When you have three support agents and four customers call at once, what does the fourth customer hear? In many companies, the answer is a busy signal or a phone that rings unanswered, and that customer may never call back. A Call Queue solves this. Calls wait in order, reach the next free agent, and everything is logged so managers know how the support team is really performing.
Parts of a Call Queue
- Agent: the extensions that are members of the queue. Membership can be static or dynamic; with dynamic membership, agents log themselves in and out of the queue with a code.
- Ring strategy: determines which agent a call goes to.
- Waiting experience: hold music, queue position announcements and periodic messages.
- Final destination: where the call goes if it waits too long.
Choosing a Strategy
In Asterisk-based phone systems such as Issabel or FreePBX, there are several common strategies:
ringall: all available agents ring at once. Simple and fast for small teams, but usually the same one or two active people end up answering every time.leastrecent: the call goes to the agent whose last call ended longest ago.fewestcalls: the call goes to the agent who has answered the fewest calls.rrmemory: round robin, remembering who was last.linear: in a fixed order; suitable when you have a primary agent and a backup.
For a fair distribution of work, leastrecent or fewestcalls is usually a good choice.
Key Settings
- Ring time per agent: if an agent does not answer within a few seconds, the call moves on to the next one.
- Wrap-up time: a few seconds to log details of the previous call before the next one arrives.
- Maximum wait time: after this time, the call goes to an alternative destination, such as voicemail or another queue.
- Maximum calls in queue: to prevent endless queues.
- Empty queue behavior: if no agent is logged in, the call should not enter the queue at all and should go straight to the alternative destination.
- Position and estimated wait time announcements: reassure customers that their call has been noticed.
An agent who is away from their desk should log out of the queue. An extension left in the queue with nobody behind it increases the wait time for every customer.
Reports You Should Review
The real value of a queue is the data it produces. Review these metrics at least weekly:
- Answered and abandoned calls: how many callers hung up before being answered, and after how long a wait.
- Average and maximum wait time.
- Service Level: the percentage of calls answered within a target time, for example twenty seconds. Set the target based on your own type of business.
- Per-agent performance: number of calls, average talk time and time logged into the queue.
- Hourly distribution: peak call hours that need more staff.
The phone system logs queue events, and reporting tools use this data. If the default reports are not enough, you can add a queue reporting module or software.
Common Mistakes
- Setting up a queue with no alternative destination, so customers wait indefinitely.
- Poor-quality hold music, or periodic messages that repeat every few seconds.
- Ignoring abandoned calls; many of them are customers who should be called back.
- Judging agents only by the number of calls, without considering the type and length of the conversations.
Checklist
- The right strategy and per-agent ring time are configured.
- Maximum wait time and an alternative destination are defined.
- Agents know how to log in and out of the queue.
- Abandoned calls are followed up every day.
- Service level and peak hour reports are reviewed at least weekly.
With a few correct settings, even a team of two or three people can work like a well-run contact center. ITPlus724 engineers can design and set up the queues and reports on your phone system.