The phone NUMBERS for gold and elite are different but the phone LINES are the same. The inbound calling LINES are all shared for regular, gold and platinum callers. The phone number that you dial gets sent to the ACD (the machine that answers the phone) and the Platinum calls get put ahead of the Gold calls which get placed ahead of the regular calls. The platinum and gold calls get routed to dedicated agents, if they are available, otherwise they go to the regular agents. This is possible with ISDN PRI lines. They are different from the residential type lines we have at home. One difference is that most ISDN PRI lines bypass the local phone company entirely. Most companies get these lines from the long distance carriers along with the 800 numbers used to access these lines. The lines are generally inbound only, so that is why customer service agents usually can't return a phone call unless they have access to an outbound ISDN line, or an analog line like we have at home.
[This message has been edited by pderby (edited 10-28-2001).]