Understanding Ring Group Weights & Penalties

Ring Group Weights

Ring Group Weights are used to increase the priority of a call when multiple Ring Groups exist. Weights range from 1 to -10, with 1 being the highest. The higher the weight, the higher the priority of the call.

High Ring Group Weight (High Call Priority) = Call answered faster than other Ring Groups

Calls are not answered simply according to total wait time when Ring Group Weights are applied. Instead, the Ring Group Weights assigned to the Ring Group are taken into consideration.

Examples of applying Ring Group Weights include:

  • An inquiry for a luxury condo is assigned a higher Ring Group Weight than corporate housing interest.
  • The Training Department is assigned a lower Ring Group Weight than the Sales Ring Group.

In the example below, the Sales Ring Group has a higher Ring Weight than the Training Dept (Sales Overflow). Therefore, the Sales Ring Group receives more calls between the two Ring Groups.

Sales Ring Group with Ring Weight = 5

Training Dept (Sales Overflow) with Ring Weight = 1

Ring Group Weight Best Practices

Assign higher Ring Group Weights to the highest priority Ring Groups.

Ring Penalties

Penalties are assigned to specific agents within the same Ring Group to establish a priority order of receiving calls. Penalties range from -10 to 10 (with -10 being the lowest) and a default of 0. The lower the penalty, the more calls the agent receives.

Lower Agent Penalty (Higher Priority) = Agent Receives More Calls

NOTE: Penalties apply only to Ring All and Random Ring Strategies

When all agents in one Ring Group are unavailable, Synkato automatically escalates to the next Ring Group and corresponding penalty level.

Ring Penalty example:

  • Agent-3001 with the lowest Ring Penalty (-10) will receive the most calls.  
  • Agent-3002 with a Ring Penalty of -5 will receive fewer calls than Agent-3001, but more calls than agents with higher penalties.
  • Agent-3009 is set to Do Not Ring and will not receive calls.

Penalties Best Practices

Assign penalties to establish ring priority based on agent experience level within a single Ring Group. Assign a lower penalty to more generalized agents that should receive calls first. Assign a higher penalty to a specialized agent that should receive calls only when others are busy.

A (Tier 1) Help Desk Ring Group is generally composed of agents offering the first line of customer support. Knowledgeable about the system, these agents capture the details of the customer request and perform basic troubleshooting with assistance from a knowledge base or internal resource. A Tier 1 Ring Group should handle the bulk of customer support needs.

A (Tier 2) In-Depth Technical Support Ring Group should include the most experienced agents that can perform detailed troubleshooting, handle complex issues, and identify & escalate bugs.