Phone Systems
What Is Find Me / Follow Me?
Find me / follow me is a phone feature that tries to reach one person on several numbers until they answer. "Find me" rings your phones one after another, like desk, then cell, then home. "Follow me" forwards calls based on a schedule. Either way, the caller dials one number and the system tracks you down.
Key Takeaways
- One number reaches you on several phones, tried in the order you set.
- "Find me" is the sequence. "Follow me" is the schedule-based forwarding.
- It is a hunt group for a single person.
- Every phone in the sequence adds ring time before the caller gives up.
How Find Me / Follow Me Works
You give the phone system a list of numbers and an order. When someone calls your main number:
- The first number rings for a set time, say four rings.
- No answer, so the call moves to the second number.
- It keeps going through the list.
- If nothing answers, the call goes to voicemail or another fallback.
That is the "find me" half. The "follow me" half adds a schedule: route to the office from 8 to 5, to the cell from 5 to 8, and to voicemail overnight. Both are forms of call forwarding with extra rules, and together they act like a hunt group built for one person.
Example of Find Me / Follow Me
A property manager splits her week between an office and the road. She sets find me to ring her desk first, then her cell. She sets follow me so that after 6 pm, calls skip the desk and go straight to her cell, and after 9 pm, they go to voicemail unless the caller marks it urgent.
A tenant calls at 3 pm. The desk rings, she is out, so her cell rings and she picks up. Another tenant calls at 7 pm. The desk is skipped, her cell rings, she answers. The system found her both times, and she never had to change a forwarding setting by hand.
What People Get Wrong About Find Me / Follow Me
Owners build long sequences. Desk, cell, spouse's cell, home phone, each with five rings. The caller hears over a minute of ringing and hangs up long before the system runs out of numbers. Every hop in a find-me sequence is time the caller spends waiting, and most callers will not wait past 20 or 30 seconds.
The other mistake is treating it as a coverage plan. It finds you when you are free. It does nothing when you are busy, which for a service business is most of the day. The sequence should be short, and the fallback at the end should be something that answers, not voicemail.
Find Me / Follow Me vs. Simultaneous Ring vs. Hunt Group
- Find me rings one person's numbers in order.
- Simultaneous ring rings one person's numbers all at once.
- A hunt group rings several people's numbers in order.
Find me trades speed for control. Simultaneous ring trades control for speed. For most small business owners with one cell phone, simultaneous ring or plain forwarding does the job.
Why It Matters
Find me / follow me came from an era when reaching a person meant guessing which phone they were near. That problem is mostly gone. The problem that remains is the opposite: the person is easy to reach and too busy to answer. The modern version of this setup is a short sequence, or simultaneous ring, with conditional call forwarding to an AI receptionist at the end. The system finds you if you are free. If you are not, the call is still answered. See virtual phone system setup for small business for how to configure it.
The Bottom Line
Find me / follow me reaches one person across several phones, in order or by schedule, until they answer. It is a hunt group for an individual. Keep the sequence short, because every hop costs the caller time, and end it with something that answers when you cannot.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is the difference between find me and follow me?
- Find me is about order. The call tries your desk, then your cell, then another number, one after another. Follow me is about time and place. Calls go to your desk during office hours, your cell in the afternoon, and voicemail after 6, based on rules you set. Most phone systems bundle the two under one name.
- What is the difference between find me / follow me and simultaneous ring?
- Simultaneous ring makes all your devices ring at once. Find me rings them one at a time. Simultaneous ring is faster for the caller. Find me gives you a preferred order, so the desk phone gets first shot and the cell is the backup. If speed matters most, use simultaneous ring.
- Is find me / follow me still useful?
- Less than it used to be. It was built for a world where people had a desk phone, a cell, and a home phone. Now most people carry one phone, and simultaneous ring covers the rest. The bigger question is not which of your phones should ring, but what happens when you cannot answer any of them.
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