Phone routing - looking for a solution?
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Has anyone here designed an auto attendant call routing tree for a medium sized physician's office? We have issues that I just can't seem to overcome.
FYI, this is not a phone issue really - it's a flow issue.
How did the offices you've setup decide to deal with the HUGE influx of calls that come in at random times? Most clinics have a small 1 or 2 person operator department that either handles and distributes all calls as they come in, others have setup auto attendants to help distribute calls, but there are still times of extreme call volume + busy internal staff (can't work internally and on the phone at the same time). So how do they handle this?
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I've done my fair share of Auto attendants. And a lot of PBX in general. What's going on?
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I've done them with Digium before. Setup multiple actually so one phone system have multiple IVR based on the DID number that way each department had their own plus a Main IVR to take you to either the other IVRs or to a secretary. If you doing much with it I highly recommend sketching it out on paper with all the possible options, for me it makes more sense that way.
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Update:
I asked - what is the problem, what are we trying to solve?
Answer - the phone is ringing at the front desk and we don't have time to answer it there.Now to see if we can work toward solving that problem.
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@Dashrender said:
I asked - what is the problem, what are we trying to solve?
Answer - the phone is ringing at the front desk and we don't have time to answer it there.Ask them where they want the calls to go then. That is really all that is needed. This is 100% a business decision.
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@JaredBusch said:
Ask them where they want the calls to go then. That is really all that is needed. This is 100% a business decision.
Here in does lie the issue - they want something like the following:
When call volume is low, they want all calls going to the operators, as long as there are fewer than say 5 calls waiting, they don't want anyone else involved.
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when call volume puts them over 5 calls in queue they would like additional people to be added to the queue to answer call more quickly, then when the queue drops down to 5 again, those people are removed from the queue.
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additionally, they want to utilize the check in/out staff but only when that staff is not busy with incoming/outgoing patients.
Anyone know if a phone system can do option 1?
Option 2 is nearly impossible without trusting the staff to log in/out of HuntGroups (which they have already proven they can't do reliably). -
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@Dashrender said:
@JaredBusch said:
Ask them where they want the calls to go then. That is really all that is needed. This is 100% a business decision.
Here in does lie the issue - they want something like the following:
When call volume is low, they want all calls going to the operators, as long as there are fewer than say 5 calls waiting, they don't want anyone else involved.
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when call volume puts them over 5 calls in queue they would like additional people to be added to the queue to answer call more quickly, then when the queue drops down to 5 again, those people are removed from the queue.
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additionally, they want to utilize the check in/out staff but only when that staff is not busy with incoming/outgoing patients.
Anyone know if a phone system can do option 1?
Option 2 is nearly impossible without trusting the staff to log in/out of HuntGroups (which they have already proven they can't do reliably).No clue. I know that on the Avaya system here (not recommending it as I don't know enough about Avaya) they have priorities. So users 1-5 who take the main calls have higher priorities, while other users have lower priorities. It'll ring the next available highest priority person. That's how they do it here. They have some people who have moved from supporting product A to product B, but they will help support product A overflow if needed.
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@Dashrender This is partially hypothetical as I do not have the ability to test this anywhere right now, but in freepbx you can set a max callers limit on a queue. I THINK once that max caller limit is reached it will hit the failover destination, which you can set as another queue or ring group that is your secondary set of people set to answer phones.
Does this sound sufficient for option 1?
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@FiyaFly said:
@Dashrender This is partially hypothetical as I do not have the ability to test this anywhere right now, but in freepbx you can set a max callers limit on a queue. I THINK once that max caller limit is reached it will hit the failover destination, which you can set as another queue or ring group that is your secondary set of people set to answer phones.
Does this sound sufficient for option 1?
The PBX-fu is strong with this one.
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I've done something similar with ring groups. Have a set of extensions that are where most phone calls are answered ring says 2-3 times and then if the call isn't taken in that time it fails over to another set of ring groups for other people to answer. There's probably a better way of doing it though.
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@FiyaFly said:
@Dashrender This is partially hypothetical as I do not have the ability to test this anywhere right now, but in freepbx you can set a max callers limit on a queue. I THINK once that max caller limit is reached it will hit the failover destination, which you can set as another queue or ring group that is your secondary set of people set to answer phones.
Does this sound sufficient for option 1?
hmmm.. Interesting! yes that could do it.
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@thecreativeone91 said:
I've done something similar with ring groups. Have a set of extensions that are where most phone calls are answered ring says 2-3 times and then if the call isn't taken in that time it fails over to another set of ring groups for other people to answer. There's probably a better way of doing it though.
This is how it works right now with some of our other groups, and it's not working for us.
I would love a smart queue - when breaching 5 people in queue, add person 1, if I'm still over 5, add person two, if I'm still over 5, add person three, etc. Then when each of those persons hangup, the system asks, are there still more than 5 calls in that queue, if yes, transfer one to this now open line, if not, remove them from the queue.
