Introduction
A lot goes on behind the scenes when a caller is put on hold. This is a good thing because multiple call queue types mean your company can streamline and customize routing options without making the caller jump through too many hoops.
Pilot Voice offers a few different kinds of call queues:
- Round-robin (or longest idle)—this queue routes callers to an available agent who’s been idle the longest.
- Ring All—this queue routes callers to all available agents at the same time.
- Linear Hunt—this queue routes callers to available agents in a predefined order. This order is set when editing the queue's agents.
- Linear Cascade—this queue routes callers to groups of available agents (like entire departments) in a predefined order. The order is defined when editing the queue's agents.
- Call Park—this feature places the caller on hold until an agent picks up the call. It’s not used for automatic call distributor (ACD) functionality.
How to Create a Call Queue
Watch this video and follow the steps below.
Step 1: Access your call queues
Log in to the Pilot Voice portal. Your Login Name will be in the format of extension@domain. Click Call Queues in the navigation bar.
Step 2: Set up a call queue
Click the Add Call Queue icon and include all the information needed:
- Name: Enter a descriptive name.
- Extension: Choose an extension between 6000 and 6999.
- Type: Select type of Call Queue.
- Record Calls: If you select YES you will have the option to record calls.
- Statistics: If you select Yes the system will generate call queue-related information for the Call Center Supervisor.
- Message to Agent: Plays a message to the agent before they accept each call. This is useful when an agent is a member of more than one Call Queue.
Step 3: Review and choose pre-queue options
- Require Agents: Require at least one agent to be online before sending callers to the queue. Otherwise callers will go to the Unavailable destination.
- Require intro MOH: Plays a complete initial greeting before placing callers in the queue. This is useful for "All Calls Recorded" and similar messages.
- Max Expected Wait: The time in seconds before the queue is unavailable to new callers. This applies when the queue's average wait time reaches the maximum expected wait.
- Max Queue Length: Maximum amount of callers allowed in the queue before it's full and unavailable to new callers.
- Allow Callback Option: Allow the system to prompt for a call back option instead of waiting for time conditions. Callers get called back in the order they entered the queue.
- Forward if Unavailable: Where to send calls if the queue is unavailable.
Step 4: Review and choose in-queue options
- Queue Ring Timeout: How long in seconds the queue will try to ring agents before using an exit option.
- Logout agent on missed call: How long the queue will ring agents before moving to the next available person. This should be less than the Queue Ring Timeout
- Forward if unanswered: Where to send the call if agents can’t answer before the Queue Ring Timeout.
- Voicemail: Callers will be sent to queue's voicemail if agents don’t answer before the Ring Timeout and Forward if unanswered is not set. This will also trigger the system message. It says, “Please continue to hold or Press 2 to leave a voicemail,” and then returns the call to the queue if nothing is pressed.
Step 5: Save your queue options.
Phew - you made it! The queue is now created and you can route DIDs to the Call Queue and add agents. Need more queues? Repeat this process for any additional ones you’d like to create.
