Call queue is a tool that will help you not to lose customers at times of peak call centre load. With this feature, you can keep the customer on hold even when all operators are busy until one of them is free. To keep the customer from listening to the ringing tone while in the queue, you can brighten up his waiting time by setting up the playing of music in the background or advertising information. Once the line is free, the manager takes the call from the customer who has been on hold the longest.
What does "Call Queue" give you?
Thanks to the call queue, the workload is evenly distributed among all call centre managers. Additionally, you gain extra time to retain a customer before they consider contacting a competitor.
For flexibility in settings, we provide various methods for distributing calls among managers. You can select the one that best aligns with your call center's needs:
All operators are called until one of them answers at the same time.
The operator who has been out of calls receives the call.
The operator who has handled the fewest calls is prioritised
Calls are randomly distributed among operators.
Operators are called in a circle — each subsequent operator after the one who answered the last.
Also, to increase customer loyalty to the waiting time, you can include periodic announcements that announce the order in the queue and/or the estimated waiting time.
How does the Call Queue work?
Incoming calls are placed in a queue.
Queue managers respond to calls that arrive in the queue.
The specific order in which incoming calls are assigned to queue managers depends on the call distribution strategy defined for the queue.
While the caller awaits a response in the queue, background music can be played to enhance their waiting experience.
It is possible to enable notification of the position in the queue and the approximate waiting time before connecting.
If you have added sip accounts to the queue, they may be offline at the moment of the call for various reasons. In this case, the call will be immediately directed to the second block in the forwarding scheme (1) despite the time specified in the queue block (2). It will happen because if the system cannot find any available destination among the offline SIP accounts in your project, it will automatically attempt to reroute the call to a backup destination within the forwarding scheme. This measure ensures that the call is retained and not lost.
What do I need to set up a "Call Queue"?
To ensure the proper functionality of this feature, the recipient's phone system must support multichannel capabilities. Multichannel enables you to handle an unlimited number of concurrent calls. Without this capability, only one of your clients can enter the call queue.
IMPORTANT!!! Please note that the Call Queue functionality is compatible with the Callback feature only when the initial direction for the call is set to 'Customer'. |
Call Queue" setting
You can find the voice menu setup page in your Ringostat personal cabinet within the 'Virtual PBX — Call Queue' section.
1. To create a queue, you need to click "Add call queue":
2. Set a name for your queue (arbitrary):
3. Next, you will have "Call Queue Settings" open:
You can see three blocks on the setting page:
General Queue Settings;
Operator settings;
Advanced call queue settings:
Caller Alerts;
Default audio recordings;
Periodic Announcements.
General queue settings
In this block, you can select general queue settings, such as:
default language of audio recordings (Ukrainian, Russian, or English);
maximum time of sending a call to a direction (in seconds) — time (in seconds) for how long the call will be forwarded to one direction of the queue. We recommend to set 20-30 seconds.
Operator settings
In this block, you can configure:
Play audio for operators — audio will play about the client's waiting time on the line before connecting to your operator.
This function is turned off by default. To enable it, simply check the box next to the function:
The receiving call principle by operators.
Choose one of the appropriate rules:
Ringall — call everyone at once;
Leastrecent — call operators one by one, starting with the one who has not received calls for the longest time;
Fewestcalls — call operators one by one, starting with the one who has received the fewest calls;
Random — call all operators in random order;
Rmemory — call all operators in a circle. The call comes after the operator who answered last.
Configuring directions (operators) — here you can add directions to which calls from the queue will be distributed.
It requires:
1. Click Add call group member:
2. Next, select the type of referral (sip account manager, phone number, external sip, employee, or department):
3. Select a direction from the drop-down list or enter the direction data (if it is a number or external sip):
4. Set a description for this direction (if necessary) and save:
Advanced call queue settings
This block allows you to customise your queue in more detail, specifically:
Сaller announcements — you can set up an audio notification to the customer if this customer is first in the queue or notify their position in the queue.
You can use the default recordings or your own.
Requirements for audio files: Audio recording format — *. wav or mp3, mono, 16 bit, 8000 Hz; Audio file size — no more than 5 Mb |
Default audio — you can choose or upload default audio recordings. These audio recordings will be played by default to clients (background audio, wait for operator response, thank you for your patience).
Periodic announcements — you can upload or select the default audio of periodic announcements and specify the interval of its playback. For example, to inform the client that all operators are busy at the moment and offer to wait on the line.
After configuring all your settings, please save your changes and incorporate the call queue into your forwarding scheme.