A telephone and voice mail (voice processing) system, which is implemented using only a single processing means for controlling operations of both the telephone system and the voice mail system, permits a caller, which has been placed on-hold, to request and be connected to another destination, such as another telephone extension in the system. Such a process may be performed by a recognition of digits dialed by the caller placed on-hold and then making a connection of the call to the requested extension number associated with the digits dialed.