How are calls routed to my agents in Voice (formerly Talk)?

Question

What is the default way Voice (formerly Talk) routes calls to my agents?

Answer

Voice (formerly Talk) routes a call to an agent based on both factors:

The agent with the longest time since they last answered a call

The agent appears online, which you can verify in the live data dashboard

Note: When you turn on omnichannel routing, Voice uses different rules. Omnichannel routing is the default experience for all accounts and trial customers of Zendesk Suite created after December 11, 2024. See About omnichannel routing with unified agent status. If you turn on custom unified agent statuses, Voice routes calls only to agents with permission to receive calls. You can also add a tag from specific IVR key presses in each ticket if you use omnichannel routing.

When agents sign in to Voice and go online, Voice prioritizes them for calls because they're the most recently available agents.

If an agent misses or declines a call, Voice routes the call to the next available agent. If all available agents miss or decline a call, the call goes to voicemail. An outbound call changes the time since the agent last answered a call.

If you turn on omnichannel routing, Voice offers the call to the available agent repeatedly until the agent accepts it or the queue wait time expires. If voicemail is on, the call goes to voicemail. If voicemail is off, the call ends.

If agents set their status as 'Away' the system will still recognize them as online. In a scenario where all agents are in the Away state, incoming calls are queued. See Setting your agent state for Talk calls.

The default wait time before a call goes from one agent to the next is 30 seconds. Voice Enterprise customers can adjust the Call offering time limit. For details about Voice line settings, see Manage Voice (formerly Talk) line settings.

If a caller exceeds the Maximum queue wait time set in your account settings, the call may go to voicemail before Voice offers it to all agents. For details on Voice settings, see Enable Voice (formerly Talk) and configure general settings.

Finally, Voice doesn't route calls to all agents at the same time. This rule applies to all options, IVR included. You can segment options to route calls to groups of agents and to route calls with IVR.

Tip: If you use omnichannel routing, check the omnichannel agent state dashboard to understand how your agents spend their time.