For each of your Talk lines, you can choose to route incoming calls to only the agent groups you choose.
If your plan includes it, you can route calls using IVR instead of group routing. For details, see Routing incoming calls with IVR.
To route calls to specific groups
- Click the Admin icon (
) in the sidebar, then select Channels > Talk.
- Click the Lines tab.
- Click the number you want to edit.
- Click the Routing tab.
- In the Group Routing section, select one or more groups to route calls to. If you
don't enable a group, calls are routed to all available agents.
- If you chose more than one group, also choose a default group from the drop-down menu next
to Default group. Calls are routed to the default group first if agents in that group
are available. If no agents from any of the selected groups are available, resulting
voicemails are also assigned to the default group.Note: When three or more groups are selected, there is no hierarchy to the non-default groups; all Talk-enabled agents in those groups are put into a single assignment pool. Call routing is determined by an agent's online status.
- When you are finished, click Save changes.
Note: If call recording is enabled, recording continues
after you transfer a call internally (to another agent or group) or externally (to an
end-user or external number).
27 Comments
Hello, just to be certain, is this option not available for Basic Talk?
If it routes to a group, will the phone ring for every enabled, online agent in that group?
Thanks!
Sam
Hi Sam,
No, it will ring 1 agent at a time to the default group, and if nobody answers, or no agents in the default group are available, then it will start with agents in the other groups.
Craig
Can you route calls based on End User Tags?
Example. Client X is VIP, I want them to be Routed to my best agents. Is that possible?
I have the same question as Will above, any answer?
Hello all,
Please try the steps mentioned in this link:
https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/115007702028-Call-Routing-Direct-Dial-an-Agent
This might help.
Thanks and Regards
Atul Verma
Any chance of adding the "Group Routing" settings to the "Zendesk Talk Dashboard" page? It would be beneficial to make quick routing changes directly from the "Dashboard" page rather than drilling down so many layers within the "Admin" section. Thank you for the consideration.
Thanks for the suggestion, Rich!
Is there a way to change the hierarchy of the agents, to ring certain people first, then others if that agent is not answering? Currently, I am second in line behind the boss. He wants me first as the calls are mainly mine anyway. We have extension control on and that works fine for those that use my extension, but when a call comes into the group box, this is where I need to try to change the rotation.
Thanks ahead of time for your help!
Hi Mike! Welcome to the Community!
You should be able to use the instructions in this article. You'd just need to put your boss and yourself in separate groups (you can totally have a group with just one agent in it). Then just set the groups up as outlined above, and you should be all set!
Is there any update on being able to ring all agents at the same time? Round Robin just doesn't cut it for our distributed topology. Almost every phone system, both IP and PBX that I've ever owned had the ability to ring all phones, when will this be fixed?
Hey Chris -
For updates on that, you'll want to follow this thread:
Routing Zendesk Talk calls to multiple agents at the same time
I also encourage you to vote on the original post and add your comment to the thread as well. Note that it is not something that is planned for development at this time, but adding your voice and vote can help the team to prioritize in coming development cycles.
Suggestions needed!
Caller comes in, presses 1, 2 or 3. Each of these are routed to different groups. However, if an agent is not available in Group 1, we would like Talk to try ringing agents in Groups 2 and 3.
Any ideas?
Hello Heather,
Once a caller selects an option to be directed to a specific department, there is no way for them to be routed back to the main menu or another group.
What might be worth looking at is instead using group routing, there you can set up a default group and have backup groups in case no agent is available. The caveat there would be that, given the scenario you offered above, you would likely need 3 numbers, one for each group as a primary. While not the most efficient option, it would serve the needs you are looking to fulfill.
Hi!
If no one in default group is available to take a call, is the call immediately ring to available agent on other groups with no impact on wait time? Can we set a wait time before moving to non-default group?
Thanks!
Aileen
Hello Aileen,
So going by what you described this is something that is not within the functionality of Talk. I would suggest though that you recommend this as a new feature to our devs in Product Feedback so they can consider this for future updates.
Talk Product Feedback
Hi,
is it possible to route the calls stricktly only to one group? If no one answers the phone, the call would not be redirected to persons in other groups? We have very different skill sets and the persons in different group won't be able to answer the questions coming in for another group. We prefer to have a voice mail for the first group than to redirect the call to second group.
At the moment the calls are redirected to different grous if no one answers them even if we've chosen only one group per phone number. That creates bad service since the customer is happy to get someone on the line and then disappointed when they cannot help them. And the agents get stressed cause they have to deal with things they know nothing about.
Hi Mirka Salminen -
If you have only one group selected in the routing instructions, calls should not rollover to other groups.
Are you able to share a screen shot of your configuration to troubleshoot further?
Brandon
We have only one group selected per phone number, but if there's no one to answer, the calls roll out to other groups.
Hi Mirka Salminen -
That appears to be correct! I'm going to spin this into a support ticket so the team can take a look at this more closely. Stay tuned.
Brandon
Hi there,
I know Zendesk doesn't offer the ability to designate group priority after primary and secondary, but my team really needs this function, so we are trying to find a workaround. Can someone let me know if the following setup might achieve what we're looking for? We have 3 agents, and want one to be primary, one secondary, one tertiary. If we put the primary person in one group (designated primary) the secondary person in multiple groups, and the tertiary person only in one group, will that achieve the effect of have calls go first to the primary, and then mostly to the secondary? I know it's mentioned above that the people in the other groups selected (that are not set to primary) are pooled into one larger group, but does that mean duplicates are preserved, and a person listed in two groups will get chosen to receive a call twice as often as a person listed once?
Thank you
Hi Grace Maher,
That's a pretty unique work around! Unfortunately, I believe talk volume will take priority over grouping in this case. That is, if the primary agent isn't available, the secondary agent just got off a call and the tertiary agent hasn't had a call all day, the third agent would be prioritized amongst the "available agents from the pooled groups" to give your secondary agent a chance to catch their breath.
One feature you might be able to leverage is overflow calling:

In this case, you would set the primary and secondary groups with the appropriate reps, and set the tertiary agent's phone number as the designated overflow number. The challenge here, of course, is that if the third agent isn't available the call would be routed to his/her personal voicemail. The call recording would be preserved on the ticket, however, so at least you'd have a record of the call. Hope this helps!
Brandon Tidd
729 Solutions
Hello! We are currently on Talk Team, but I do not see the Default group option at all. Was it something I did? It usually is..
Hi Per Granqvist, that doesn't sound right. I would try deleting the cookies in your browser and then trying again after a short while. If the problem persists, let us know and we'll open a ticket to investigate. Thanks!
I did a hard refresh before posting, but didn't clear cookies. Apparently there were some cookie crumbles still somewhere, as clearing cookies fixed it ;)
Excellent! Thanks for letting me know!
https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/216040137/comments/360005361833
Was this issue ever addressed? I am having the same problem.
Hi Keith,
My name is Michael with Zendesk support.
I created a private ticket for you for further investigation of your Talk routing issue. You can expect an email for the private ticket shortly.
Best,
Michael Froeming | Senior Customer Advocacy Specialist
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