Plan requirement: Call queues, callbacks and the Live View are available on the Phone & Inbox Pro plan. They are not included on Phone & Inbox Core. If you're on Pro and don't see the Queues tab in Phone Settings, reach out to Support or your customer success manager to have it switched on.
đ What is a call queue?
A queue is a reusable, account-level group of agents that incoming calls can wait for. A queue holds the caller on the line and offers the call to the agent who has been idle the longest. If every agent is busy or away, the caller keeps waiting (with hold music) until someone frees up. Callers in a queue are never sent to voicemail.
Queues are the foundation of LeadSimple's call centre features: they power the Live View, callbacks, transfer-to-queue, and the Speed of Answer and Abandonment reports.
đ How a queued call flows
The caller reaches the queue. This can happen straight away (the number's routing is set to the Queue strategy), after an IVR selection, after hours, as a backup when a ring group goes unanswered, or when an agent transfers a live call to the queue. See Where You Can Use a Queue.
They hear your greeting, then hold audio. The number's greeting (or the call-recording disclosure) plays first, followed by the number's Ring Tone / Wait Music on a loop for as long as they wait.
LeadSimple picks an agent. Everyone assigned to the queue (directly or through a team) is considered, minus anyone who is on a call, set to Away for calls, paused for this queue, or marked as a team Manager. The remaining agents are sorted by how long they've been idle, and the longest-idle agent is rung first.
One agent rings at a time. If that agent doesn't answer, the call moves to the next longest-idle agent. If nobody is available, the caller stays parked on hold and is re-offered the moment any agent becomes free.
Callbacks (optional). If callbacks are enabled on the queue, a waiting caller is offered the option to press 1 and be called back without losing their place in line. See Queue Callbacks.
Connection. When an agent answers, the caller hears "Thank you for waiting. Connecting you now." and the two are joined.
đ§ Why "longest idle"?
Each agent has an idle clock that resets every time they finish a call or switch to Available. Routing to the longest-idle agent spreads calls evenly across the team, so nobody is hammered while a teammate sits quiet. An agent who has never taken a call is treated as maximally idle so new team members aren't starved of calls.
â Setup checklist
Work through these in order. Each step links to its own article.
Create teams under Settings â Users so you can assign a whole department to a queue at once.
Mark supervisors as Managers so they keep visibility without being rung.
Set each agent's working hours so they're automatically marked away outside their shift.
Create the queue under Phone Settings â Queues and assign your teams. Review the settings reference.
Point a phone number at the queue, either as its primary routing or as a backup instead of voicemail.
Train agents on answering queue calls and handling callbacks.
Monitor with the Live View and review queue reporting weekly.
âď¸ Queue vs. the other ring strategies
Strategy | What happens | If nobody answers |
Simultaneous | Everyone rings at once; first to answer wins | Voicemail, a queue, an AI Agent or an external number |
Round Robin | Each new call starts at the next user in the list | Same as above |
Cascading | Rings each user in order for a fixed time | Same as above |
Queue | Caller holds; longest-idle available agent is rung, one at a time | Caller keeps waiting and is re-offered as agents free up (optional callback) |
đ Who can set this up?
Admins create teams, queues and number routing, and see every queue in the Live View.
Non-admin users can view the Queues tab but can't change it. In the Live View they see only the teams and queues they belong to. See Giving Team Leads Visibility.
â You're all set!
You now know how queues route calls. Continue with Creating Teams for Call Routing, or go back to Getting Started with LeadSimple Phone if you haven't set up a number yet.