We have recognized that in the prior art, to insure that there is at least some communication between the calling and called parties, when the called party is unavailable to take a call, the calling party may be connected to an alternate destination, e.g., a voice messaging system, and the caller's telephone call is considered completed. If the called party thereafter becomes available, the called party is not connected to the caller's telephone call. However, in accordance with the principles of the invention, this problem is overcome by, in response to receipt of an indication that the called party is available for a caller's telephone call after the caller's telephone call has already been connected to an alternate destination, a) disconnecting the caller's telephone call from the alternate destination and, instead, b) connecting it the called party, thus interrupting the connection between the caller and the alternate destination. Optionally, a tone or announcement may be supplied to the caller to indicate that the called party will now be connected "live" to the caller.