Queues are a key part of managing phone calls in your organization. They allow you to route incoming calls efficiently to a specific group of phone numbers.
When you set up a queue on your phone number, Phone.com will route incoming calls to the members of the queue, in order, from the first to last member.
If the first queue member is on another call, our system rings the next number in the queue. While your callers are waiting to be connected, you can choose to play hold music.
Note: If you plan to use a greeting to provide information when callers reach your queue, you need to add it before creating the queue.
Adding a Queue
Start by logging into Control Panel for advanced configuration.
- Mouse over Configure and click Add a Queue.
- Enter and set options for your queue:
- Name: Enter a name that will be easy to remember. Example: Sales Queue
- Announcement: Choose a greeting for your queue. This is the initial greeting that callers hear when sent to the queue.
- Hold Music: Choose whether you want callers to hear a ring tone or hold music while waiting in the queue. Select from standard hold music, which is included with your account, or premium paid hold music.
- Maximum Hold Time: Choose the maximum number of minutes that callers can wait in the queue.
- Caller ID to Show Members: Select whether you want your queue members who are answering calls to see a caller's caller ID or the phone number that they called. This setting can help your team identify where calls are coming from and how to answer them.
- Identify members of the queue by entering their ten-digit phone numbers or extension numbers. Queue members can be outside phone numbers, or internal phone numbers and extensions that use an IP phone, ATA adapter or Communicator softphone. Set the number of seconds that the system rings each number or extension before moving onto the next member of the queue. Click Add Another Member to add multiple members.
- Click Save Changes.
The queue is added to your account. To view or edit the queue, mouse over Configure and click Manage Queues.
Applying a Queue
To use the queue, you will need to select it when creating the menu for routing calls that come into your phone number. You can set this up by forwarding calls to your queue.
Pro Tip! Queues are also useful for call centers or sales team routing
For example, when you set up a menu, you might give callers the option to press [1] for Sales, and send them to your Sales queue. This will allow fair and even distribution of calls.