Company administrators have the ability to activate simultaneous ringing for a call queue and designate specific agent groups to receive calls.
When simultaneous ringing is enabled for a call queue, incoming calls trigger simultaneous ringing on multiple phones within the assigned group(s). The first agent to answer their phone is connected to the call. This simultaneous ringing can occur on up to ten phones.
Given that more than one agent group may be linked to the specified queue, it’s not limited to just Group 1 agents. If conditions for Group 2 are met, Contact will ring all suitable Group 1 agents. If the Maximum Number of Agents to Ring Simultaneously limit (as specified in the procedure below) is not reached, it will then include suitable agents from Group 2, and this process continues for additional groups.
Agents for simultaneous ringing are selected based on the following criteria, in sequential order:
- Agents who are available (rather than on an interruptible break)
- …of these agents, those agents with a higher promotion level (group order set by queue)
- …of these agents, those agents with a higher skill level
- …of these agents, those agents who have not handled a call for the longest period.
Note: To prevent calls from being forwarded to voicemail, particularly when agents in a group may be answering calls on their mobile phones, it’s crucial to include only those agents in the assigned group(s) for the queue with simultaneous ringing who do not utilize voicemail or auto-answering systems. This can be managed in the “Staff > Groups” section by ensuring that these features are disabled on the respective agents’ phones.
To set up simultaneous ringing with staggered response times for agents, create a second agent group (Group 2) for those to be called later. Configure this group to be activated when the call queue’s Maximum Wait Time surpasses a specified duration (Call Handling > Queues > Advanced tab). Note that if simultaneous ringing is active, incoming calls are processed sequentially, meaning the group will ring for the first call until answered before moving to the next.
If regular agents are unavailable during simultaneous ringing, the call can be directed to an external destination if included in a designated group for the queue, provided the external destination has available capacity. If multiple external destinations are included in a group, only one will be called.
Administrators need the Queues: Modify privilege to set up simultaneous ringing.
Please note:
When a call queue is enabled with Simultaneous Ring, Callbacks will not follow the simultaneous ring rules and will instead follow the standard logic of finding the highest skilled agent (calling them one at a time)