What is call queuing and why is it beneficial for effective call handling?

Call queuing allows calls to be placed on hold without handling the actual inbound call instantly or transferring callers to other representatives. Using call queues is one of the easier ways to answer incoming calls in a timely, well-managed way. While the caller is placed in a queue, they will often be played pre-recorded music or engaging messages. You can create a pre-recorded message, customized to your business. Call queue solutions are being increasingly introduced into call centres as well as into a variety of businesses whereby their call handling needs to be strictly managed due to limited staff capacity and high call volume.

Zadarma has recently added the call queue feature within our very own PBX. Within Zadarma’s call queuing feature, there are various call distribution options that can be set to determine how you manage your inbound call queuing system. Whether you want to pick up calls randomly from the queue or pick up inbound calls in order of their logged call start time. Zadarma’s call queueing PBX feature allows you to set up a bespoke call queue system relevant to your business. Within some of call queue strategies, you can enable a notification for the client with their number in the queue. You can also track the number of calls your employee answers, to measure the effectiveness of your customer service team’s call handling ability.

If your business experiences a surge in calls and you may not have enough staff to answer these calls, then call queuing is a superb tactic to ensure you capture each call opportunity. This is often used in call centres when there are not enough staff to handle a large number of calls. Call centre operators generally receive information about the number of callers in the call queue and the duration of the waiting time. This allows them to respond flexibly to peak demand by deploying extra call centre staff.

Why is call queuing important?

With call queueing in place, your business operation can ensure no call ever goes unmissed. Call queueing is intended to prevent callers from being turned away in the case when there is not enough staff available to handle each call. Whether you choose to play a company message, play music or promote other areas of your business, your caller is placed in a call queue and their waiting time will be shortened subject to staff capacity. Once a call handler becomes available, the call can be dealt with immediately, the caller is then automatically transferred from the call queue to the member of staff responsible.

What are the 5 main advantages of implementing call handling?

1. Call queuing can enhance call flow and will improve customer experience

Consistently ensuring a high level of customer satisfaction may be the single most important determining factor in business growth and your company's success. With features such as call queueing and call routing set up, your call centre team’s can instruct prioritization, which allows calls to be prioritized based on their time in the queue. Conditional routing can then be used to redirect stranded calls and calls that have waited too long to reduce any customer service pain points. Call queuing provides smart call distribution and with these automated features will enable call centre agents to have more time to focus on each customer’s enquiry and expectations. Within Zadarma’s PBX, you will have free access to your call queue features as well as Interactive Voice Response (IVR) to allow for calls to be routed and transferred from queues effectively. Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems help route callers to the most appropriate agent based on the reason for the call. This ensures accurate routing and speeds up call resolution times.

2. Call queuing can improve call performance

For call centre supervisors, driving efficiency depends on being able to assess and manage call performance. Call queuing features encourage effective oversight and provide valuable statistical insights to improve customer interactions, call handling performance and in time drive efficiency. Call analytics can also look at call audio data, detect emotion, tone and stress in a customer’s and employee’s voice at pick-up. Managers can streamline their management processes and call handling effectiveness, identifying if any staff members need more training to speed call pick up.

3. Call queuing will provide operational cost savings

Zadarma’s call queue solution is completely free of charge. With call queuing in place, you will often find your business will benefit from improved allocation of resources, with reduced ineffective man-hours achieved. Cost savings are one of the benefits of VoIP in general, that any business can appreciate. Traditional phone lines also typically charge for each minute of call time, whereas with VoIP your only costs are your monthly charges with additional free benefits such as the highly valuable call queuing, CRM, call tracking, call routing and IVR features. You can only install so many traditional phone lines and costs quickly add up, especially if your business regularly makes long-distance calls. Without the right call management solution, call flow optimisation can be an impossible task. With a queuing feature, you can effectively employ less staff to manage your inbound calls, which can prove a huge saving on overheads and wages.

4. Call queuing improves agent productivity and morale

Call handling agents want to feel valued, but that can be difficult when they’re on the receiving end of surging calls or frustrated customers due to extended waiting times. When your call representatives are stressed or continuously under pressure, morale sinks, call quality is naturally affected, and productivity can tank. Call queuing mitigates these problems, you can lower the perceived call load and pace the calls for your customer service team through this simple method. Your call handling team will feel more in control, and in turn productivity will naturally improve.

5. Call queuing is easy to set up and highly scalable

Introducing a VoIP empowered phone system provides huge efficiencies. Virtual lines and numbers can be added when needed with no additional hardware wiring, which provides huge scalability benefits. Introducing call queuing into your call flow management is very simple with Zadarma, as we offer a turn-key solution. You do not need an IT or maintenance person to be employed to maintain and service your call handling management solution. With low-cost broadband calls, your call centre can benefit from multi-line, multi queues and long-distance calls without substantial call rates.

How easy is it to set up call queuing?

Setting up call queuing is very simple. You will need a VoIP provider and PBX in place. PBX stands for a Private Branch Exchange. This is a telephone system within an enterprise that switches calls between users on local lines, while enabling all users to share a certain number of external phone lines. Zadarma’s PBX set up process takes less than 5 minutes. You will just need to follow these simple steps:

1. Get your equipment

Whether you have an established call centre or a smaller centralised office, you will only need a computer or a laptop or a smartphone (the simplest configuration will do) and a headset connected to get started. You may well already have these in place, in which case you are ready to purchase your virtual number.

2. Connect a virtual number

Now that you have the essential equipment, you now will want to start to make, queue and receive inbound calls. For this, you will need to acquire virtual numbers. With Zadarma, you can choose a number from any country or city. If your business is nation-wide, we suggest connecting a toll-free number which is free for everyone in the country to call. Zadarma offers 800 numbers in 80 countries of the world. Most importantly, all incoming calls to virtual numbers (except the ones to toll-free numbers) accepted via the internet, are completely free.

3. Enable voice menu (IVR) and call queuing solution features

Now that your numbers are connected, you can go on to set up Zadarma’s free Cloud PBX. The Zadarma PBX will allow your callers to navigate around your services very easily. With the PBX in place you will now be able to unlock all the free additional features including call queuing.

4. Tailor your call queuing feature specific to your business

During work hours all calls will go straight to operators routed through your IVR. You may set particular call queuing rules during peak hours vs out of hours. At this point you can set up your call queue greeting message, introduce your pre-recorded music and set up the call handling flow rules. With your call queue set up in place, callers will be guided by your pre-recorded messages to notify waiting time to keep them engaged. Calls can be distributed one at a time to appropriate call agents.

Why is call queuing beneficial within a call centre environment?

The objective of any customer service team or call centre should be to drive higher productivity, better customer experience, and empower engagement to make the most out of your staff and technology in place, and above all to fulfil your business growth potential. Customers of today have high expectations for customer service. A customer’s first touch interaction with your business needs to be handled with care. A customer will value that you have a call queue system in place. The pre-recorded message will inform the caller of their place in the queue and the caller can make a judgment as to whether to call back at a less busy time. With an effective call flow management solution in place, your call handling team can assist in achieving a high level of customer satisfaction and interaction and can provide a significant competitive advantage.

With a centralised cloud phone system in place, like Zadarma's free VoIP PBX, you can benefit from the wider PBX features including call queue, interactive voice response (IVR), skills-based call routing, call monitoring and analytics. These VoIP call flow management features will help empower your call handling team to provide the customer service your customers expect. You can find more information on Zadarma’s PBX and our free call queuing feature, on the Zadarma website or in our 24/7 online support chat.