VoIP Phone System Feature – Call Queues

A Call Queue is an essential hosted PBX feature for organizations that experience a heavy flow of incoming calls and telephonic queries. This feature enables the PBX panel to place various incoming calls on-hold, prioritized according to their waiting period.

In other words, the call which came in first or was on hold for the longest period of time will be picked up first. Call queues are used a lot in sales charged environment where sales representatives are constantly on the phone. So, whenever a salesperson has some time at hand, he picks up the next waiting call from the queue.

While the caller is on-hold, he listens to the on-hold music or any other recorded message that the company wants to play. The users on the private phone network, who are registered to entertain the incoming calls in the call queue, also have the option of logging out, if required. The calls will therefore no longer be routed to their phones; other available agents can handle them.

Calls in a queue can be handled in a various ways. The Call Queue feature in a PBX system can be configured in tune with the specific requirements:

• Calls can be recorded if the need be
• Agent (the user entertaining the incoming calls) has a number of ‘ring’ options
  • Ring every agent on the network (anyone can pick the call)
  • Only ring agents who are currently available for taking calls
  • Only ring a certain set of agents (sales reps or support staff, for example)
  • Sound an agent about the long waiting time of a call on hold (in the call queue)
• An additional parameter, known as ‘call weight’ can also be used to prioritize calls; support calls, for instance, may be of higher priority than other calls
• It is possible to completely personalize different messaging options; the hosted PBX system can be configured to set how long a caller can be on hold, how often the on hold music is to be played out to a caller and so on.