When a customer calls your business phone number, your VoIP phone system first checks for available phones. When all lines are busy, customers would typically be unable to connect their call to a live person.

With call queuing enabled, calls get moved to hold on a dedicated line when all agents are busy. It happens automatically, and the queue isn’t tied directly to any agent’s phone or line. It works no matter if someone calls a local phone number or a toll-free phone number. Call queues let small businesses handle more calls and provide a better customer experience.

The call queue will then direct calls to the next available agent. Callers will know their place in line and the estimated wait time. This lowers hang-ups (abandons) and adapts to your business hours in realtime.

With more advanced features, you can route calls to agents based on priority, skill, or past interactions. It's a must-have for inbound call centers.

Queuing systems prevent calls from ending at the busy signal or being directed to a voicemail.

If your business receives many inbound calls, call queuing is an essential VoIP feature.

IVRs and auto attendants direct customers to the right person or department. The biggest advantage of using advanced call queuing is that it dramatically improves customer service.

Remember that every inbound call is a person taking time out of their day to speak with your company. If they can’t reach live customer support, that’s a great way to lose a customer. Using the call queue feature, you can make sure that your customer needs are met.

And call queuing isn’t limited to sophisticated VoIP call centers. Traditional small businesses like salons, insurance agents, landscapers, and car dealerships all benefit from call queues. Larger enterprises with many locations and a distributed workforce also realize value from queuing up calls.

Yes, you can upload custom music for incoming calls while they wait on hold.

Nextiva offers three song choices for music for any caller in a call queue. If you want to customize the experience, you can also upload your own music or other audio files.

Instead of music, you could play a recorded message that helps customers with self-service tips or promotional messaging for additional products or services.

You can also set up separate call queues based on different departments and business hours.

If your call center’s hold time is too long, you have to identify the underlying factors. Call time might not always be the culprit.

It might be necessary to split your call queue into two call queues by way of an auto attendant.

How much time do agents have between calls? You might not be using the most efficient routing policy for your call center. You have many ways to distribute inbound calls. For instance, first in, first out, round-robin, and ring all the phones for a given group or team.

Are agents taking too long to resolve each issue? Try skills-based routing in your PBX, so each call gets assigned to an agent who is experienced with that particular issue.

If you’ve addressed the call routing logic and improved your team’s productivity, it might be time to expand your cloud VoIP system.