A VoIP call centre is great software for call centres. One great feature for call centres is call queue. It places callers’ on-hold whilst callers wait for their call to be answered by the next available representative. With this feature call centres can handle busy lines without losing customers. Rather than sending callers busy signal or to voicemail, the waiting queue keeps callers on the phone line for a few additional minutes until an agent wraps a call. Call queues can be economical for all call centres. However, a queue works successfully when you have other right VoIP features. In this post, we are going to discuss eleven such tools that VoIP Business provides which you can use for successful call queuing.
Top 10 VoIP Phone System Features That Your Call Centre Needs
1. Queue Announcements
When a call waits in a queue, it is your choice to play an announcement to inform them about their number in the queue. This way they can know their place in the queue and know how long they have to wait. Once the caller is about to be connected then you can play an announcement for the responding agent to inform them about the wait time of the caller.
2. Custom Announcements and Music on-Hold
It is a good idea to play music or announcements while calls are on-hold. VoIP Business Ooma allows you to upload and record custom files to your small business VoIP phone system for music on-hold. You can choose to play any music that is right for your organisation and add recorded messages throughout hold time. Also, you can create custom announcements before a call joins a call queue through the text-to-speech tool. For instance, you may want the callers to know about the different ways to contact support or let them know they are being connected.
3. Time-Based Call Routing
With time-based call routing, you can create business hours and schedules to route incoming calls differently according to the time and day. For instance, during business hours you can route phone calls to the daytime team, and calls during after-hours can be routed to a virtual answering service. Scheduled call routing can get as complex as required, with individual schedules for teams and agents who work remotely or part-time.
4. Maximum call Hold Time and Rerouting
For call centres managing customer wait time is vital for quality customer experience. If a phone can doesn’t get answered after a specific time period then that call is automatically rerouted. It is up to you to decide the amount of time for a call to be on-hold in a queue. Once that maximum selected call hold time is exceeds, the caller can be rerouted to another destination, whether that is a different call queue, an announcement, third party answering service or a voicemail.
5. Wrap uptime
Wrap up time appears between calls which allow agents to wrap up their current call before answering another from the call queue. With small business VoIP, you can set how long the wrap-up time is e.g. 10 seconds or a minute. During this time, the agent can finalise and save notes in their application and be ready for the next call.
6. Do-Not-Disturb
During the set times when agents are scheduled to take incoming calls, they can log in and out of the queue for breaks as needed. They can do it from their phone or the browser. For example, if an agent doesn’t log out from the queue then the admin can log out for them as well, giving managers better control over the queue.
7. Smart Call Routing
VoIP Business uses a call routing algorithm to distribute calls to agents. There are different options for you to choose from. This way you can stop agents from sitting idle while others take all the calls. It’s in your hand to maximise the use of time across all agents.
8. Call Analytics and Reporting
Call analytics offers managers the information they need to boost call centre performance. With call analytics, you can become more efficient. Managers can see their least and most active agents, phone numbers and times along with average missed calls and hold time. You can see the call data over a regular period.
9. Call Monitoring
Call monitoring is another great tool to empower call centre managers. Call monitoring happens in real-time. Managers/ supervisors can pick up agent’s call when they are on a call and they can dial into barge into an agent’s call.
10. Call Recordings
Every call centre records call for training and sales, but it is also important to consider privacy rules. Some businesses might want the automatic deletion of call recording after a specific time. By default, the call recordings are only accessible to admin.