1 November 2026 · 5 min read
Call forwarding is the phone feature most small businesses half-understand. They know it exists, they have perhaps switched it on once by accident, and they are not sure how to get it to send only the calls they miss. It is simpler than it looks, and once you know how it works you can point your missed calls anywhere you like: a colleague, a second phone, an answering service, or us.
When you set up forwarding, you are not changing a setting on your handset. You are telling your carrier what to do with a call before it ever reaches you. That is why forwarding still works when your phone is switched off, flat or at the bottom of a trench: the network makes the decision, and your phone does not need to be involved.
There are four kinds, and they are independent of each other:
For most small businesses the useful combination is the last three together: you still answer the calls you can, and only the ones you can't go elsewhere. Forwarding everything is for when you are on holiday, or when someone else genuinely runs the phone.
These are standard GSM codes, defined in the specification the industry works to (3GPP TS 22.030), so most networks that use SIM cards accept them. Rogers publishes them in this form; put the ten-digit number you are forwarding to where it says number, and press call:
Dial the first three, one after another, and you have the sensible setup. Each one confirms on screen within a few seconds. If one fails with an error, it is usually the voicemail problem below.
This is the part nobody explains. On most mobile networks, voicemail is itself a no-answer forward: when you don't pick up, the network sends the call to your carrier's mailbox. Setting up your own forward means replacing that destination, and some carriers won't let you while voicemail is on. Rogers says it plainly on the same page: conditional forwarding "will not work when voicemail is activated".
So if the codes are refused, ring your carrier and ask them to take voicemail off the line, or to let you forward with it on. It takes five minutes on the phone. Do it before you need it, not on the Monday morning you are relying on it.
On a no-answer forward your phone rings for a while first. Verizon says roughly three or four rings; Bell's business landlines say four. On many SIM networks you can set it yourself by adding seconds to the end of the code, in steps of five up to thirty: **61*number**20# gives you twenty seconds. Not every carrier honours it, so test it.
How long to choose is a judgement, not a fact. Too short and calls you would have answered go elsewhere while you are wiping your hands. Too long and the caller gives up before anyone picks up. Fifteen to twenty seconds suits most people who work with their hands; if you are usually at a desk, ten is plenty.
Some networks, and most landlines, use a different and older set. Verizon's are *72 plus the number for everything, *71 plus the number for busy or no answer, and *73 to turn it off. Bell's business landlines use *72 and *73 for everything, *92 and *93 to forward when you don't answer, and *90 and *91 when you are busy, though Bell notes the busy one depends on which voicemail you have. If you are on an office phone system or a VoIP line, forwarding lives in its admin page rather than in codes.
There is a Call Forwarding switch in an iPhone's settings, and it is the one people find first. Apple's own guide is clear about what it does: it sends every call to the other number, your phone has to be in range of the network when you turn it on, and for forwarding only when you are busy or out of service it tells you to ask your carrier. So unless you really want nothing to ring, leave that switch alone and use the codes.
Apple's guide also carries a warning worth repeating: iPhones now block links asking you to turn on call forwarding, because scammers use them to redirect people's calls. Never dial a forwarding code someone has texted you. If you suspect something is wrong, *#21# and *#61# will show you where your calls are going.
Usually nothing extra on a Canadian plan with unlimited Canada-wide calling, but check. Verizon says airtime still applies to forwarded calls and that "additional per-minute charges may apply". The forwarded leg is billed to you, not the caller, so forwarding to a number in another country, or on a plan with limited minutes, is where a surprise bill comes from.
Borrow someone else's phone and ring yourself three times. Let the first one ring out. Decline the second. Put your phone in flight mode for the third. Each should land wherever you pointed it. Then write the cancel code on a sticky note and put it in the van, because the day you want to undo this you will not remember it.
Forwarding is how almost every answering service gets your calls without you changing your number, and it is how PhonePick works too: you get a local number, forward your missed calls to it with the codes above, and Settings shows you the exact ones for your line. One code undoes it. But everything in this post works just as well pointing at a colleague's mobile or a voicemail you actually check, and if that is all you need, it costs nothing. If you'd rather have the calls answered, the plans are here.
PhonePick answers your business phone when you can't — takes a message, books the job or takes the order, and writes up every call it answers. From $75 a month, no contract — see what each plan includes. Get your number or hear it answer a call.
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