Pre-purchase question, adjusting ring duration based on off hook status of ring group

[rpllib]

Can the ring duration/call flow transfer to ivr/queue, of an incoming call, be reduced or eliminated by the system, if all three extensions of a ring group/queue are off hook? The system would have loud ringers throughout the building(noisy environment). The logic for the question is as follows:

"As important as ringing phones are, they are not as important as the customers that are standing in front of us or that we are already on a call with. Those same three staff that handle all phone calls, also handle all in-person interactions. When a phone rings extensively while we are trying to have important communication with customers or techs, the folks responsible for answering those calls tend to rush the current interaction to answer the ringing phone, when in reality the calls never should have rang the phones to begin with."

conversely, if all extensions of the group are on hook, we may want to extend ring duration from the standard preset.

Any feedback is appreciated

 

[Evolute IT]

If all extensions of a ring group are on a call, the next call is sent to "Destination If No Answer" directly. The extensions would not ring at all.

In your case, you might wanna consider Call Queues. Those will keep the new call in queue until an agent is free to take it.

If you're looking for a partner to help you, we'd be glad to assist.

 

[rpllib]

Fredrick

Thank you to the reply. My initial request was quite basic, intentionally. In the past, when I have laid out the desired functionality described below, the answers usually get fairly short.

We will certainly need a professional to help us configure the following, if it is even possible, without going into a custom programming environment, which we are not all that interested in.

We run a large automotive service facility. Even at our size, having more than three qualified individuals to answer the phone would be rare. Seldom would you ever find a traditional receptionist. We have three folks qualified to answer the phone along with handling a myriad of other duties that are equally important. We previously had two owners onsite to back up the primary three, on the phones. The owners (myself and my wife) are transitioning to off site, with minimal duties, but will remain part of the paid staff for near term, which makes hiring additional staff a less profitable option vs investing in an extraordinarily well functioning phone system. 3CX seems to be one of the leaders in intelligent call flow, hence my posting here.

Here is an excerpt of what I believe would be helpful, in our situation. The overriding theme is always predicated by the fact that we want a human to answer the phone whenever possible, and the phone system to pick up the slack when humans are unavailable. We average 49-60 calls a day inbound (last 6 months), with highs around a hundred and lows in the 30’s.

This is what my brain is telling me would work for us:

"I feel like I have a need to monitor 4-5 physical locations in the building for "presence" and/or activity. These are locations currently with and without phones within easy direct reach (but all could have phones if that helps).

The idea being that if there is "presence", using sensors/relays and/or actual phones to check for activity, in places like: vehicles occupying quick lube oil change lanes, customers standing at either of my two service counters, or phones off hook at any of 3 locations, then we have a situation where individuals are tied up with other responsibilities, that prevent them from answering an incoming call, so the call flow needs to adjust to other individuals/extensions(unlikely) or more likely the ivr/queue system, and shorten(or eliminate) ring duration in the building(loud ringing pa horns throughout), knowing there is likely no one available to answer the call. It may be helpful if the system also tracks the number of instances of "presence" at these locations, to use in determining overall volume for the day and be more predictive of the likelihood that someone is available to answer the incoming call. The more times in a day presence is indicated at these locations, the less likely we will have staff to physically answer the incoming call, and call flow needs to adjust (on the fly). At the same time, the less time we have presence at these locations, the more likely we have staff to answer calls and we may want to increase ring duration to allow them more time to answer. From a presence perspective, I picture these sensors providing input no different than if we had physical phones at these locations that were "off hook", or the system tracking how many times an extension receives a call, or is tied up on a call. These presence sensors cannot require manual input from say a desktop or softphone, they need to be able to provide an input that is triggered without a human forcing the trigger.”

I am hopeful I can find a platform and a professional organization to support the platform, that can deliver something that looks/acts like what is described. It has been implied by others that an alarm dialer may be able to transmit a code that would cause the system to treat that sensor/relay output as a busy extension and then another transmit to return the extension to available.

Thank You to anyone/everyone that has taken the time to read this to the end.

 

[Evolute IT]

Can you do a TLDR?

Just explain what you need in short please.

If you are hoping to use a motion sensor or similar to change user statuses, forget it right now.

 

[rpllib]

You are correct, the very first step is being able to convert "physical presence" to something a phone system understands, regardless of the methodology used to accomplish it.

The fact that it may not be possible, does not convince me that it is a bad idea. It may be that i need to reframe my thought process to something phone systems are capable of delivering. I am a little surprised I am the only one asking for something like this. It sure seems like something that would be useful in many business situations.

 

[Evolute IT]

You are correct, the very first step is being able to convert "physical presence" to something a phone system understands, regardless of the methodology used to accomplish it.

The fact that it may not be possible, does not convince me that it is a bad idea. It may be that i need to reframe my thought process to something phone systems are capable of delivering. I am a little surprised I am the only one asking for something like this. It sure seems like something that would be useful in many business situations.

I've seen similar requests. The problem is that the phone system is a phone system, not a timecard or timepunch for employees.

Few solutions:
1. Have a bot company create a bot that listens to a motion sensor signal to change the status on a Webclient (EXTREMELY expensive.)

2. Use the Windows client that has the Auto-Away feature.

3. Use the auto-switch feature of extensions statuses.

If your response is gonna be "we can't trust the employee to..." then you'll get a "just train them" I get this a lot lol