What Is Call Waiting and When Should You Turn It Off?

What it actually is

You are in the middle of a call with a supplier, and suddenly you hear a short beep in your headset — "beep-beep." Another number appears on the display. This is call waiting: someone else is calling you, and the phone system doesn't reject them but lets you know they are waiting.

Now you have several options. You can answer the second call — and then the first goes automatically on hold. You can end the first and switch to the second. Or you can just keep talking, and let the second call go to its no-answer destination after a few seconds.

Call waiting was invented for home lines, when there was only one line per family, and the worry was missing an important call while someone was talking. In the office world the picture is more complex: usually someone else can answer, and the question is whether it is worth interrupting a call that is already in progress at all.

What it sounds and looks like

• On the device: a short beep in the headset every few seconds. The other party on the call doesn't hear it.
• On the display: the number or name of the second caller, and usually two buttons — "Answer" and "Reject."
• On an IP phone: An additional light turns on next to one of the line keys, and you can switch between the calls with a press.
• For the second caller: They hear normal ringing. They don't know that you are on a call.

On desk phones with several line keys, a waiting call looks like a second call on another line. This makes managing it simple: each call has its own key, and pressing the key switches to it.

On simple phones, such as an analog phone connected through an adapter, there is no large display and no line keys. There you switch between calls with the Flash key (sometimes labeled R), or with a short press on the hook switch. It works, but it's easy to get confused — and pressing for too long may hang up the call instead of switching.

Call waiting versus a second call on another line

In the past, in offices with several lines, there was a clear difference: "call waiting" was a second call on the same line, and a "second line" was a separate physical line that rang with its own light. In a cloud phone system this difference has almost disappeared. An extension has no physical lines — it has a number of calls it can hold, and the line keys on the phone are just a way to display them.

The practical meaning: the question is not "how many lines do I have," but "what do I want to happen when I'm on a call and someone else calls" — to hear them, or to have them go to someone else. This is a routing decision, not a hardware one.

What happens when it is off

When call waiting is off, the phone system sees that the extension is busy and doesn't ring it at all. The second call goes immediately to the busy destination — and this is the main difference: instead of the caller waiting twenty seconds for ringing that nobody will answer, they reach right away a place where someone will take care of them.

The destination can be voicemail, a colleague, a hunt group or a queue. And in many phone systems, if no busy destination is set, the caller hears a regular busy tone.

Call waiting in a queue and in a hunt group

Here is the main reason to turn off call waiting in an office. Say there is a queue with five agents. If call waiting is on, the queue may send a new call to an agent who is already talking — because as far as the system is concerned, "he can be rung." The agent hears a beep, the second customer waits, and meanwhile two other agents are completely free.

That is why in service centers, and on any extension that is a member of a queue or a hunt group, call waiting is almost always turned off. This way the system knows that an agent who is talking is busy, and passes the next call to someone who is really free. In some phone systems the queue itself skips a busy agent even when call waiting is on — but it is better not to rely on that and to set it explicitly.

How to handle a waiting call properly

Even when it is on, you are not obliged to answer every beep. A few simple rules:

• Don't abandon the first call without notice. If you want to answer the second, first say "Excuse me, one moment" — and only then switch.
• A short answer to the second: "Hello, I'm in the middle of a call, may I call you back in five minutes?" — and go back to the first.
• Don't leave anyone on a long hold. A minute on hold feels like five to the caller.
• If you are on an important call — just ignore the beep. The call will go to voicemail, and you can call back later.

The basic courtesy is to respect the person who called first. Someone waiting on hold while you talk with someone else feels, rightly, that they are less important.

How many simultaneous calls

On IP phones you can usually hold more than two calls — three, four and even more, depending on the number of line keys. Technically, it works. Humanly, almost no one is really able to handle three calls at once.

In many phone systems you can limit how many calls one extension can hold. A limit of two — one active and one waiting — is usually the good balance for a personal extension. And for agents in a queue — only one.

It's also worth remembering the other side: every open call takes up a channel in the phone system. If several employees keep waiting calls on hold, they may take channels that other callers need.

An example from the field

At the "Chesed Yisrael" gemach (a made-up name) there are two employees: Shimon answers loan requests, and Devorah handles repayments. At first both had call waiting on. When Shimon was in the middle of a long call with a borrower, the system kept sending him new calls — and he heard beep after beep. Devorah, who was free, didn't get them at all, because the calls were entering Shimon's extension.

The solution was simple: they turned off call waiting for both, and set it so that when Shimon is busy, the call goes to Devorah, and when both are busy — to a voicemail whose messages arrive by email. Since then no call gets "stuck" on a beep, and no borrower waits for nothing.

Call waiting on a mobile phone and on a SIM extension

On a private mobile phone, call waiting is a service of the cellular company. When the mobile is connected to the phone system — as a softphone or as a SIM extension — there are two layers: what the phone system decides, and what the mobile itself does.

In such cases it is possible that the phone system sees the extension as busy and sends the call to the busy destination, but it is also possible that it sends the call, and the mobile shows it as a waiting call. If the behavior is unclear, it's worth making a test call: talk on the mobile, and ask someone to call the extension. What you hear is what your customers experience too.

A bit of history

Call waiting appeared on home phone lines in the 1970s, when the public exchanges moved to computers and could "hold" a second call. Before that, someone who called a busy line heard a busy tone — and simply tried again later. The service quickly became one of the most common on home lines.

In office phone systems, the opposite approach developed: instead of one person holding several calls, the phone system distributes the calls among several people. This is how hunt groups and queues were born — and they are the reason call waiting in an office is usually a matter of preference, and not a need.

When it's actually worth leaving it on

You don't always need to turn it off. There are situations where call waiting is exactly what you want:

• A single employee: In a one-person office, there is no one to transfer to. It's better to hear a beep and decide than to have the call go to voicemail without your knowing.
• A manager waiting for a specific call: When you are waiting for an important answer from the bank or the lawyer, the waiting call shows who is calling and lets you avoid missing it.
• A rabbi or mashgiach: Urgent calls from parents or students can't wait for voicemail.
• Working from home: When there is no colleague next to you, the beep is the only way to know that someone is waiting.

In all these cases, it's worth combining it with good caller ID — so the name appears on the display and not only a number — so that the decision whether to answer is quick.

Common problems and confusions

• "Customers say the line is always busy": Call waiting is off and there is no busy destination. Add a destination.
• "I hear strange beeps during a call": Usually it's a waiting call. Look at the display.
• "I answered the second call and the first one got disconnected": On some phones, pressing "Answer" during a call ends the first one instead of holding it. It's worth checking how your phone behaves.
• "The queue sends me calls while I'm talking": Call waiting is on at an agent's extension. Turn it off.
• "The customer waited on hold for ten minutes": They were forgotten when you switched to the second call. It's better to go back to the first quickly, or offer to call the second back.