Senior Writer: Priya Naha
Date: June 7, 2023Employees can become overwhelmed with multiple incoming calls simultaneously in an organization. Keeping only one call on hold becomes a problem.
It isn’t a good strategy if you keep multiple calls on hold and hope to find an available agent to transfer the call. As a result, companies cannot take additional calls, and callers feel frustrated and stop contacting them.
But is this the type of outcome your company aspires for?
Call parking, a functionality incorporated in standard business phone systems, allows businesses to deal with large call volumes. It increases call center teamwork and boosts client experience.
Let’s understand what does it mean to parking a call. We’ll also give an overview of how to park a call, its utility, and its benefits.
What is Call Parking?
Call parking is a function available in standard business phone systems or unified communications platforms that allow you to manage multiple shared calling responsibilities simultaneously.
It is a method of holding calls in a shared parking lot so that any team member can retrieve them on a separate phone or extension. A call is routed to your company’s cloud and allocated its extension whenever you park a call.
Though it may be similar to call forwarding, call parking is a different feature. In call parking, anyone with an extension can answer the phone, and nobody needs to know others’ extensions: no messed-up transfers, unexpected hang-ups, and waiting for ages to connect to someone.
Call park can happen in both inbound and outbound calls and be handled by any additional user in your company or internet phone system.
Now that we know what is call park, let’s move on to understand its utility.
How Is Call Parking Useful?
Call park is a fantastic tool as it provides the critical flexibility that hectic contact center teams require.
With the call park option, your callers can always speak with a live person rather than being routed to voicemail.
For example, assume someone calls and requests to speak with the team leader. You can transfer the call if your team leader is at the desk. But what will you do if she has a meeting with a different department in your company?
Rather than looking for her, you can park the call and notify the speaker that the team leader has a call at a specific extension. It’s that simple!
You’ve known about what are a parked call and its utility by now, but do you know how its works?
How Does Call Parking Work?
Do you have a call to park but don’t know how it works? We have it here for you.
Call parking spaces entail using a private network, generally in the cloud, accessible to authorized users. Authorized individuals like customer care members or agents can use the call park feature. Calls in the call park extension number lot can be picked up by any of these pre-authorized users, making it the ideal distribution method for call centers or teams with shared calling duties.
It is useful for businesses’ shared calling duties since it effectively allocates calls depending on availability.
You can park a call immediately, transfer to a parked call after you’ve picked it up, or park an incoming call while you’re on the phone. If you don’t have a call park, you usually have three options if you get an inbound call when you’re on the call:
- Let the incoming caller hear a busy signal
- Put the inbound call to voicemail
- Set your current recipient on hold while you take your new call.
Call parking allows you to park an incoming call for another department member to pick it up, which helps customers speed up call resolution.
Let’s move on to understand the various steps of parking a call.
How To Park A Call?
Call parking has proved to be an efficient feature for companies that deal with phone calls simultaneously. It enhances employees’ productivity and ensures improved customer experience.
If you’ve got to park calls, here’s how to do it.
Clicking a preprogrammed button (typically labeled call park) or a special series of buttons activates the call park feature.
Here’s a more in-depth explanation of how to park a call:
- Step 1: An incoming caller calls your company, and an agent answers.
- Step 2: To park the call, the agent clicks the Call Park button on the software or desk phone amid a discussion.
- Step 3: The call is routed to the company’s cloud and given an inactive extension. While on hold, the caller will listen to on-hold melodies or a taped message.
- Step 4: The agent will determine whether to continue the discussion with another agent or to gather additional data before resuming the call.
- Step 5: To rejoin the conversation, an agent will contact the extension number to retrieve the call.
How Can Callers Retrieve Parked Calls?
Retrieving a call park isn’t complicated. All you need to do is follow the steps below:
- Step 1: Hover your mouse over a parked call in the inbound and internal calls panel or parking extension list.
- Step 2: Right-click on the call and select retrieve. The parked call is sent to your extension by the system.
- Step 3: Retrieve the call park by responding to the call.
Benefits of Call Parking
Call park benefits an organization in multiple ways. Some of the advantages of using a phone system with call parking are discussed in this section.
1. Enables VoIP Service
A parked call can be accessible to any phone linked to a Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service. Every user can embed a code, which can subsequently be employed to resume the call from anywhere.
2. Minimizes Voicemail Destinations
Call parking boosts the number of agents available to receive calls and provide service. It reduces the number of calls that hit voicemail instead of a live person.
3. Effective Return Call Feature
When a call is held and then terminated, the call park feature allows it to be redirected to the extension that had the call parked. So, if the agent to whom the call is now being moved is unavailable to answer the phone, the original receiver takes the call to assure that the caller is not ignored.
The call is estimated to wait approximately five minutes before continuing to ring the extensions involved.
4. Easy to Use
The agent’s dashboard interface is connected with call parking.
Agents can park a call with a few clicks. Other employees have access to the parked call, in addition to any notes or facts, to get ready before having to answer. It eliminates the setback of a cold transfer.
5. Facilitates Sponsored Content
The agent can opt to play on-hold audio or a prerecorded voicemail greeting for the caller while the connection is pending or parked.
The messages could inform the caller about other offerings at the organization and provide them with regular updates on your services. As a result, it’s possible to employ it instead of the typical noise level to reduce the expense of putting promotional messages elsewhere.
6. Minimizes Wait Time
Any accessible agent can recover a parked call, which reduces queue traffic and wait time. Whenever an employee places a call on hold, only the agent can retrieve it.
Likewise, parked calls can be acquired by a more prepared, competent, or available agent. Customers don’t have to wait long to talk to the right agents with the call park feature.
7. Integrates with IVR or the Routing System
You can incorporate a call park spot as an endpoint on your incoming IVR system or routing menu. The system will auto-park the call until a team member can receive it.
8. Enhances Customer Satisfaction
When a caller is transferred to another sector, they are often placed on hold while awaiting an available agent. Call park places the caller on hold on a specific extension until the next accessible agent picks them up.
Because the caller is not required to patiently wait for an available agent, the call park feature can help to boost customer satisfaction.
9. Manages Multiple Calls
Call park is great for the support and sales industries, such as call centers for global corporations with extensive customer care centers. Call park can handle many inbound phone lines simultaneously with equal time. Callers are directed to specific lines, which are accessible quickly by the right agents in the firm.
10. Improves Efficiency
Call park can help your call center operations run more efficiently.
You can park a call on the server and recover it using any other extension. If you want to answer a call from another line without transferring the caller, use this option. It’s also useful when discussing the call with someone else. Call parking can enhance the effectiveness of your call center operations by allowing you to collect calls promptly and avoid having to perform call transfers.
Call Parking With CallHippo
CallHippo is the leading provider of virtual call center solutions for organizations of all sizes. One of the primary reasons that CallHippo outperforms any other current business communication solution is its extensive features.
Call parking, multi-level IVR, call queuing, smart switch, power dialer, automatic call distribution (ACD), call monitoring, advanced analytics, and call recording are unique features that CallHippo offers.
CallHippo’s call park feature is among the most crucial services you can provide to clients who call your company.
It is an excellent approach to ensure that numerous customers are handled simultaneously. It also demonstrates to your clients that you care and assist call agents in optimizing the communication process. For the best on-time support, you can connect with us anytime!
Final Words
Call park is a vital function for small businesses and large corporations. And if you are dealing with calls all day, call parking can help!
Call park is useful for companies with multiple phone numbers through which clients contact them or those who receive a high volume of incoming calls regularly.
If you don’t want your inbound callers to be directed to voicemail every time, or if you want to ensure that all of them contact a person the first time, the blog can help as it entails an in-depth analysis of call parking.
Call parking allows your business to remain prepared when receiving an already-connected call. The method is simple, and the benefits illustrate how dependable they may prove when improving your callers’ experiences.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What types of businesses can benefit from call parking?
Sales and support industries like contact centers of MNCs and large customer care centers can immensely benefit from call parking.
It is to be noted that companies that need to continuously deal with phone calls must have call parking features as it’ll greatly increase their customer satisfaction levels.
2. How many calls can be parked at once?
With the call parking feature, companies can park unlimited calls at once. Agents can receive the call and click on the park button to give the call to an available agent. The available agent can then retrieve the active call and continue the conversation.
3. Can calls be parked indefinitely?
While some calls can be parked indefinitely, some companies have a set limit on parked calls. You’ll need to connect with your VoIP vendor to know better about the limits.
4. How do callers know when their call has been parked?
Callers know when their call has been parked because on-hold music or pre-recorded voicemail starts playing automatically until an available agent rejoins the call.
5. Can calls be parked in the cloud or only on-premises?
Calls can be parked both in the cloud and on-premises. It is a crucial feature for companies that simultaneously need to connect with customers.
6. What features should I look for in a call parking system?
Some of the call park features that you need to look for in a call parking system are:
- Integration of VoIP service
- Integration with IVR
- Call return feature
Priya is a seasoned writer with expertise in the SaaS industry. With over five years of experience in the field, she deeply understands the requirement of this specific industry, its techniques, and tools. Her articles, whitepapers, and blog posts are known for their clarity, practicality, and actionable insights. Priya also possesses in-depth knowledge of SEO and content marketing, which enables her to develop effective strategies to increase website traffic and improve brand visibility.
