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Abandoned Calls card

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Overview

The Abandoned Calls card is your callback list. It shows customers who rang in and did not get to speak to anyone: those who waited in a queue and hung up before anyone could answer, and those who rang while the phones were on a break or set to Busy and only reached the recording. These are people who wanted to speak to you and did not get through, so the card is built as a list of work to get done rather than a report. A caller drops off the list on their own as soon as contact is made, whether you ring them back or they ring you.

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What you’ll see

The big number at the top is how many customers are still waiting on a call back. Next to it, in smaller text, is how many have been reconnected today, so you can see the team clearing them. Below that is one row per customer, oldest first, so nobody sits at the bottom of the list forever. Each row shows:
  • The phone number, formatted the way you would dial it
  • A coloured icon showing where that customer is up to (see below)
  • How long they have been waiting for a call back, for example 20m or 1d 4h
  • Which queue they were waiting in, or what they reached instead, such as Called during Break Mode or Called during Busy Mode
  • A Call button
If the same person gave up more than once, they appear as a single row with a badge such as ×3 next to their number. The waiting time counts from their first attempt, not their most recent one. Someone who has tried three times is usually the most frustrated person on your list. Callers who reached a recording instead of a person carry a badge next to their number: purple Break, or blue Busy. See Callers who rang during a break or on Busy. Hover over any phone number to see the queue they were in, how long they held before giving up, how long they listened to the recording, and the exact time of each attempt. When there is nothing to do, the card shows Nobody waiting on a call back.

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The three colours

Every customer on the list is in one of three states. Amber is worth understanding. It means a colleague has already rung that person and it went unanswered, so the job is not finished, but you do not need to be the second person to ring them in the same five minutes. Amber customers stay on your list until someone actually reaches them.
Leaving a voicemail counts as reaching them. You rang, they have a message with your name and number, and the ball is in their court. That customer turns green and leaves the list.

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Callers who rang during a break or on Busy

When the phones are in Break Mode, callers hear the break message and the call ends. Busy Mode does the same with your busy message. There is no queue to wait in and no voicemail to leave, so until now those customers left no trace you could act on. They rang, they heard a recording, and nobody knew they had called. Those callers now appear on this card alongside your queue callbacks, so a break or a busy spell does not quietly cost you the enquiries that came in during it. They look like any other row, with two differences:
  • A badge sits next to their number: purple Break, or blue Busy
  • The Queue column names what they reached, such as Called during Busy Mode, instead of a queue name
The wording on the badge and in the column is your own name for the mode, the same one you see on the Call Flow Control page.
Callers who rang outside your opening hours are deliberately not on this list, even though they also heard a recording. Break and Busy mean you were open and not taking calls, so those callers expected to get through. Adding everyone who rang at six in the morning would make the list too long to work through, which is the one thing that would stop it being used. You can still see every one of them in Call History.
Abandoned Calls card with two callers, both showing a purple Break badge and Called during a break in the Queue column
The two rows above show the difference. The second caller only ever rang during a break, so the Queue column says so. The first caller carries the Break badge but still shows a queue name, because they gave up in queue 500 earlier in the day and then rang again during the break. One row, both stories, one call back. Hover over the number and you will also see Listened for, which is how long they stayed on the recording before hanging up. Someone who listened to the whole thing was paying attention. Someone who hung up after two seconds may well have realised they had the wrong number. If a customer gave up in a queue earlier in the day and rang again during a break, they stay as one row and the hover shows both, so you ring them once with the full picture. The badge follows their most recent attempt, so someone who rang during a break this morning and again on Busy this afternoon shows as Busy.
Ring these customers back the same way as any other row. The Call button, the three colours and the attempt count all work identically.

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When these callers are not shown

This needs a small change on your phone system, which Pear switches on for you. Until it is on, the card works exactly as it always has and shows queue callbacks only. Where the card cannot show them for another reason, it tells you rather than leaving you to assume nobody rang: If you would like these callers switched on for your site, ask Pear.

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Who does not appear on the list

The card only shows customers you can actually do something about. These groups are deliberately left out:
  • Your own staff. If someone rings a queue from an internal extension and hangs up, they are not a lost customer.
  • Withheld and private numbers. These are real customers, but there is no number to ring back, so putting them on a callback list would only ever be a row you can never clear.
  • Numbers you have blocked. A caller on your block list is rejected before the call connects, so they never reach the break message and never reach this list. Blocking a nuisance caller keeps them off your callback list too.
  • Callers who still reached someone. A direct number that rings a person or a team is not affected by Break or Busy Mode, so those callers got through and there is nothing to ring back about.
  • Callers who rang outside your opening hours. They heard your after-hours message rather than being turned away while you were open. Call History lists them all.

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How far back the list goes

The list covers everyone who gave up since 7am on the previous working day, and it looks back over weekends. In practice that means:
  • On a Tuesday, you see anyone from Monday morning onwards.
  • On a Monday, the list reaches all the way back to Friday morning.
That Monday behaviour matters. Someone who gives up at five to five on a Friday, after the last person has gone home, is exactly the customer most likely to be lost, and they will still be sitting on your list first thing Monday morning.

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Switching between what’s left and everything

Two buttons at the top right control what the list shows:
  • To do: only customers still needing a call. This is the default.
  • All: everyone in the period, including those already reconnected.
Leave it on To do for day to day work. Switch to All if you want to check whether a particular customer was ever dealt with.

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Ringing a customer back

You can call straight from the card, and the call is placed through your desk phone rather than your computer.
  1. Check the extension shown next to Calling from at the top of the card. This is the phone that will ring and the number the customer will see.
  2. To use a different phone, click the extension name and pick another one from the list. You can call from any extension on the phone system you are viewing, so reception can ring people back as the main office number if that suits.
  3. Click Call on the row for the customer you want to reach.
  4. Your desk phone will ring first. Pick it up.
  5. As soon as you answer, the system dials the customer for you. You do not need to dial anything.
There is a short pause between clicking Call and your phone ringing. This is normal. The button greys out for a few seconds so you cannot accidentally start two calls at once.
The row turns amber the moment you click Call, so anyone else looking at the same dashboard can see the customer is being dealt with. If the Call button is greyed out, no extension has been chosen yet. Click Calling from and pick one.

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Popping the card out

Click the pop-out icon at the top right of the card to open the callback list in a small floating window that stays visible while you work elsewhere in the portal. The floating window has tabs along the top for My Extension, Queues and Abandoned, so you can keep all three to hand and switch between them without opening more windows. Click any tab to switch.

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Refreshing the data

The card updates itself every couple of minutes. Click the refresh icon at the top right if you want to check immediately.

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Frequently asked questions

A customer rang back and gave up again. Do they disappear? No. They stay on your list and their attempt count goes up. Only a call that actually connects takes someone off the list. Someone rang the customer back and got no answer. Why are they still there? Because the job is not done. An unanswered callback turns the row amber rather than clearing it, so the customer still gets chased. If it cleared the row, the person would quietly never be rung again. Can I remove someone from the list by hand? No. The list manages itself: customers leave when contact is made, and anything nobody actions drops off on its own once it passes the end of the period. Why is the number smaller than the abandoned calls figure on my other reports? They are counting different things. This card counts customers still needing a call back, with repeat callers counted once. Your queue reports count every abandoned call, including internal extensions and withheld numbers, which is the right figure for measuring queue performance. A customer rang during a break or on Busy and the row has no waiting time against a queue. Is that right? Yes. They never reached a queue, so there is no hold time to show. The Waiting column still counts how long they have been waiting for you to ring them back, which is the number that matters. We were on a break all afternoon and nobody has appeared. Is it working? Check the bottom of the card. If it says these callers are not being shown, the reason is there. If it says nothing, the card is reporting normally and genuinely nobody rang, or the callers it did see were blocked numbers or got through to someone anyway. Does a break or busy caller drop off the list the same way? Yes. They turn green and leave as soon as contact is made, exactly like a queue caller. Someone rang while we were on Busy and they are not on the list. Why? The usual reasons are the ones above: their number is withheld, it is on your block list, or the number they rang goes straight to a person rather than through the mode. It is also worth checking that the call really did hit Busy Mode. Call History shows the status of every call, so you can see which recording they reached. Can I ring someone back from a different phone? Yes. Click the extension name next to Calling from and choose any extension on that phone system. Your choice is remembered for next time.