The Benefits of VoIP Ring Groups

Ring groups – also commonly called hunt groups – have been a feature in enterprise phone systems for a while. It allows the business to group specific numbers for call management purposes, mainly to distribute incoming calls within a team or department. VoIP enhances this feature to the next level so that businesses have a variety of settings and configurations to suit every situation.

What Are Ring Groups?

Ring groups are mainly an enterprise feature. Service providers do offer it to individuals and households as well but for the most part, organizations benefit the most from this feature. Ring groups are a way of organizing phone numbers and extensions to answer incoming calls. The size of the ring group depends upon the services offered by the vendor and the type of plan you’re subscribed to.

Some VoIP service providers offer unlimited ring groups while most include at least a few by default. You may have to pay more for additional groups beyond that offered in your plan. The advantage of using VoIP is that you can add and remove resources as and when you require. You don’t have to pay for more ring groups if you use less than the included number. At the same time, you can always add more groups in a pinch.

How Do Ring Groups Work?

Businesses most often use a ring group to distribute incoming calls in certain departments like sales, customer support, accounts etc. It is useful in situations where the caller is not looking for a specific person in the company. They only need a person to solve a problem, answer a question or otherwise help them in some way. So, it’s not surprising to see that sales and customer support departments use ring groups prolifically.

An organization can also use the ring groups for specific teams or projects. For instance, suppose a team of five consultants is working on a project. An administrator can set up a ring group for the team, so the client can always reach someone for a status update. Note that in this instance, the client doesn’t care who is updating them. Ring groups work well to ensure calls don’t go unanswered.

Ring Groups – Call Patterns

Organizations can use certain ring patterns for their ring groups. These are:

• Rollover

This particular call pattern is useful if you want to ensure that all employees get an equal share of incoming calls. A rollover pattern will call numbers in the ring group one by one until someone answers the call. You can specify how many times the call will cycle through the numbers before going to voicemail or some other extension.

Suppose you want to make sure that all your agents in the sales department get a shot at closing deals. Your ring group has 3 numbers for sales reps. The first call will ring the first number (no answer), then the second number (answered). The next call will not go to the first number again. Instead, it will ring the third number and go down the line from there.

• Repetitive

This pattern is similar to cyclic, except that calls will ring the extensions in the same order each time. It’s useful when you don’t know who will answer on a particular device or when it doesn’t matter which person handles the most calls during the day. The disadvantage with both cyclic and repetitive ring patterns on is that callers might have to wait a long time for someone to answer the call.

Suppose you have 3 phones for a small office with 5 employees. The phones are distributed in various locations within the office and not linked to any person. Whoever is nearest the phone will answer it when a call comes through. So calls will ring the numbers in order (number1, number2, number3) regardless of which phone answers each call.

• Simultaneous

This pattern ensures all devices in the group will ring when a call comes in. Whoever picks up the phone first gets to handle the call. Simultaneous ringing minimizes the time the caller has to wait for someone to answer the call. However, it can be distracting to have all phones in a particular office ring loudly for each call.

Benefits of Ring Groups

Ring groups are a great way to make sure that every caller speaks to an employee. You don’t want customers or potential clients to reach voicemail if you can help it. Ring groups allow you to manage calls in an efficient manner.

Without ring groups, calls might often go unanswered giving the impression that your office is understaffed or worse. You don’t want to customer to think that no one in the office can be bothered to answer phone calls. Ring groups help you get the best outcome for incoming calls – making sure the caller speaks to a human being in the least amount of time.