dial a short code or press a key, and the call comes to you.
What it actually is
Everyone knows the situation: Yaakov's phone is ringing, Yaakov stepped out to daven Mincha, and the whole office hears the ring and can't do anything. On a PBX with call pickup, any employee can dial a short code on their own phone — and the call ringing at Yaakov's desk comes to them. The customer feels nothing: as far as they are concerned, someone simply answered.
This is one of the oldest features in the PBX world. It already existed in the old PBXs that sat in a cabinet in the office, and it carried over almost as is to cloud PBXs. The difference is that on a cloud PBX it works even when colleagues sit in different buildings, as long as they belong to the same PBX.
It is important to understand that call pickup is an action by the person answering, at the moment they hear a ring. It does not change the permanent routing of calls. If you want calls to always ring on several phones together, the right tool is a hunt group.
Two types: group pickup and directed pickup
Group pickup (Group Pickup): the extensions in the office are divided into groups, for example "Accounting" or "Front Desk." When you dial the pickup code, the PBX looks for a call that is currently ringing at someone in your group and sends it to you. You don't need to know which extension is ringing.
Directed pickup (Directed Pickup): you dial a code followed by the number of a specific extension, for example the code followed by 214. This lets you answer a specific extension even if it is not in your group. It is useful when you know exactly whose phone is ringing — for example, the manager who is always out at meetings.
How you actually do it
On most PBXs, call pickup is activated with a star code. A very common code is *8 for group pickup, and ** or *8 followed by an extension number for directed pickup — but there is no uniform standard, and every PBX sets its own codes. So the first thing is to find out what the code is with you and to post it next to the phones.
The more convenient way is a BLF key — a lit key on the phone that shows the status of a colleague's extension. When their extension rings, the key blinks, and one press on it takes the call. No need to remember a code. There is a separate article on this: BLF keys.
The process itself is short:
- You hear a ring at a colleague's desk.
- You lift the handset on your phone.
- You dial the pickup code (or press the blinking BLF key).
- The call is connected to you, and the ringing at your colleague's desk stops.
When it is especially useful
- A small office with one secretary: when the secretary is on a break, anyone can answer her line without going over to her computer.
- A yeshiva or talmud torah: the phone in the yeshiva office rings during a class, and a staff member sitting in the next room picks up the call from his own extension.
- Warehouse and office: the warehouseman hears a ring on the office phone and answers from the cordless phone he has with him.
- Busy hours: when several calls come in at once, whoever is free takes whatever is ringing.
In most of these cases it is a "soft" solution — convenient, but dependent on someone hearing the ring and responding. When the calls are very important, it is better to plan a routing that ensures someone will answer, and keep pickup as a backup.
Call pickup vs. hunt group
A common question is: if I want several people to be able to answer, why not simply make all the phones ring? The answer is that these are two different tools for two different problems.
| Call Pickup | Hunt group | |
|---|---|---|
| Who decides | Whoever hears the ring, at that moment | The manager, in advance, in the settings |
| Which phones ring | Only the original extension | All the extensions in the group, together or in turn |
| Noise in the office | A little | Could be a lot |
| Best for | Occasional backup for a colleague | A main line that must be answered |
Many offices combine them: the main line goes into a hunt group or a queue, and direct calls to personal extensions ring only at their owners — and whoever wants to help picks them up.
What about a call that was already answered
Call pickup works only on a call that is still ringing. If a colleague already answered and wants you to continue, that is a call transfer — they transfer to you. And if they want to set the call "on the table" so that someone else picks it up from another place, that is call park.
A call that has already gone to voicemail also cannot be picked up — it is no longer ringing. So it is important that the ring time on the extension is long enough to give colleagues a chance to get there.
Privacy and boundaries
Call pickup raises a delicate question: should everyone be able to answer every phone? On the phone of the manager, of accounting, or of the head of the institution, maybe not. That is why on many PBXs separate pickup groups are set, so that an employee can only pick up calls from their own team.
Another thing worth knowing: whoever picks up a call usually sees the caller ID only after the call is connected to them. That is, they answer "blind." In a good office culture, whoever picks up a colleague's call introduces themselves and says they are answering in their place — "Hello, this is Moshe from the yeshiva office, Rabbi Yitzchak isn't at his phone, can I help?"
Common problems
- The code does nothing: usually there is no call ringing right now in your group, or the ringing extension belongs to a different group.
- The call vanished just as I dialed: the ringing ended at that moment — the caller hung up, or the call went to the no-answer destination.
- The BLF key doesn't blink: the key is not set up correctly, or the phone did not receive the settings. It is worth checking with whoever maintains the system.
- I picked up a call from the queue instead of from an extension: calls in a queue ring at the representatives according to the queue rules, and it is not always possible to pick them up from outside.
Tips for rolling it out in the office
Post a small note with the code next to each phone. Explain at one team meeting what it is, and let everyone try it once. After a week it becomes a habit. And if the phones have free keys — set BLF on them for the nearest colleagues; that saves having to remember anything.
It is also worth deciding in advance who is "responsible" for answering when someone is away from their phone. If everyone can pick up, sometimes no one does — each is waiting for the other to get up. A simple rule like "the secretary's line is picked up by whoever sits in the next room" solves this.
A bit of history
On old PBXs, which ran on copper lines and relays, call pickup was one of the few things that could be done without an operator. A technician would connect the lines of one department to a "pickup group" inside the cabinet, and whoever dialed the code got the ringing line. Every change to the group required a technician's visit.
On a cloud PBX the groups are a software setting. You can add or remove an employee from a group without touching the cables, and an employee who moved rooms takes their extension with them — it is not tied to a wall jack. That is also what lets an employee working from home pick up a call of a colleague sitting in the office, as if they were in the same room.
Call pickup with several branches
In an organization with several branches — for example a head office and two collection centers — you usually don't want an employee at one branch to answer a call of the other branch by mistake. For this, pickup is divided by branch: each branch is its own group. On the other hand, in the evening, when one branch is closed, you can let the other branch answer its calls too — it is usually better to do this with time-based routing, and not to rely on pickup.
A rule of thumb: call pickup is a tool for neighbors — people who sit close and hear each other's phones. For anything farther away, proper routing is better.
Questions to settle before you set it up
- Which extensions sit close to each other and hear each other?
- Are there extensions that others must not answer — management, finance, the head of the institution?
- Is it better to have one code for everyone or BLF keys for specific colleagues?
- How long does each extension ring before moving on — and is there enough time to get up and answer?
- Who will explain it to the team and post the note with the code?
Answers to these questions take five minutes, and save a lot of confusion in the first week.
How it works with us at Kesher
On the Kesher PBX, each extension is set up in the control panel, in the Extensions screen: how long it rings and where the call goes when there is no answer. So even without call pickup you can set it so that Yaakov's call goes after a few rings to a colleague, a group or voicemail.
When you want several people to answer the same line on a regular basis, with us you build a layered hunt group — first it rings at the secretary, and if there is no answer, at the rest of the team. This is usually a safer solution than relying on someone hearing a ring and going over.
If you want a pickup code or BLF keys on your phones, contact us and we will check together what suits your office and how to set it up. The phones we supply arrive pre-configured, and with us a person answers every question, not an automated system.
FAQ
What is the difference between call pickup and call transfer?
Pickup is when you answer a call that is ringing at someone else's phone. Transfer is when someone who already answered sends the call to you.
Does the caller hear anything when I pick up the call?
No. As far as they are concerned, the ring was simply answered. They don't know which phone answered.
Can I pick up a call from a mobile phone?
On many PBXs, yes, if the mobile is connected as an extension of the PBX — as a softphone or as a SIM extension — and you dial the code from it.
Can I block people from picking up the manager's calls?
Usually yes: you divide the extensions into pickup groups, and the manager is not in everyone's group.
What happens if two people dial the code at the same moment?
Only one gets the call — the first whose request reached the PBX. The other will hear that there is no call to pick up.
Does call pickup work on calls from a queue?
Not always. Calls in a queue are managed by the queue rules, and sometimes they can't be pulled from outside.
Which is better, call pickup or a hunt group?
For a line that must be answered — a hunt group or a queue. Pickup is good as occasional backup for personal extensions.
Do I need a special phone for call pickup?
No. A pickup code works on almost any phone connected to the PBX, even the simplest, and also on a regular phone connected through an adapter. BLF keys, on the other hand, require an IP phone with programmable keys.
Will the call I picked up be logged under my name in the call log?
On most PBXs, yes — the call log shows that the call reached the original extension and was answered at the extension that picked it up. That way you can tell afterward who spoke with the customer.
Can I pick up a call ringing on a cordless phone?
Yes. As far as the PBX is concerned, a cordless phone is an extension like any other, and pickup works on it the same way — both from it and to it.
Why bother knowing about this if there is a hunt group?
Because not every call goes through the main line. Longtime customers call the extension of the person they know directly, and then call pickup is what keeps them from waiting until the extension goes to voicemail.