These settings will have a large impact on what happens when calls come into a Group. Here is a breakdown of what each setting does.
Call distribution mode
Simultaneous Distribution
If you choose Simultaneous distribution, calls will ring all available people in each Priority Box (1, 2 or 3) at the same time before calling those in the next box, until the call is answered. The people in each Priority Box will be called for the Call time per attempt. If people are set to away, they are moved down one Priority Box.
Balanced Distribution
If you choose Balanced distribution, calls will ring one person at a time. The first person will be the person from Priority Box 1 who is currently available and has waited for the longest time since they were on a call. If this person doesn’t answer, the person with the next longest wait time will be called. Once all of the people in Priority Box 1 have been called, those in Priority Box 2 will be attempted. Calls attempts will be made to the number of people equal to the Maximum number of attempts before voicemail. Calls are not automatically distributed to people whose status is currently Red (on a call or busy) or Grey (offline or invisible).
Maximum attempts before voicemail
Depending on the Call distribution mode that you have selected, this setting decides how many times we attempt the call before sending it to voicemail.
If you choose Simultaneous distribution, the number of attempts will relate to how many times we will try and send the call to each Priority Box. If you set this to 1 attempt, the call will only ring for the people in the Priority Box that is currently the highest priority and has people Available in it. For example if no-one is Available in Priority Box 1, but people are Available in Priority Box 2 and 3, we will just ring Priority Box 2 before sending the call to voicemail. The same applies for 2 attempts. 3 attempts is the default setting here.
If you choose Balanced distribution, this setting will limit the number of people that we’ll attempt to call before sending the call to voicemail. This prevents the call having to go through all of your people before getting the opportunity to leave a voicemail.
Call time per attempt
This setting changes the time that the people in each Priority Box (1, 2 and 3) will be called before rolling to the people in the next box. We’ve found that 95% of people answer calls within the first 12 seconds that the phone is ringing. Callers typically abandon phone calls after between 25 and 40 seconds of ringing. We recommend setting this so that your total ring time is between 30 and 40 seconds (when your voicemail greeting will play).
Continue calling previously attempted team members
If you turn on this setting, people in box 1 will be called on the second attempt while we're also calling people in box 2. All of these people will be called again on the third attempt while calling people in box 3. This means that the boxes are cumulative. Be careful turning this on, as it can be quite annoying for larger teams. This feature is in beta because we're still figuring out the quirks, we'd love to hear your feedback on how it's working for your team.