Forum Discussion
MatthewShulman
Mar 01, 2017Brass Contributor
What is the best way to have calls answered by a live person vs going right to queue?
I am experimenting with the preview of the AA and queues. But I am not sure the best way to handle a situation I see at most of my clients. What I'd like to do is the following - I have situatio...
Mohammed Anas Shaikh
Microsoft
Mar 05, 2017Hi Matthew
You may be able to do this
Direct Your company main line to the Receptionist directly
Set up call forwarding on the Receptionist SFB client such that when the person doesn't answer the phone the call gets transferred to your Call queue.
Then the call will ring the agents in the queue (however the caller will hear the hold music while the call is ringing the agents. If you don't like this and would want the caller to hear the ringing tone maybe you can record a MOH music as a ring tone, not pretty but a workaround)
Set the queue time to minimum of 1 minute and after a minute if none of the agents in the queue answer the call you can set the Queue time out setting to transfer the call to another user. Then set call forwarding on this user to transfer directly all calls to a different Queue (this is not a great workaround as you would require an additional license for this user who essentially will need to just have been assigned for this purpose and will never actually be a live user answering any calls ever.
However you would still be in a scenario where callers will hear the hold Music for a minute when the call is in Queue (can be replaced by a custom hold music sounding like a ringing tone)
The receptionist will have a voice mail box but since the call forwarding setting for them is set to transfer to a call queue there may never be a moment where anyone can leave a VM for your receptionist.
Not sure if that will work for you but thought id suggest.
If in Future our product team decides to add a feature where we allow setting a Queue time out to be directed to a different Queue it may align well with your requirement.
I Will submit this feedback.
Mohammed Anas Shaikh
Microsoft
Mar 06, 2017I learnt that even today you have the ability to select the default Queue time out setting to another Queue. You have to do it however using PowerShell as this is not available in the GUI.
SO with that I am hoping you would be able to achieve what you are after
If you still feel that having the company main number directed straight to the receptionist is not a good idea than you can use a Call Queue for that too and just have one agent (receptionist in that call queue) then set the queue time to another queue