On Black Friday a Genesys Cloud queue does what it always does: it holds interactions, routes them and estimates how long the next customer will wait. TrueEngage reads that expected wait time every 30 seconds and changes what the website offers. Above a threshold you set, the "call me now" option steps aside and the visitor books a callback slot instead, with capacity limits per slot that match your staffing. Every request still lands as a native Genesys Cloud callback in the queue you chose.
This is part 2 of our Black Friday series. Part 1 set out why peak season moved into the contact centre. Alex's post on two ideas for peak demand argued for letting customers choose by urgency and availability. This part is about the settings that make that choice work: the wait-time threshold, the callback queue, the schedule group and the slot.
Nothing unusual in how it works. The queue accepts interactions, the routing rules decide who answers, and Genesys Cloud calculates an expected wait time from the agents on queue and the interactions ahead. What changes on the day is the number. A queue that runs at two minutes on a Tuesday in October can sit far above that by mid-afternoon on the Friday, and it moves by the hour.
The website is where most of that demand starts. A shopper checking a delivery date or a payment problem sees a contact button, presses it and joins the queue. If the website offers the same options at 9:00 and at 15:00, regardless of what the queue looks like, every visitor joins the same line at the same moment. The contact centre then has to absorb the peak in real time, with the staff it has.
TrueEngage sits in front of the queue, on the website, and decides which contact options a visitor sees from what Genesys Cloud reports about the queue behind each one. Routing, recording and reporting in Genesys Cloud stay as the admin configured them.
Every contact option in a TrueEngage widget, whether chat, web call, video call or callback, can carry two conditions set in the TrueEngage panel: a Genesys Cloud schedule group and an expected-wait-time threshold. The schedule group hides the option outside the hours you define. The threshold hides it when the queue behind it is too long.
TrueEngage refreshes expected wait times from Genesys Cloud every 30 seconds. When the expected wait for the web call queue crosses, say, five minutes, the web call button disappears from the widget for new visitors. When the queue recovers, it comes back. Nobody has to watch a dashboard and switch channels by hand.
Callback has its own version of this. When the expected wait time exceeds the threshold, the immediate callback option is withdrawn and only scheduling is shown. The visitor can still ask to be called, at a time when an agent can actually call.
If every option is hidden at once, the widget does not appear at all, with one exception: scheduled callback stays available. On the busiest afternoon of the year, that means the website always has a way to reach the contact centre that does not add to the live queue.
The settings are described in the knowledge base under interaction routing and availability.
A TrueEngage callback request creates a standard Genesys Cloud callback. In the TrueEngage panel you choose the queue the callback enters and the agent script that opens with it. From that point the callback is a Genesys Cloud interaction like any other: it waits in the queue, it is routed by your rules, and it appears in Genesys Cloud reporting.
The widget handles the details a visitor would otherwise get wrong. The visitor's time zone is detected, so scheduled times show in their own local time. The country prefix is either preset or detected automatically, so the phone number arrives in a form the dialler can use.
The callback can be offered in four formats, styled to the brand of the website:
For peak season the third and fourth formats do the most work, because the threshold can withdraw "now" and leave "later" in place without the page changing.
The JavaScript SDK can also change the target queue per page. A visitor on the returns page can be offered a callback into the returns queue, and a visitor on a product page a callback into the sales queue, from the same widget. The full setup is in the knowledge base article on web callback requests.
Scheduled callback slots come from a Genesys Cloud schedule group, the same object your Genesys Cloud admin already uses for opening hours. The bookable days and times follow it. Three settings in the TrueEngage panel then shape the slots inside those hours:
The capacity limit is the setting that protects the contact centre. Suppose the evening team can return about twenty callbacks in a fifteen-minute window alongside the live queue. Set twenty as the limit and the twenty-first visitor sees that slot as full and picks the next one. Bookings spread across the evening instead of piling up at 18:00. The numbers are an example; the right ones come from your own handling times and roster.
Because the slots come from a schedule group, extended Black Friday hours are a schedule change in Genesys Cloud, and the widget picks them up. TrueEngage syncs configuration from Genesys Cloud every 30 minutes, so make that change at least half an hour before the extended hours start.
Take one retail website on Black Friday, with a widget that offers chat, a web call and callback.
9:30. Queues are short. A visitor asking about delivery sees all three options, with "call me now" available. She takes the web call. It is a browser call that arrives in Genesys Cloud as a standard call, queued and routed like any other.
13:15. The expected wait on the voice queue has crossed the threshold. The web call button is gone for new visitors, and the callback option now offers only scheduled slots. Chat is still open because its queue is moving. A visitor with a payment question opens the widget, sees that chat is available and that a callback can be booked from 16:00, and books 16:15.
16:15. The callback enters the queue chosen for it, with its agent script. If the visitor filled in a pre-interaction form when booking, the agent sees those answers in the TrueEngage Agent App inside Genesys Cloud, so the call starts with the order number already on screen.
19:40. Every live option is over its threshold. The widget still shows scheduled callback, with tomorrow morning's slots.
Hotel groups and travel companies have their own peaks: holiday booking windows, disruption days, the week before a season opens. A European hotel group with seasonal demand and limited specialist staff put callback requests, wait-time indicators and alternative digital channels in front of its guests on Genesys Cloud. The result was lower abandonment and more balanced workloads for its specialists.
Black Friday device and plan deals can bring a second wave a few days later, when the orders arrive and customers need help activating, porting or changing a plan. Per-page queues help here: a callback from the activation help page can go to the team that handles activations.
The pattern works wherever part of the demand is time-sensitive and part is not. A customer who wants to change a delivery address before dispatch needs a fast answer. A customer asking about warranty terms can be called back at 17:00. The threshold and the slot let the website sort them by availability, and the visitor makes the choice.
The threshold per channel. Decide what wait you are willing to show for each option. A web call at eight minutes may be fine for a high-value order and too long for a quick question. Workforce management usually has the best view of this.
The queue for callbacks. Decide whether callbacks share a queue with inbound calls or have their own, and whether the queue changes by page through the SDK.
The schedule group and extended hours. Update the schedule group in Genesys Cloud for the peak days, and allow for the 30-minute configuration sync.
Slot length and capacity. Set them from handling time and roster, then check them on a normal day before the peak.
The agent script. A callback booked six hours earlier needs a different opening line from one requested a minute ago. The script attached in the panel is where to handle that.
What the visitor sees when everything is busy. Scheduled callback stays visible. If you also want a contact form for questions that do not need a call, add it as an option. Forms can open on time on page, scroll depth or exit intent, and submissions go to an email address or stay in the platform.
A test. Lower a threshold in a test widget to force the switch from immediate to scheduled, and check what the visitor sees and what the agent receives.
Genesys Cloud already reports on callbacks: how many were created, how long they waited and how they were handled. That is the contact centre's view and it does not change.
The TrueEngage reporting module adds the website's view, with ready-made reports in the TrueEngage panel. The widget funnel shows how many visitors opened the widget, selected a channel and started an interaction. Channel preferences over time show whether visitors moved from live options to scheduled callback as the queue grew. Capacity and seasonality views by hour, day and week show where the peak actually landed. They are also the starting point for next year's roster.
Where the marketing team works in Google Analytics, the Google Analytics integration sends widget events to GA4 alongside contact centre outcomes from Genesys Cloud: whether a connection was established and the agent's wrap-up code, for callbacks and scheduled callbacks as well as chat, calls and video. That shows which pages produced callbacks that ended in an order.
We have not published an abandonment or conversion figure here because the number that matters is your own. Compare this year's Black Friday hours with last year's, in the same reports, and the effect of the threshold and the slots is visible.
A TrueEngage callback request creates a standard Genesys Cloud callback in a queue you choose, with the agent script you choose. Routing, recording and reporting stay native in Genesys Cloud. TrueEngage adds the website form, the scheduling with slot limits and the rules that decide when immediate callback is offered.
Every 30 seconds. When the expected wait time for a queue crosses the threshold set for a channel, that channel is hidden for new visitors, and for callback the immediate option is withdrawn while scheduling stays. Other configuration, such as schedule groups, syncs from Genesys Cloud every 30 minutes.
Yes. Scheduled slots follow a Genesys Cloud schedule group, and the TrueEngage panel sets the slot duration, padding and a limit on bookings per slot. When a slot is full, visitors pick the next one, so bookings spread across the hours the team can actually work.
If no contact option is available, the TrueEngage widget does not appear, except for scheduled callback, which stays visible. The visitor can always book a time to be called. A contact form can be added as a further option for questions that do not need a conversation.
TrueEngage installs from the Genesys AppFoundry with no custom Genesys development, and interactions stay queued, routed, recorded and reported natively in Genesys Cloud. Next in the series: when live chat overflows, moving peak demand to WhatsApp and Messenger. The web messaging widget post covers the channels in the meantime.