Call Queue for small public school offices

[cilcomm]

Hi all, Im looking for a better way to provide call coverage for teh small schools and offices that we handle with 3CX.
there are a lot of small school districts that have only one full-time secretary and one "Floater" that helps in the mornings to answer calls and help visitors and kids as they come into school. We currently have them setup for incoming calls to go to a call queue when an outside caller dials their main published phone number. Since the calls are non-stop some days and the floater cant always be around to help answer calls, the one main secretary can only handle one call at a time and even if she hears the other "Floaters" phone ringing across the office, she cant seem to be able to to successfully put he call on hold and pick up the second call that is ringing the call queue. Here is the call flow example:

Secretary extension 100 - has "accept multiple calls" check-marked in their call forwarding for available and is part of call queue 800. She is set as Receptionist role.
Floater extension 101 - has "accept multiple calls" check-marked in their call forwarding for available and is part of call queue 800. She is set as Receptionist role.
Call queue 800 for the Office has "target busy Agents" check-marked
We are using V20 Professional edition.
-A call ring the office Queue 800 which contains extensions 100 secretary and 101 floater. Both phone ring.
-The secretary (101) answers the first call.
-A second call rings the office Queue 800 but is currently only ringing the Floater (101) because the secretary is busy on another call, even though 'target busy agents' has been "checked" in the call queue programming.
The Secretary tried to put the first call on hold (even tried Parking on SP1) and then pressing the flashing BLF for the Floater phone (101) to answer the 2nd call. The system would not allow this.

How can i better allow the secretary at 100 to pick up any call ringing into the office Queue 800 quickly and easily without 10 keystrokes. This would assume that they want to put the first call on hold, and immediately answer the 2nd call (or third call) and not have the floater put their phone in DND or unavailable.

Thanks,


We are using V20 Professional edition.

 

[VoIPTools]

The receptionist could put the first call on park. That would make the receptionist available to take another call from the queue. But I think this approach is a mistake. The receptionist can only take care of one caller at a time. Let them focus on the current call.

I suggest you add in the queue intro prompt a message that says something like "we only have one person available to take your call. The receptionist is currently assisting another caller. Please be patient".

 

[cilcomm]

I may do that instead. I need to workshop this on my own system before i set it in place on their system. I need to determine the amount of time the calls should ring that queue before the message plays.

As mentioned, the floater phone (101) may not be busy at the time and and would continue to ring x number of seconds, then the message would play and possibly announce the position in the queue. Then, when the secretary(100) becomes available, the call would be routed to her sequentially based on time-on-hold.
Does that sound possible with your experience in this type of scenario?

 

[VoIPTools]

I'm not a huge fan of using roll-over queues, but here is one option. If you want to delay the "please be patient" message, you could use a "roll-over queue" with a different intro prompt.

The first queue has a maximum hold time of X. This queue has a generic intro prompt. After the max hold time is reached, forward the caller over to the 2nd queue.

The second queue (I call it a roll-over queue) plays the "be patient" message and has a longer wait time. You could have all the same users in both the first queue and the 2nd, or you could add additional people to the 2nd queue when the receptionist needs more help.

 

[cilcomm]

thanks for the suggestion, I might try that and see how they like it.