Estimated Hold Time Option: routing by predicted wait

There are two ways to rescue a caller from a long hold. You can wait until they have actually been on the line too long, or you can act the moment the system predicts a long wait, before they suffer through it. VICIdial's Estimated Hold Time Option takes the second approach. It watches the predicted wait and, when that forecast crosses your limit, offers the caller a way out. This explains how it works and how it plays alongside the time-based version.

Routing on the forecast, not the clock

The Estimated Hold Time Option keys off the Estimated hold time VICIdial calculates for a caller in your Ingroup. When the predicted wait goes over the Hold Time Option Seconds value (default 360 seconds, or six minutes), the caller is offered a route out of the Call queue. The advantage over a pure time trigger is that it can catch a caller early: if the forecast is grim the moment they arrive, you can offer a callback right away rather than making them hold for six minutes first.

Because it depends on a calculated figure, it is worth understanding how VICIdial works out the prediction in the first place, since a bad estimate leads to bad routing.

The settings that shape it

A few fields control the behavior:

• Hold Time Option Seconds: the predicted-wait threshold that triggers the offer.
• Hold Time Option Minimum: a floor on how long the call must have been waiting before the option can appear, so brand-new calls are not bounced instantly. If the prediction is already over the threshold, the option is presented as soon as this minimum passes.
• Destination fields: depending on the action you pick, you point it at a Call Menu, an extension, a voicemail box, another Ingroup, or a callback queue, just like the wait-time version.

As with the time-based feature, you can offer up to three choices on the 1, 2, and 3 keys, and the callback-queue option preserves the caller's place in line.

When both features are on

You can run the wait-time and hold-time options together, but eventually a caller could qualify for both at once, for example having waited two minutes while the forecast still shows several more. The Wait Hold Option Priority setting decides which wins. It can favor wait-time only, hold-time only, or let both apply. The default is wait-time only, so if you want the forecast to drive the call, change this deliberately rather than leaving it.

A simple rule of thumb: use Estimated Hold Time Option when you would rather get ahead of a known-bad wait, and lean on the time-based Place in line style features when you want to give callers reassurance while they hold.

Fitting it into your queue plan

This option is one tool in a larger queue strategy. The inbound call handling guide lays out how prompts, options, and overflow fit together, and if your forecasts keep blowing past your limits, our piece on callers stuck on hold covers the staffing and routing fixes. To skip server admin entirely, our hosted boxes are ready for this out of the box; see the plans and pricing.