What is a Call Queue? 5 Best Practices to Set It Up

When customer phone calls come flooding into your call center, it can be hard for customer support agents to know which call came in first or which is the most important. That confusion makes it more difficult for reps to answer and resolve customer inquiries in a timely fashion—increasing frustration levels and leaving customers unsatisfied.

Call queues bring calm to the chaos, directing agents to the most pressing phone calls. With that organization comes faster issue resolution and higher customer satisfaction levels.

Here’s more information on customer queuing tools, the benefits of using them in your call centers, how to set them up, and best practices for call queue management.

What is a call queue?

A call queue is essentially like a virtual waiting room. Incoming customer support calls are placed in a line until one of your customer representatives or agents becomes available to handle the call. It also ensures that your callers aren’t immediately disconnected or routed to voicemail when there are high call volumes. Together, these practices ensure that customer inquiries are handled quickly, thereby improving customer satisfaction and overall efficiency.

Though every phone call queue platform works a little differently, most follow the same process:

• Call routing: When a customer calls in, the call is routed to an automated system (such as an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system), which determines the nature of the call and the issue the customer is having.
• Queue placement: Once the purpose of the call is identified (e.g., sales, support, billing, etc.), callers are placed into a queue corresponding to that category. The queue operates on a first-come, first-served basis.
• Waiting experience: As customers are waiting, call queue software can inform individuals about their position in line, estimated wait times, or promotional information about your products or services. Those status messages help to manage customer expectations and keep them informed of their progress.
• Agent availability: As soon as agents finish a call or log into the system, the next caller in the queue is automatically connected to the next available agent.
• Overflow management: When call volumes are high, some call queue systems can reroute calls to alternative destinations such as other offices, outsourced call centers, or multi-line phone systems. These practices ensure customer inquiries are handled even in times of high call volumes.
• Analytics and management: Most call queue software is equipped with analytics tools that help you measure average wait times, abandonment rates (how often your callers hang up before speaking to an agent), and service level agreements (SLAs). With this data, you can continuously optimize your performance and satisfy your customers.

5 Benefits of Queueing Calls

Bringing queue call software to your call center brings several benefits—all of which directly contribute to overall efficiency, better first-call resolution rates, lower customer frustration, and more. Five benefits of queueing calls include:

1.Enhanced Operational Efficiency

No matter how call volumes get, call queuing allows you to easily and efficiently manage them by prioritizing calls in a structured manner. With the software, you can optimize resource allocation and evenly distribute calls across agents. This process helps to reduce idle time and maximize agent productivity. Additionally, call queuing software that includes more advanced features can integrate with your existing workforce management tools to ensure your staff is scheduled accordingly to handle high call volumes, further enhancing your overall efficiency.

2. Improved First Call Resolution

Because call queue software routes your callers to an agent more quickly, you reduce call abandonment rates due to long wait times. Before they connect with a customer, agents can access caller information or history and review important information, enabling them to resolve issues more effectively and more quickly upon connecting. The more structured approach to calls ensures issues are resolved on the first interaction, improving overall customer satisfaction and reducing the need for callbacks.

3. Reduced Customer Frustration

Call queue management software can keep callers updated about their place in line and their estimated wait times. These relevant updates and clear communication help to manage callers’ expectations to reduce frustration. With callers feeling more informed and reassured about the progress of their call, their overall experience is improved and frustration is kept to a minimum.

4. Improved Service Level Management

With call queue systems, you can establish and maintain your SLAs more effectively. For example, most SLAs define the parameters of your customer service experience, including average wait times, target response times, and abandonment rates. By monitoring these factors with call queue software, you can easily identify areas for improvement and ensure ongoing compliance with SLAs. Plus, by meeting your SLAs, you increase your trustworthiness in the eyes of those you serve, resulting in more long-term customers.

5. Optimized Resource Utilization

Intelligently routing customer calls based on predefined rules and agent availability, you can more effectively allocate your resources. For example, if you’re experiencing high wait times at a certain time of day or period, call queue software analytics tools will let you know. This knowledge will help you adjust staff levels and workflows as needed. This increased flexibility also helps you determine where resources are most needed, so you can assign them effectively.

Ultimately, call queuing not only helps you enhance operational efficiency but also leads to improved first-call resolution, lower customer frustration, better service level management, and better resource utilization. Together, these help you create a superior customer experience that exceeds the expectations of your customers.

How to Set Up a Phone Call Queue in 5 Steps

To make sure your queue call software performs to the highest quality, you’ll want to ensure it’s set up for success. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to set up your call queue to ensure efficient call handling and excellent customer service.

1.Record a Friendly Welcome Message

Start by recording a friendly but still professional greeting for your customers. Remember to thank callers for contacting you before providing them with basic instructions, like letting them know that their call is important to you and will be answered as quickly as possible. Use a reliable voice recording service or your business phone system’s voice message recording feature to create and upload your greeting. Make sure it’s clear and concise; it should also reflect your company’s brand and values.

2. Include Your Business’ Operating Hours

Tell your customers what your business hours are. Doing so helps manage your callers’ expectations and when they can for sure reach a live agent. You may want to consider setting up your call queue system to announce your business hours at the beginning of each call. Also remember to update your business hours regularly in case your operating hours change.

3. Consider Using an IVR System

An IVR system guides callers to the appropriate department based on what they need. IVR systems rely on voice prompts and keyboard inputs to help callers navigate through the various menu options. As you’re setting up your IVR system, be sure to configure it to include options that best reflect your business’s departments or services. For example, press 1 for sales or 2 for support.

4. Organize Your Larger Team by their Expertise

To improve the way your call queue is structured, consider organizing your agents or teams by their expertise or specific knowledge. Doing this ensures callers are connected to the most qualified person for their unique issues or questions. For example, agents who have more experience in how to use your product or service should handle any questions regarding your products. Organizing your agents by their expertise improves your resolution process and enhances your overall service quality.

5. Regularly Monitor and Optimize Performance

Finally, be sure you’re regularly monitoring your system performance metrics so you can identify improvement areas. Some of the metrics you’ll want to pay attention to include average wait times, call abandonment rates, and agent availability. Analyzing this data helps you identify trends, bottlenecks, or improvement areas. It can also assist you in making more informed decisions on how to optimize your call-handling processes, refine IVR menus, adjust staffing levels, update greeting messages, and more.

3 Call Queue Management Best Practices

Now that you know how to set up call queue software, here are some best practices that can maximize the benefits of the tool.

1.Use Smart Routing Methods

Smart routing methods ensure that your incoming calls are directed to the most appropriate agent or department. Where calls are directed is based on specific criteria like caller history, issue complexity, agent expertise, etc. This smart routing option minimizes call transfers and lowers the need for callers to repeat themselves, improving first-call resolution rates.

2. Collect Customer Data While They Wait

Gathering relevant customer data while they’re on hold enables your agents to be better prepared for the call when they connect with the caller. Using this approach aids in personalizing interactions with your customers and helps them resolve issues more efficiently. You may also want to consider using a CRM system to integrate customer data collection tools with your call queue system. You can then display relevant customer information directly to your agents once calls are routed to them.

3. Respect Their Time

Respecting customers’ time involves minimizing their wait times in the queue and providing clear communication about wait times and line position. Following this practice keeps customer frustrations low and enhances your customers’ overall satisfaction with your customer service experience.

Implementing these best practices into your call queue management strategy can further improve your customer service delivery, optimize resource utilization, and keep customer satisfaction levels high across your communication channels.

Choose the Right Call Queue Software for Your Business

As you’re looking at various call queue software platforms, it’s important to choose one that streamlines your operations and enhances customer satisfaction. Look at factors such as scalability, integration capabilities, reporting features, and overall ease of use to ensure seamless implementation and efficient call handling.

With Podium’s VoIP Phone Service, you can easily realize all the benefits of call queuing. Podium’s VoIP solution helps you connect with leads faster by managing calls, texts, and messages from a single inbox. With a single inbox for all your customer messages—including phone calls—you can easily respond to customers, convert messages to texts, and see the entire conversation history in a single place. All this allows your customer service reps to create a more personalized, streamlined experience.

Discover how Podium’s VoIP Phone Service can transform your entire business communication strategy. Watch a free demo today.