Set the call queue order
By default, Atender answers calls and callbacks strictly in the order they arrived — a callback keeps the caller’s original place in line, so if they called in first, they’re served first, whether they’re waiting live or waiting for a callback. That’s the right behavior for most tenants, but it means a queue with a large callback backlog can leave live callers waiting behind dozens of callbacks that were requested earlier.
The Call queue order setting lets you change that trade-off tenant-wide.
Where to find it
Go to Settings → Voice → Queue experience. The Call queue order selector applies globally, across every queue in the tenant — it isn’t configured per queue.
The three options
- Arrival order (default). Calls and callbacks are answered strictly by when the customer originally reached out. A callback keeps the caller’s place in line exactly as if they’d stayed on hold. Nobody jumps ahead — but if your callback backlog is large, live callers can end up waiting behind it.
- Calls first. Live callers are always answered ahead of the callback backlog. Choose this if your agents mainly work live calls and only get to callbacks when the line is quiet — it stops a caller who just dialed in from being told they’re “number 100” behind a stack of callbacks.
- Callbacks first. Callbacks are always answered ahead of new live calls. Choose this if working down the callback backlog is the priority and live callers can be asked to wait or leave a callback of their own.
Whichever option you pick, it’s a bias applied on top of normal queue behavior — it doesn’t reorder calls or callbacks against others of the same kind. Two live callers are still served in the order they arrived; two callbacks are still served in the order they arrived. The setting only decides which kind — calls or callbacks — gets priority when both are waiting.
What still takes precedence
If a queue has customer-tier priority enabled, tier still wins. A top-tier customer’s call or callback is answered ahead of lower-tier tasks of the same kind, and ahead of the queue-order bias itself — Call queue order breaks ties within a tier, it doesn’t override one.
What’s affected — and what isn’t
Call queue order only applies to calls and callbacks created after you save the setting. Anything already waiting in a queue at the moment you save — a live caller on hold, a callback already booked — keeps the priority it had. It will not be reshuffled retroactively.
In practice, this means that right after you change the setting, you may see a mixed queue: older tasks still following the previous order, and new tasks following the new one. That’s expected — it resolves itself naturally as the pre-change tasks are answered and drain out of the queue.
How this relates to other voice settings
Call queue order is a separate, tenant-wide setting from:
- Callback configuration — which decides whether callers are offered a callback at all, and under what conditions. See Configure callbacks.
- Call queue setup — which decides which agents staff a given queue, hold audio, and reservation timeouts. See Set up a call queue.
Changing Call queue order doesn’t change whether callbacks are offered or how a queue is staffed — it only changes which kind of waiting task gets answered first.