Forum Discussion
Teams and Skype for Business co-existence
You've accurately summarized the personal settings for a user. There are two levels - what to do first and then what to do next if the call doesn't get answered at step 1.
If you immediately invoke the call group, then everyone else is eventually trained to ignore the calls, assuming the receptionist is going to answer.
If you use the call group at step 2, then there's no third option to send it on to voicemail if no one answers.
Frankly, this is the behavior that auto-attendants and call queues were designed to handle. They give you more choices, allowing you to tailor the call flow to what the business needs. But that IS different than what the business has done before.
An auto-attendant hardly says that someone won't answer the call - it just gives callers options on what to do (if you know who you need, say their name, for example) - or hit zero for operator and talk to the receptionist like they do now. If you don't provide options that send someone to voicemail too soon, then your caller is more likely to get a human.
And call queues have a huge advantage - they can orbit a caller in queue, continuing to notify agents until someone accepts the call. A queue also notifies agents on screen that this is a call from the queue - which tends to encourage them to accept it.
I would encourage you to consider options - yeah, it's change - but it's probably change for the better in the long run.
Thanks, the problerm is at our firm and industry people except a live person to answer right off the bat...not hit 0 to talk to someone...is that possible with an auto attendant or call queues?
Also, say I keep it the way it is today without auto attendants or call queues...is there a way for it to forward directly to voicemail after 7pm or something?
There are no time-based controls on a specific user's call behavior, so no way to route differently after hours at the user level.
A call queue would do the following to an inbound caller
1 - play an initial greeting which you configure (welcome to XYZ, an agent will be with you shortly)
2 - plays music on hold while it notifies agents (so caller hears something, not just dead air)
3 - wait for an agent to accept, then connect the caller with the agent
You can configure call routing sequence for agents
But even with a call queue, there isn't an option to do something differently after hours. That's the function of an auto-attendant.
private message me and we can take this conversation to a phone call and discuss if you wish.