Auto Attendants and Call Queues in Microsoft Teams

Effective communication is essential for modern businesses, specifically, harnessing the power of Microsoft Teams Enterprise Voice can empower your organization to excel. With the integration of Auto Attendants (AA) and Call Queues (CQ) into your communication strategy, you can enhance your capabilities for supporting both partners and customers.

In this article, we will explore the primary benefits of incorporating Auto Attendants and Call Queues in Microsoft Teams, as well as provide insight into integrating Microsoft Teams Call Queue Reporting and Analytics. This will shed light on how these features can revolutionize your business communication and customer support.

Key Benefits of Auto Attendants and Call Queues

• • • Improved customer experience: Auto Attendants provide a professional and efficient first impression, guiding callers to the appropriate department or agent.
    • Enhanced productivity: Call Queues optimize call routing, ensuring that incoming calls are handled efficiently and reducing wait times.
    • Scalability: Both AA and CQ can easily adapt to your organization’s growth, accommodating increasing call volumes and new departments.
    • Cost-effective: By automating routine tasks and reducing manual call handling, AA and CQ can contribute to cost savings.

Microsoft Teams Auto Attendants 

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

The primary purpose of a Teams Phone 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.

How to set up auto attendant in Teams

You can configure AA to allow callers to search your organization’s directory, either by name or by extension number. Follow these steps to set up your Auto Attendant.

Microsoft Teams Call Queues

Sometimes calls exceed companies’ internal capacity. To deal with internal capacity you can use Microsoft Teams 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.

How to setup Call Queue in Teams

Setting up a call queue in Microsoft Teams involves several steps, and it allows you to route incoming calls to a group of people in a specific order. Follow these steps to set up a Call Queue in Teams.