Glossary Phone system
What is Ring group?
Also called hunt group, call group, ring strategy
A ring group, sometimes called a hunt group, is a collection of extensions treated as one destination. A call to the group rings the members according to a strategy, so it reaches whoever is available rather than depending on one person being at their desk.
Choosing a strategy
Ringing everyone at once is fastest to answer but noisy, and in a shared office it means several people grabbing the same call. Sequential ringing follows a fixed order, which suits escalation but makes the first person in the list miserable. Round robin distributes the load evenly and is usually the right default for a small team sharing a line.
Ring groups versus queues
A ring group rings and, if nobody answers, moves on to a fallback such as voicemail. A call queue holds the caller, tells them where they are in line, and waits for an agent. Groups suit small teams with low volume; once callers regularly wait, a queue with position announcements is far less frustrating than a phone that just keeps ringing.
Decide what happens when nobody answers
The fallback matters more than the ring strategy, because it is what runs on the calls you are currently losing. Ringing forever is the worst option: callers give up and you have no record of it. Voicemail is the usual answer, but it only works if somebody actually monitors the box. Better arrangements route to a mobile, to another team, or to a queue with a callback offer. Whichever you pick, check the timeout, since fifteen seconds is often too short for someone to reach a handset.