Breaking out of a Queue to Leave Voicemail | Community
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Newcomer
GregTX
Newcomer
May 3, 2023
Question

Breaking out of a Queue to Leave Voicemail

  • May 3, 2023
  • 5 replies
  • 6 views

Is there any way to allow a caller who is waiting in a queue to break out to a designated voicemail box if they get tired of holding. 

 

Ex. we've all heard the on hold verbiage, "we're sorry, we're experiencing an extremely high call volume, if you prefer to leave a message, please press 1.  Otherwise, please continue to hold and the next available agent will be with you shortly."

 

It looks like this can potentially be fudged via a series of queues or overflowing back to the same queue, but then you get into infinite loops and broken call stats... 

 

Zoom Phone doesn't even appear to be able to play intermittent on hold messages or announce what caller they are in line or other similar things to help engage the caller.  It looks like these may be possible in Contact Center, but that is way overboard for this type of basic functionality.   How are y'all working around this?

    5 replies

    E
    Community Super Champion | Partner
    Eliot
    Community Super Champion | Partner
    May 13, 2023

    hi gregtx,

     

    if you have your call queue overflow set to voicemail, you have an option to allow the caller to get to an operator or voicemail.  please see attached screen shot. 

     

    when the call overflows after your specified time, the caller is connected to an ivr with the two options, - 0 forward to an operator and 1 leave voicemail. 

     

    you can decide what an operator really is and change the prompts accordingly.  the operator could just be a return to the call queue or maybe a real operator.  for voicemail, the caller can leave a vm.

     

    i suspect you are correct that zoom contact center has the latest features relating to contact center call queues.

     

    thanks,  eliot

     

    G
    Newcomer
    GregTXAuthor
    Newcomer
    May 16, 2023

    Thanks.  I actually tried this route.  It kind of works, but it also completely butchers reporting.  Ex. it makes the number of overflows skyrocket and it prevents us from being able to see the average and longest hold times in the queue.  It definitely isn't a workable solution.

     

    It's definitely a shame that our 10-15 year-old OLD phone system is capable of allowing the caller to break out of the queue, announce the estimated hold time and caller number in the queue, and allows for escalated recordings (5 different sequential recordings as the callers hold longer) built in built in, without having to purchase the advanced call center functionality, while Zoom doesn't seem to even have a viable workaround.

     

    Any other ideas?

      E
      Community Super Champion | Partner
      Eliot
      Community Super Champion | Partner
      May 16, 2023

      hi gregtx,

       

      one of my clients moved from a legacy pbx to zoom phone.  they did not need a full blown contact center for their 10 agents and decided to go with zoom power pack.  the contact center manager has been happy with power pack because it is a big improvement from their legacy system.

       

      in addition to power pack, zoom offers its own contact center and tight integrations with most of the top contact centers.

       

      here is some information on zoom power pack.

       

      Zoom Phone Power Pack is an add-on for Zoom Phone that offers three features:

      • Enhanced call queue (CQ) analytics for real-time and historical insights with wallboard support, and customizable KPI and report subscriptions for queue analytics and access reports
      • A desktop user experience that streamlines call handling with an expanded contacts window for users with a steady call volume
      • Team SMS functionality to enable auto receptionist and call queue phone numbers to be reached via SMS/MMS

      zp_power-pack_whitepaper3.pdf (zoom.us)

       

      What is Zoom Phone Power Pack?

      Zoom Phone Power Pack is an add-on feature for Zoom Phone customers that enhances customer support through advanced tools that enable admins and agents to work more efficiently. Designed to support users with high call volumes and surface insights into performance metrics, Power Pack is the missing link to improve the customer experience.

      Supercharge Your Customer Support with Zoom Phone Power Pack | Zoom Blog

       

      Zoom Phone customers use the call queue feature to handle calls for various departments such as sales, support, and service. Call queue admins and members can use the call queue real-time analytics and historical dashboard to make effective data-driven decisions. The call queue historical dashboard is part of the Power Pack add-on, which also includes the Zoom Assistant experience. You can also subscribe to email notifications for historical reports.

      Call queue historical dashboard (Power Pack) – Zoom Support

       

      Call queue admins and members can use the call queue real-time analytics dashboard to make effective data-driven decisions. The call queue real-time analytics dashboard provides critical details like service level, average call handling times, call volume counts, average/longest wait time, completed/abandoned/overflow call counts, and more with the ability to drill down further into specific sites, call queues, and agents.

      You can also set up email notifications for call queue real-time analytics.

      Call queue real-time analytics dashboard – Zoom Support

       

      Zoom Assistant is a compact desktop panel that allows phone users to quickly find their contacts, access and manage speed dial, make and receive calls, and transfer calls. The panel can be docked to the left and right sides of a computer screen. With the addition of a Power Pack license, Zoom Assistant functionalities expand to include the Power Pack Desktop experience such as answering and transferring calls for call queues, shared line appearance, and shared line groups. If enabled by their admin, users can decide if they want to enable or disable it from their own web portal settings and control its functionality from their clients.

      Note: Zoom Assistant is not available to Zoom Phone Basic users and requires a Zoom Pro license.

      Using Zoom Assistant – Zoom Support

       

      Zoom Pricing & Plans | Zoom  starts at $300/user/year

       

      thanks,  eliot

       

      C
      Explorer
      capden
      Explorer
      October 5, 2023

      I'm bumping this because our company is actively wanting to switch phone system because of this issue.  I'm doing the route to an IVR option (press 1 to wait more or 2 to leave a VM) but as Greg stated, this destroys the log data

        J
        Newcomer
        JamesIOH
        Newcomer
        September 3, 2025

        Halfway through 2025 and we have AI Agent Queues yet still no option for IVR Exit Escape routing from Queue. I need message to say please hang up and call VM system to leave a message for us to call you back. Someone asked what phone system we were on and said Zoom and they laughed and went "wont be touching that". Unfortunately most people joining dont ask that question as such a basic features on every phone system.

         

        Zoom, you obviously dont use the standard phone system offering, so can you please actually listen to you clients when developing your roadmap. Queues are why small business put in a phone system so they dont have to answer calls just to put on hold, but you seem to have ignored some basic features. In the time I have spent talking with you sales, implementation and other people a developer could have coded this in, as already exists in Contact Centre so are you just hiding it due to licencing and a money grab? IVR routing in a queue is not a Contact Center feature, but a basic expectation of a Queue feature. 

          K
          Newcomer
          khanie
          Newcomer
          September 5, 2025

          what you’re describing is a fairly common requirement: giving callers the option to “opt out” of a queue into voicemail without breaking metrics, causing loops, or needing a full-blown Contact Center setup. Zoom Phone by itself is a bit limited here,

          Zoom Phone queues allow some customization:

          • Overflow handling: You can set an overflow destination, which can be a voicemail box.

          • Caller options: In Zoom Phone’s call queue settings, there is an option for callers to press a key to leave a message.

          How to configure:

          1. Go to Zoom Admin > Phone System Management > Call Queues.

          2. Select your queue and look for Caller Options / Key Press Options.

          3. Assign something like:

            • Press 1 to leave a message → Voicemail of [user/department]

          4. Set the queue timeout / maximum wait time to ensure callers eventually get to voicemail if no agents are available.

          S
          Newcomer
          SeekingResults
          Newcomer
          September 12, 2025

          I see people saying it is already a feature/option in Contact Center, but no one explaining how you would accomplish this in there. Is it expected to be a conditional loop or something? We have Contact Center and are looking to do the same thing the original poster spoke about: Allow a caller to either break out of a queue for a voicemail, or at the very least, play a message to them when the business hours have elapsed and they need to hang up/try again tomorrow/leave voicemail, etc.

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