Call Queue Option to Leave Voicemail after 90 sec

[Peter Richardson]

Hi all,
One of our clients have a difficult situation to solve, hoping some of you can give me some ideas.

They have 2 staff on the phones but these two staff also answer enquiries when people walk in the front door. The best option I came up with was to have a call queue with an option for a call back but the problem is that the call back feature automatically dials back the caller when they become first in the queue, without the staff member activating the call back and the staff member may still be serving a customer at the time the callback automatically starts dialling. Some in-person enquiries go for up to thirty minutes.

Next option is to have the caller hear the option to leave a voicemail while waiting on hold after say 90 seconds, and then have them hear this option 2 or 3 times but I can't find any way to make this happen other than dropping them into another queue after 90 seconds with a new prompt, but then they would essentially leave the first queue while they listen to the prompt, losing their place in the queue and also allowing someone else to jump in front of them while they're not in the first queue (a new caller).

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Alphabetic]

You could prehaps send to an IVR then send to a priority queue. This way the call will take priority over your normal queue.

The agent could log out (press DND) when dealing with people

You could use ring groups instead to loop

 

[Clément Rousseau]

Hi,
if you let the message saying caller can let a voicemail after x seconds and use intro prompt for this, then it will be only played once. Only music on hold is repeated. Maybe I am wrong here but I think it works like this. If not you can always put your message saying that caller can let a voicemail in a audio file during exctly the time you want they wait in queue and put this message as music on hold and it will do the trick, the message will not be repeated.

This and dnd (as Kieferschild suggest) or any other change status BLF should do what you want. Even no need for an ivr imo.

If you prefer caller wait little bit before letting a message, queue are the best (when no agents are connected, goes to destination if no answer just after the intro prompt), if you prefer they go directly to voicemail if agents are busy, then ring group works better as it goes to destination if no answer directly if no agent are available.

 

[Peter Richardson]

You could prehaps send to an IVR then send to a priority queue. This way the call will take priority over your normal queue.

The agent could log out (press DND) when dealing with people

You could use ring groups instead to loop

I don't know what a priority queue is and I don't see how it would help with the 90 second issue I mentioned.

Your other two sentences - which issues are they overcoming as I mentioned a few, could you be more elaborate in your answers?

 

[Peter Richardson]

dnd (as Kieferschild suggest) or any other change status BLF should do what you want.

Can you please explain this a bit more? I'm not sure how that would fix the issue. I must be missing something!

 

[Clément Rousseau]

The goal in to log in and log out from the queue with status change, according to what you put in extension forward rule tab (you can check log out from the queue).

For exemple in your case, you set 2 BLF on the phone, one to change status to available, one to change status to a custom status. In the custom status in extension forward rule, check log out from queues.
Then when agents are talking to customers, they press the BLF who change their status to custom, and it log out agent from the queue. When aget is available again, he press the first BLF who set status to available again (and log the agent to the queue).

DND is a easy to do it as its oftenly already a BLF on the phone. If its the case you have no BLF to configure, they just press DND and it will change their status to DND and log them out from the queue. Generally, pressing DND again set them back to available.

It works great, with DND or custom status its the same logic. The adventage of DND is that, on lot of phones, you have an indicator that show you if you are in DND status or not.

 

[Alphabetic]

I don't know what a priority queue is and I don't see how it would help with the 90 second issue I mentioned.

Your other two sentences - which issues are they overcoming as I mentioned a few, could you be more elaborate in your answers?

Set your maximum wait time to 90 seconds.

After 90 seconds do what you like - Send to IVR or Voicemail (press 1 to keep queuing or 2 for VM)

Priority queue will trump normal queue meaning that your caller in the priority Q will be answered first.

" "Priority Queue” – enable to prioritize calls from this queue over calls from other queues the agent/extension is a member of. Example: A support team has one queue for normal support calls, and another queue for VIP customers, so even though serviced by the same agents, calls from the VIP queue get priority."

Your phone probably has a DND button on it which will mark that agent as unavailable in the queue. Meaning, if 2nd agent is on the phone then destination busy/no answer will happen (Send to IVR/VM).

 

[Peter Richardson]

So what would happen if the caller enters the queue and waits for 90 seconds, then they go to IVR which gives them the option to leave a message (press 1) or continue holding (wait for timeout of 5 seconds) and then enter the queue again.

BUT...while the caller is hearing the message of the IVR, they are no longer in the queue. A second caller gets into the queue while the first caller is listening to the IVR, so now they are out of order, right? Or wrong?

 

[Clément Rousseau]

right and wrong
wrong cause IVR redirect to a second queue wich is a priority queue over first queue, then it keep the good order.
But right if caller are still waiting after second queue waiting time, if it goes to same IVR again, then it enter back to second queue and order is changed if another call was already in this second queue

A solution is to have destination if no answer for second queue force caller to go to voicemail, anyways after 4min waiting...

 

[Peter Richardson]

Thanks very much @Clément Rousseau

So how do companies make this happen? I have often called companies (usually telephone or internet service providers) and they give you (the caller) an option to press 1 to leave a voicemail while you're waiting in the queue....then a few minutes go by and they give you the option again....and this keeps happening the whole time you're waiting in the queue. I'm guessing they're just not using 3CX?