Ringing or hold music

Hi,
I am routing incoming calls to a queue. How can I present ringing tone to callers until an agent picks up the call. At present I get on hold music presented to the caller whilst waiting, there doesn't seem to be a NONE option for hold music (or do you have to record telephone ringing sounds to use as on hold music).
Am I missing something ?
Ron

RE: Ringing or hold music

Ron,

You can certainly let your callers listen to ring-back while they wait in the queue via a recording, but that would be slightly misleading and somewhat wrong in my opinion. You see, ring-back signifies the state when a call has not yet been answered either by a human or a call treatment system.

As such your clients are bound to have two expectations: Not to pay for waiting in the queue, since the are not used to hearing ring-back when their calls have been answered. In addition they expect their call to be answered immediately, since there is a ringing phone sound at the other end which creates this expectation. So unless your queue is constantly empty and every call gets answered immediately, your callers are likely to be misled at certain moments during a week.

However, if ring-back is what you wish your clients to hear, you should consider using Ring-Groups instead of Queues, and create a ring strategy based on your requirements. Your clients are guaranteed to hear native ring-back from their SIP User Agents, while the phones are ringing on your end, without you incurring the penalty of transmitting the ringing sound to their phones as a stream of RTP packets that increases your Usage statistics.

This post has been edited 1 time(s), it was last edited by Dia on 01.03.2009 at 14:00.

RE: Ringing or hold music

Hi Diafora,
You are right of course, I had completely overlooked that point and was just looking at the 'technical' aspect.

I started out by using a ring group but the problem there is when phones are ringing and an agent subsequently becomes free then his phone doesn't join in ringing with the others. The **ext pickup doesn't seem to work within a ringing group of phones. I raised this issue several months ago and was advised to use a queue instead.

I am now using a queue but see a problem when a caller hangs up before an agent picks up the call (maybe heard the greetings message and realised they have dialled a wrong number, or maybe not English speaking) then the phones still ring in the queue until an agent picks up (and just gets silence).

This is only a small company with maybe 3 people at their desks, calls are seldom more than one at a time.

Any suggestions ?

RE: Ringing or hold music

Hey Ron,

I understand your application as well as the inherent limitations, so here is how I would try to set this up. Using a Queue seems like overkill for such a small operation.

Create two identical Ring-Groups, let's say RG-3 and RG-5. Place all the Agent's extensions in both ring groups, and set the strategy to ringall. The differences between these Ring Groups will be in the Ring Time and the Destination if no answer.

Set the ring time to 10 or 12 seconds on RG-3 and between 30 to 40 seconds in RG-5. Set the Destination if no answer of RG-3 to Ring Group 5, and the Destination if no answer of RG-5 to either a single extension or Voicemail. The last step is extremely important, to prevent routing loops.

Route all incoming calls to RG-3 and try this setup for couple of weeks, in order to verify whether all the inbound calls were answered properly and on a timely basis.

If you feel that another Ring Group is required, insert an identical RG-4 between RG-3 and RG-5 with a ring time of 15 to 20 seconds. Keep RG-5 as the last stop an inbound call can go through, and run this for about a month.

Let me know what you think, and whether this works out for your application.

RE: Ringing or hold music

Hi Diafora,
Yes, I did try the same thing. I used 4 ring groups with a 10 second ringall in each (longer final group failing to a classic extension and mobile). I thought it an acceptable compromise but the users still weren't happy waiting up to 10 seconds of ringing if they were on their own in the office. Shortening ring times further introduced a greater chance of accidentally picking up the extension in that small window of time between ring groups, and then having to wait another 10 seconds !
If there isn't a technical fix/workaround for **ext in a ringing group (IPtel says it should work) then I guess they will just have to live with it.
Ron

RE: Ringing or hold music

Please remind me, which type of SIP UAs are they using?

RE: Ringing or hold music

The ATAs are all Sipura, 2*PAP2, 3*SPA3102 (using FXO and FXS) and 1*SPA1001.
If I set up an internal call between 2 extensions I can pick it up on a 3rd extension no problem. On an incoming ring group call when the same extension is ringing I cannot pick up from the same 3rd (or any other) extension.
Confused me !
Ron

edit - just a thought, how about a spare extension, say #100, and forking group member extensions to it. **100 might then work ?

This post has been edited 1 time(s), it was last edited by tel on 05.03.2009 at 00:26.