Understanding Call Groups and Their Impact on Enhancing Call Handling

These­ days, it is essential to make customers happy. Effective communication is paramount in today’s business landscape.

Satisfying clients is no longer a choice, and efficient communication is significant in today’s fast-moving business world. 

Using call groups in the customer service department has made managing calls like taking candy from a baby and ensuring that no stone is left unturned when it comes to dealing with client concerns.

Let’s explore call groups and how does call groups enhance call handling.

What is a Call Group?

A call group is a call routing mechanism that sends incoming calls to a se­t of phone numbers. These­ groups have agents from re­lated teams, such as custome­r service or a specific group of people. Call groups are­ a way to send calls among multiple agents or departments. In business telephone systems, call groups are a standard feature.

Call groups not only satisfy customers but also maintain and support a collaborative work environment by distributing the call management responsibility among the team members.

Call management is the way to manage calls efficiently, where you can add or remove people quickly based on their needs, skills, or availability. This is especially useful for companies that are changing call volumes or teams with members working at different schedules. 

It helps businesses manage human resources in a flexible manner. The call group system leverages VoIP technology to route calls over the Internet, providing flexibility and efficiency in managing call volume.

Here’s how call groups work:

• Incoming call routing
• Group configuration
• Ring strategy (simultaneous ring, sequential ring, weighted ring)
• Call handling
• Fallback options
• Call distribution
• Administration and monitoring

How Does Call Groups Enhance Call Handling?

A call group is a group of call center agents gathered together to resolve incoming support calls based on specific standards.

Call groups play a crucial role in enhancing call handling in several ways, including efficient distribution, improved responsiveness, flexibility, and others so that calls are handled effectively within an organization.

Here’s how call groups enhance call handling:

I. Reduced Wait Times

In this digital world, if a business does not provide prompt solutions and increases customer wait times, it can lead to customer frustration and a negative customer experience. By distributing the calls among a team of agents, a call group ensures callers reach a live person quickly.

II. Improved Customer Experience

Satisfied custome­rs are happy customers. The main good thing about contact groups is that the­y make sure unhappy customers can quickly talk to the­ right people at a business to fix the­ir problem. This improves the custome­r’s experience­. 

III. Increased Agent Productivity

Call groups ensure reduced wait times and efficient call distribution, allowing agents to focus better and handle calls effectively. This leads to increased agent productivity and lower agent turnover.

IV. Increased team collaboration

The work te­am can help each other by using the­ call group feature. Teammate­s share the work of answering calls. This cre­ates a good feeling of be­ing in a group with a shared goal.

Setting Up and Managing Call Groups

Setting up and managing call groups entails numerous procedures to ensure that inbound calls are routed to the relevant agents or departments. 

Here are some general guides:

1. Define your needs: 

• Optimize call volume and builds to meet your specific needs and required agent skills.

2. Choose your call management system: 

• Determine whether your telephony system or Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) provider call group functionality and explore available features.

3. Configure your call group:

• Access the call group settings within your phone system’s control panel.

4. Add team members:

• Select the agents for the call group, and you may be able to assign specific skill sets to agents for skill-based routing.

5. Configure call handling rules:

• Configure options for voicemail greetings, call forwarding after a certain number of rings, or overflow destinations if all agents are busy.

6. Test and monitor:

• Conduct a test call to confirm that the call group is working properly and monitor call flow and agent performance to change the system as needed.

Implementing call groups effectively can successfully improve communication and customer service efficiency within an organization. Directing incoming calls to the dedicated teams of extensions or users streamlines interaction processes.

Call Group Ring Patterns

Ring Patterns can be a very useful addition to call groups. It affects the order in which a portion or the whole of the members of a call group are notified when a phone number or extension is dialed.

Call groups use specific ring patterns to determine how incoming calls are distributed among the members of the group.

There are three main types of call group ring patterns:

A. Sequential ring pattern

This is the most common call group ring strategy pattern, in which the calls are routed to each team member one at a time in a predetermined order. If the first person is unable to attend the calls, they move to the next person quickly in line, which ensures calls are handled in an organized way.

B. Round-robin or circular ring pattern

In this pattern, calls are made to each member of the group once in a circular manner if no one answers the calls the first time, where the calls ring again in the same fashion until someone picks up.

C. Simultaneous ring pattern

A ring pattern is a call pattern in a Call Group that rings all of the agents simultaneously. The agent who answers the phone initially addresses the customer’s concerns. 

These ring pattern helps to maintain the call volume in the organizations so that the customer’s queries are resolved promptly. This reduces customers’ wait times and enhances clients satisfaction.

Call Group vs Call Hunting

While both call groups and call hunting have the same purpose, which is to increase the chances of a caller getting through to an agent, there are some differences between them.

Call Groups	Call Hunting
Forward inbound calls to one or all agents within a group	Forward inbound calls to multiple numbers
Forward one or all agents simultaneously	Forward multiple numbers in sequence
Multiple agents within a group can assist the caller	Only one agent has the knowledge to assist the caller
Simultaneous routing	Sequential routing
Routing calls to a department’s customer service or sales team	Forward calls from office phone to cell phone to home phone
Higher flexibility (can direct to specific groups or all agents within a group)	Limited flexibility (forwarding sequence predetermined)

Dialaxy’s inbound call center solutions allow you to set up call groups instantly

Dialaxy’s cloud-based inbound call center solutions enable businesses to automate the agent’s incoming calls easily. Setting up call groups allows you to acquire various abilities such as call recording, call monitoring, call forwarding, and advanced IVR, which can help the contact center enjoy several ringing simultaneously within your corporate institution.

Here’s how: 

Step 1: Sign up for Dialaxy and then sign into the dashboard.

Step 2: Select the country from which you wish to purchase the number.

Step 3: Purchase phone numbers and submit the paperwork.  

Step 4:  Invite agents to the workspace and share phone numbers.

Step 5:  Incorporate interactive voice response and automated call distribution features into your system (for mass inbound calls). 

Conclusion

A call group helps businesses manage large call volumes and human resources in a flexible manner. Call groups can manage calls efficiently, and you can add or remove people based on their skills and requirements to resolve and handle the caller’s queries. 

Call groups streamline call-handling processes, such as improving customer experience, increasing agent productivity, increasing team collaboration, and enhancing overall customer service. They also drive business success by ensuring efficient and effective communication between businesses and their customers.

FAQs

Does one agent have the ability to take part in more than one call group?

Yes, call group systems generally allow one agent to be a member of multiple call groups. This will enable individuals to support multiple departments or tasks as needed.

How do I create a call group?

Here are the steps to initiate a call group,

Step 1: Dial the first participant

Step 2: Activate the “Add Call” or “Conference ” feature

Step 3: Dial additional participants

Step 4: Wait for the connection

Step 5: Merge calls

Step 6: Start conversation

How do I set up a call group?

Setting up a call group requires you to choose the call group provider that sites your business needs.

Here’s how you can set up a call group in some common call group providers:

Step 1: Open your account

Step 2: Click on users and performance

Step 3: put information for your team or group

Step 4: Choose your desired ring pattern

Step 5: Allow call transfers or pick-ring times for incoming calls

Step 6: When set up, save and activate the call group

Step 7: Test to confirm it functions properly.

Can call groups be customized to suit specific business needs?

Yes, call groups can be organized based on different conditions like time, caller location, and IVR menu alternatives. This flexibility enables firms to direct calls to the most appropriate agents or departments, resulting in effective call handling.