Someone dials your main number and a team is supposed to answer. How the phones ring decides who picks up, how long the caller waits and whether the same two people end up doing all the work. The terms for these choices vary by vendor, so this post describes the behaviors and then maps them onto names.
The three basic behaviors
- Ring all: every phone in the group rings at once, and the first person to answer takes the call. This is what many vendors call a ring group.
- Ordered, or sequential: phones ring one person at a time in a fixed order. If the first does not answer in a set number of seconds, the call moves to the second, and so on. This is often called a hunt group, from the old idea of the call hunting for a free line.
- Spread: the system distributes calls so that no one is left out. Two common versions are round robin, which cycles through members in turn, and longest idle, which offers each call to whoever has gone longest without one.
Some vendors use "ring group" for all three and "hunt group" for the second. Before you compare quotes, ask what each term means in practice.
When ring all fits
Ring all suits small teams where anyone can help and speed matters most: a front desk of three, a small shop, an on-call group. The caller gets the fastest possible answer. The downsides appear as the group grows. Past six or eight phones it gets noisy, people start to assume somebody else will answer, and a call picked up on a personal mobile in a noisy place may not be the experience you wanted. It also gives you no sense of fairness. The fastest person wins every time.
When ordered fits
Use ordered ringing when some people are the better answer. A receptionist rings first, an office manager second, the owner last. Or a primary on-call engineer rings first and the backup rings if there is no answer in fifteen seconds. It makes the order explicit and keeps interruptions away from people higher up the list, but it also means the first person carries most of the load. Set the time per person carefully. Ten to fifteen seconds is about three or four rings, which is enough to answer and short enough that the caller is not left waiting while four phones ring in turn.
When spread fits
Use round robin or longest idle when the work is similar, volume is steady and fairness matters, as in a support or sales team. Longest idle is usually the better default, because round robin hands the next call to someone who is still on the previous one when their turn comes around. When calls queue up, a proper queue with agents, skills and a wait position is a better tool than a ring group, since ring groups have no concept of waiting your turn.
What happens when nobody answers
Every group needs a final destination. A group that rings forever frustrates the caller. Decide on one of these:
- Voicemail for the group, checked by a named person.
- Overflow to a second group, such as a manager or an answering service.
- A queue, if you want the caller to wait with an announcement.
- A callback request.
Also decide how the group treats people who are on a call or have marked themselves unavailable. Ideally those phones are skipped instead of ringing into a busy tone.
A worked example
Okafor Logistics has three kinds of incoming calls. Drivers call the dispatch line, 000-001-0187, from the road, and need an answer quickly. Customers call the main line and mostly want a status update. Accounting takes invoice questions.
Dispatch is a ring group of four desks, so whoever is free picks up. The main line goes to ordered ringing, starting with the receptionist and then the two customer service reps, with twelve seconds per person and voicemail at the end. Accounting is a two-person group on longest idle, so the work spreads evenly and neither person is always the one who is interrupted. After hours, all three go to a schedule-based greeting. The operations manager writes a single page showing each group, its members, the ring style and the fallback, and keeps it with the call-flow diagram.
Common mistakes
- Putting people in a ring-all group who do not work the same hours. A phone that rings on someone's day off is a way to lose goodwill.
- Including a mobile number in a group without agreeing it with the owner of that phone.
- Setting the per-person time so short that the call skips people who are reaching for the handset.
- Building one giant group for the whole company, so a call for sales rings the warehouse.
- Forgetting to remove members when they leave. The call rings a dead extension for fifteen seconds before moving on.
A quick way to choose
- Is anyone in the group clearly better placed to answer? Use ordered.
- Is the group small and speed matters more than fairness? Use ring all.
- Is the work similar and ongoing, and do you want to spread it? Use longest idle.
- Do calls arrive faster than the group can answer? Use a queue instead of a group.
Whichever you choose, call the group yourself from outside the building, at a busy time and a quiet one. The sound of the phones ringing in the office will tell you more than the settings page.