Understanding Estimated Wait Time

Estimated Wait Time (EWT) is a projection of how long a person can expect to wait before connecting with a live agent. The estimated wait time gives people transparency and helps them make educated decisions.

From the consumer standpoint, if someone knows that they will have to wait an hour in a queue, they can make alternative plans such as:

• Using self-service
• Accepting a callback
• Using a different channel such as SMS or Webchat.

Requirements for Estimated Wait Time feature

• Account owner or admin privileges; or relevant role/privilege
• Zoom Contact Center license
• Estimated Wait Time feature enabled

How Estimated Wait Time is calculated

To determine the Estimated Wait Time, Zoom Contact Center must have:

• Sufficient availability of agents: The system requires a sufficient number of agents to be present and ready to handle incoming engagements.
• Historical Data: Adequate historical data is essential for constructing an accurate projection of wait times.

If the engagement requires a live agent, Zoom Contact Center will first select a pool of agents suitable to taking that engagement. This can be accomplished using one of two ways:

• The engagement is routed straight to a queue. The pool is the complete list of agents available in that queue.
• If specific skills are required, the system will use a routing profile to determine the pool of agents with the mandatory skills. That pool of agents with the right skills is denoted as NumberOfAgents.

The strategy for managing EWT ensures precise outcomes by consistently updating after each engagement, addressing new scenarios, and accounting for fluctuations in daily, weekly, or seasonal patterns.

• It is calculated after each engagement until the number of engagements reaches a certain threshold.
• After reaching the threshold, historical data is utilized for AI trending/predicting value.

How to test the Estimated Wait Time functionality

To accurately test the Estimated Wait Time (EWT) feature, follow the guidelines below. These steps help ensure consistent and reliable results during testing.

Ensure all agents are busy

EWT is only triggered when agents assigned to the target queue are in a busy state.
If agents are offline, ready, or in any non-busy state, it will prevent EWT from being activated.

Maintain a stable queue configuration

EWT predictions depend on agent skills and queue setup. During testing:

• Avoid changing the number of agents or modifying their skill configurations.
• Keep queue and skill-based routing consistent throughout the test.

Any changes during testing can lead to inaccurate or fluctuating EWT estimates.

Provide sufficient historical data

The EWT model relies on historical call data. Make sure that:

• At least three past calls are available in the system.
• These calls should involve consumers who waited in the queue and were eventually connected to an agent.

Note: If most past calls had wait times under two minutes or consumers were not served, the system may play default EWT prompt, regardless of current conditions.

Allow time for model updates

The EWT model updates approximately every 15 minutes. The model will retain data for up to a week. To ensure the model reflects recent activity:

• Wait at least 15 minutes after the most recent qualifying call before starting a new test.

This delay ensures the latest data is factored into the prediction.

Testing in untrained queues or fallback

If a queue has not yet accumulated enough historical data (i.e., it’s untrained) or during fallback when the EWT service is not accessible:

• The system will play a fallback message instead of providing an EWT estimate.

Note:  In production deployment, when agents are actively using the system, training for EWT model is not needed. However, during evaluation or testing, this training data is needed. If queues are not trained, fallback message will be played.