How Do You Find Out Right Away About a Missed Call and Call the Person Back?
A missed call alert is a message, usually by email, sent when someone called and nobody answered, or when they hung up while waiting in a queue. It lets you call the person back within minutes, instead of discovering the call in the log a day later, or not at all.
Why a missed call matters so much
Someone who calls an organization wants something: to order, to ask, to register, to complain, to donate. When nobody answers, some callers will try again. Many won't. They will call somewhere else, or simply give up.
The problem is that a missed call is silent. It doesn't leave a note on the desk. If the caller didn't leave a message, and nobody looks at the call history, it just disappears.
An alert turns this silent call into action: a message arrives, someone sees it, and someone calls back. The difference between calling back after ten minutes and calling back after a day is often the difference between a customer who stays and a customer who leaves.
This is especially true for organizations where the phone is the main way in: a yeshiva during registration season, a nonprofit before a distribution, a small business whose orders mostly come by phone. There, every missed call is not only a disappointed customer, but also a registration, a donation or an order that didn't happen.
Two kinds of misses
It's worth distinguishing between two different situations:
- An unanswered call: the phone rang, and nobody picked up. For example, the extension of a clerk who stepped out for a moment, or a hunt group where everyone was busy.
- A call abandoned in the queue: the caller waited in a queue and got fed up before their turn came. This is covered in more detail in the article on abandoned calls.
Both situations require calling the person back, but they teach different things. Unanswered calls show that there isn't enough coverage on the extensions. Abandoned calls show that the wait in the queue is too long. It's worth tracking both.
What's in an alert
A good alert includes what you need to call back, and no more:
| Detail | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Caller number | To call them back |
| Time and date | To know how much time has passed, and to sort in order |
| Where they called | Which number, which queue or extension: this tells you what it was about |
| Type of miss | Unanswered, or abandoned in the queue |
| Timeout | How long they waited before hanging up: someone who waited a long time probably really wanted to get through |
When the system is connected to a CRM, you can also tell who the caller is, by their number. Then instead of "unknown number," you see the name of a regular customer, and that changes the order of priorities.
Why email specifically
There are several ways to alert: email, a mobile message, a sound in an application. Email is the most common, and there are good reasons for that.
Email reaches everywhere: a computer in the office, a phone, a team's shared mailbox. It is saved, so even someone who didn't see it right away can see it later. And you can forward it, mark it as handled, or file it.
In addition, email also works well in a filtered environment. No special application is needed, and no smartphone is needed. Someone who reads email on an office computer gets the alerts exactly there.
It's also worth checking that the alerts don't land in the spam folder. In the first week, go through that folder and mark the sender as safe, so the alerts always reach the main inbox.
Who gets the alert
An alert that goes to everyone is handled by no one. Everyone assumes someone else has already called back. So the important question isn't only "is there an alert," but "whose is it."
A few common ways:
- One person in charge: one person receives all the alerts and decides who calls back. Suits a small office.
- By queue or department: alerts for the sales line go to the sales team, and for the service line to service.
- A shared mailbox: everyone sees it, but whoever calls back marks it or replies "handled," so that no one calls twice.
What doesn't work: sending it to the general manager, who sees the alerts in the evening, after the caller has already found someone else.
How to call back quickly
The alert is only half the work. The other half is a clear procedure for calling back:
- Set a target time: for example, call back within fifteen minutes during working hours. When there is a target, there is also a way to check whether you're meeting it.
- Call back from the organization's number, not from a private mobile phone. The caller recognizes the number they themselves dialed, and answers. See caller ID.
- Open with a clear sentence: "Hello, this is the Cohen office, we saw that you called ten minutes ago." The caller understands right away why they are being called.
- Mark it as handled, so that no one calls the same person again.
- If there's no answer, try again later, and if possible, send a short message.
A voicemail message vs. a missed call
When a caller leaves a message in the voicemail box, there is already information: who they are, what they want, and sometimes also when it's convenient for them. In many phone systems the message itself is sent to email as an audio file, and that is an alert in itself.
But most callers don't leave a message. They hang up when they hear the beep. So an alert about the call itself, even without a message, catches this silent majority.
If you want to increase the number of callers who leave a message, it helps to change the greeting: a short, personal message that promises to call back works better than a general, long one.
Before the alert: reducing misses
The best alert is the one you don't need to send. A few simple settings in the PBX reduce the number of unanswered calls in the first place:
- Destination when there's no answer: an extension that didn't answer after a few rings passes the call on, to a colleague, a queue or a voicemail box. This way the call doesn't end in an empty ring.
- Hunt group: several phones ring together or one after another, and whoever is free answers.
- A suitable ring time: too short, and the call moves on before anyone had time to reach the phone; too long, and the caller hangs up before the call moves on.
- Queue position announcement: a caller who knows they are third in line waits more patiently.
- Callback service: instead of waiting, the caller leaves their number and gets a call back.
Each of these settings removes a bit more of the misses, and the alerts that remain are really cases that need handling.
Outside business hours
A call that arrives at ten at night, when the office is closed, isn't a "miss" in the usual sense. Nobody was supposed to answer. Still, someone called and wanted something.
Some organizations prefer not to receive alerts outside business hours, so as not to flood the inbox. Others prefer to receive them, and call everyone back in the morning, in order. Both approaches are legitimate. What matters is that someone knows about these calls, and that there is a procedure for handling them when the office opens.
The good way to handle this starts with time-based routing: after hours, the caller hears a message that says when you're open, and is invited to leave a message.
When there are too many alerts
A busy organization may find it's receiving dozens of alerts a day. After a week, no one reads them. This is a sign that the problem isn't the alerts, but what causes them.
How many calls were missed? At what hour? On which line? From the answers, as in the article on call analytics, you can act on the root cause: add a person to the hunt group during peak hours, lengthen the ring time, turn on a callback service in the queue, or change the menu.
At the same time, it's worth filtering out noise: calls that were disconnected after a second or two are usually a wrong number, and there is no need to alert on them.
An example from the field
Moshe Levi's Judaica store works with two salespeople. At peak hours, when both are with customers in the store, the phone rings and no one answers. For years, no one knew how many such calls there were.
After they turned on email alerts, it turned out that on Thursdays before Shabbat there are dozens of unanswered calls. The alerts went to a mailbox that the younger salesperson checks on his phone, and it was decided that between one customer and the next he goes over the list and calls back.
Within a few weeks it turned out that a large share of Thursday callers ask the same question: "Until when are you open today?" They added the opening hours for Fridays and the eves of holidays to the message at the start of the call, and the number of unanswered calls dropped considerably.
Measuring the result
To know whether the alerts help, look at two numbers over time: how many calls went unanswered, and how many of them got a call back, and how quickly.
The first number tells you whether the coverage on extensions and queues is enough. The second tells you whether the procedure works. An organization with many unanswered calls that calls everyone back within fifteen minutes is in a reasonable situation. An organization with few misses that no one calls back is not.
And beyond the numbers: once in a while, ask a customer who got a call back how it felt. Usually the answer is a pleasant surprise, and that is exactly the feeling you want to leave.
How it works with us at Kesher
In the Kesher PBX you can receive an email alert about unanswered calls and calls abandoned in the queue. This way you know about the miss right away, and not only when you look at the log.
In the call history in the control panel, unanswered calls also appear, so you can call them back and check what happened. Messages in the voicemail box arrive by email.
In queues you can turn on a callback service, and play a queue position announcement, so that fewer callers abandon in the first place. And on extensions you set a ring time and a destination when there's no answer, so that a call doesn't end without anyone hearing it.
Anyone connected to our CRM sees the customer's name by number. And if you need help setting up alerts, every question is answered by a person at our company.
FAQ
What is the difference between a missed call and an abandoned call?
An unanswered call rang and nobody picked up. An abandoned call waited in the queue, and the caller hung up before their turn came.
Who should the alerts be sent to?
To whoever is responsible for calling back. One person or a defined team, not "everyone," because then each person assumes someone else already handled it.
How quickly should we call back?
The faster, the better. It's worth setting an internal target, for example fifteen minutes during working hours, and checking once in a while whether you're meeting it.
Which number should we call the person back from?
From the organization's number, through the extension. The caller recognizes it and tends to answer, and you don't expose a private number.
What do we do with calls outside business hours?
Decide in advance: either receive an alert for them and call back in the morning, or settle for a message in the voicemail box. What matters is that there is a procedure.
We have too many alerts. What do we do?
Look at when and on which line they pile up, and deal with the cause: another person during peak hours, a longer ring time, or a callback service in the queue.
Do we need an alert even when the caller left a message?
The message itself, which arrives by email, already serves as an alert. However, most callers don't leave a message, so the alert about the call itself is important.
Can we get alerts without a smartphone?
Yes. An email alert also reaches the computer in the office, and doesn't require an app or a smartphone.
A caller hung up after one second. Do we need to call them back?
Usually not. A call that was disconnected right away is usually a wrong number. If the same number keeps calling and hanging up, it may be worth checking whether there is a problem in the menu or the line.
What if the caller doesn't answer when we call back?
Try again later, and record that you tried. If possible, send a short message with the organization's name, so they know who was looking for them and can call back when it suits them.