Auto Attendants & Call Queues in Microsoft Teams

We know technology plays a critical role in collaborating with partners and customers. In today’s business environment, communication has become the key to the success of an organization.

Microsoft Teams & Business Voice allows you to manage effectively your business by offering Auto Attendants (AA) and Call Queues (CQ) for better partner and customer support. In this article we are going to explain the benefits of these calling features.

Auto Attendants

Having someone to answer and direct calls at all hours is a major business benefit.

The primary purpose of an auto attendant is to direct a caller to an appropriate person based on the caller’s input to the provided menu options. Through AA, callers can be directed to specific call queues where they wait to talk to the next available agent. Different call routing options can be specified for business hours, off hours, and holidays.

You can create menu prompts by using text-to-speech (system-generated prompts) or by uploading a recorded audio file. Speech recognition accepts voice commands for hands-free navigation, but people calling in can also use the phone keypad to navigate menus.

Each auto attendant has a specific language and time zone. If you do business in multiple languages or multiple parts of the world, you can create as many different auto attendants (AA) as you need to accommodate your callers.

You can configure AA to allow callers to search your organization’s directory, either by name or by extension number.

Call Queues

Sometimes calls exceed companies’ internal capacity. To deal with internal capacity you can use Call Queues, which is analogous to a waiting room in a physical building.

Call queues provide a method of routing callers to people in your organization who can help with a particular issue or question. Incoming calls will be distributed one at a time to agents in the queue.

Callers wait on hold while calls are routed to the agents in the queue. Call queues are commonly used for sales and service functions.

Call queues provide:

• A greeting message.
• Music while people are waiting on hold in a queue.
• Call routing – in First In, First Out (FIFO) order – to agents.
• Handling options for queue overflow and timeout.

What do I need to configure AA and CQ?

To configure Auto Attendants and Call Queues, you need the following resources:

• A resource account for each auto attendant and each call queue.
• A free Phone System – Virtual User license for each resource account.
• One Microsoft number, direct routing number, or a hybrid number for each resource account you want to be directly dialable.
• The service number may be a toll or toll-free number.

In conclusion, by using together, auto attendants and call queues, you can easily route callers to the appropriate person in your organization to offer a better service.