Call-Queuing Alternative Methods

all Queuing is a feature that lets callers wait in line until one of your live attendants is free to take another call. Phone systems that have a caller queue will be able to hold onto additional callers in case you don't have enough personnel to handle all the calls.

If you the same number of people working your phones as you have phone lines, then you will never need a queue. Each call can be answered by one of your personnel. But if you have more phone lines that allow more callers to get through without a busy signal, then it is important to be able to hold those overflow callers in some way.

Systems with call queuing are expensive. If price is an issue, there are tricks you can use with low-cost phone systems such as the VoicePro. You can use the following methods to have the same effect of a call queue without the high cost of call-queuing equipment...

Using Recorded Announcements: You can play announcements to callers to keep them occupied and interested. But with this method you need to give the caller options after the announcement, such as to wait longer while the system tries ringing to an attendant again, or leave a message for a callback.

Music-On-Hold: Take advantage of music-on-hold. While a caller is waiting while ringing, you can let the music-on-hold feature of your phone system play useful information to keep the caller interested.

Here's how Music-On-Hold works as a solution with the Voice Pro. Let's say you have four incoming phone lines but only three attendants. You can program the VoicePro VP412 to ring four extensions simultaneously for all calls and set the number of rings to something really high (say something like 50 rings). The 4th caller will hear the music-on-hold while waiting. When one of your three attendants becomes available, they can answer that other ringing extension by dialing [*][5][0] on their own extension.

You may want to consider the above tricks using the VoicePro to save money. But if you need a phone system with a true call queuing feature, try a Google search for "Call queuing".

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