How to make a Ring Group with VoIP for Efficient Calling

Ring groups are an old feature in enterprise phone systems. It’s a great tool to manage incoming calls within a company. Ring groups in a VoIP system are even more powerful, offering more options for distributing calls amongst a group of people.

Before we dive into setting one up, let’s understand the finer details of ring groups and its benefits. How do they work? Why would you want one or more in your office?

What is a Ring Group?

Ring groups offer a way for multiple devices to ring on incoming calls. When someone calls a number that is linked to a ring group, all the devices included in the group will ring in a specific order. You can adjust details like:

• The number of devices in the group
• The order in which they should ring
• What to do in case no one answers the call
• The duration of the ring

Who can benefit from using Ring Groups?

Ring groups have to main purposes. The first reason to use ring groups is to ensure an even distribution of incoming calls among a certain number of people. Departments like sales, customer service, tech support, and even project teams frequently use the ring groups for this purpose.

The second reason is to make sure that callers don’t have to wait long before someone answers the call. Again, this is very useful for customer service and tech support teams. However, other groups like managers and reps who handle high-value clients also use ring groups for this reason.

Are Ring Groups suitable for a small business?

Now, most of the above examples apply to large corporations with many employees and departments. But ring groups can offer benefits even for a small business with half a dozen employees.

For instance, imagine a business with four employees in the office. There are no departments, hence work is shared by everyone according to their expertise and daily responsibilities. You may not even have a receptionist to answer calls. With ring groups in place, incoming calls can be set up to ring all the desk phones in the office. Whoever is free and is closest to a ringing device can answer it.

Consider another situation. Suppose you have 3 salespeople working in the same office. You want all of them to have an equal opportunity to close deals. You can set up a ring group so that each incoming call cycles through each phone until someone answers. The next call will start from the next device in line and so on.

How to make a Ring Group?

Ring groups are incredibly useful and offer many benefits. So how can you make one?

Some vendors give you a few ring groups to start with. You have to purchase additional ones beyond the free limit. VoIPstudio offers this feature to all customers at no additional charge. So create as many as you need!

Making and administering a ring group is quick and easy. You can also change the configuration settings at any time. Add users to a specific group or remove them as employees move within the business. You can even enable and disable them for specific periods.

Ring Groups in VoIPstudio

Within VoIPstudio, administrators can set up ring groups from the online dashboard. Navigate to the ring groups option under settings. Give a name to your group. It can be descriptive like ‘Sales’ or ‘Service’ etc. Assign a few users to the group (a ring group needs at least 2 users). Then add inbound numbers for this group. You can link multiple numbers to the same ring group.

The next step is to select a ring strategy. The simplest one is to ‘Ring All.’ As the option states, incoming calls will ring all the devices within the group. Other options include Hunt and Memory Hunt. Other vendors will probably have different names. You can also set the ring time, which defines how long each device will ring before the call moves on to the next.

Finally, you can set options for what to do when the call is not answered by anyone. Do you want to send it to voicemail or simply hang up? You can also redirect the call to another ring group, send it to a queue, or a specific user. Most offices won’t use the hangup option but it’s still there if you want it.

Of course, the workflow will be slightly different for each VoIP service provider. But the essentials remain the same. Select the incoming numbers, the users within the group and configure what to do with each call.

Explore ring groups for your business and see how they can help you manage incoming calls. Most vendors offer at least a handful of groups in most packages. So don’t hesitate to test them out!