Setting Up Your Front-Desk Call Queue and Scripts

Postcards open the door. Phone calls walk the customer through it. PostKnock's call queue (Pro plan) automatically generates a list of follow-up calls for your front desk, starting 5 business days after each card is delivered by default (adjustable from 1 to 10 per campaign). That is while the postcard is still fresh in the recipient's mind. This guide explains how the queue works, how to configure it, and how to write scripts your team will actually use.

How the Call Queue Works

When you launch a campaign with calls enabled, PostKnock waits for confirmation that each postcard was delivered. Five business days after delivery by default (you can set 1 to 10 days per campaign), each contact who received a card appears in the call queue with their name, phone number, the postcard they received, and the script for that wave.

Your front desk works the queue throughout the day. Each call is logged with one of nine outcomes: Talked to them, No answer, Left a voicemail, Line was busy, Wrong number, Asked for a call back, Not interested, Interested or Asked us to stop. Four of them take the person out of the queue: Interested, Not interested, Wrong number and Asked us to stop. Logging takes one click, and outcomes feed the campaign's reporting.

The queue fills from postcard delivery. A contact leaves it for that wave when one of those four outcomes is logged. Pausing a contact or the campaign holds the calls until you resume, and skipping a call hides it for two hours. QR scans do not change the queue: they show up in campaign tracking. PostKnock can't see appointments booked another way, so someone who booked online or by phone stays in the queue until you log an outcome.

Your Daily Call Cap

PostKnock works out calls a day from how much time you can spend calling each week. Set that under Settings → Calling. You can also change the number for a single campaign. The queue never shows more than that many calls in a day, and anything left over carries to the next day, so your team doesn't get buried. Most front desks can handle 20–40 outbound recall calls per day on top of their normal incoming traffic, not 200, so plan for a number your team can finish.

What a team can usually take on:

• 1 receptionist: 15–20 calls/day.
• 2 receptionists or dedicated recall coordinator: 30–50 calls/day.
• Larger office with a shared phone team: 50–100 calls/day.

If you have a large list and want it called within a tight time window (e.g., before a holiday close), raise the calls a day for that campaign. The queue will refill faster but won't go past that number on any given day.

Configuring Calling Hours

Calling hours determine when the queue is active and visible to your team. Calls placed outside business hours risk waking up customers and feel intrusive. PostKnock defaults to Monday–Friday, 9am–5pm. It is one weekly schedule for your whole account, applied in each contact's own local time, and you can change it under Settings → Calling.

Best practices for calling windows:

• Avoid 8am–9am and 12pm–1pm. People are commuting or eating; pickup rates are lower.
• Late morning and mid-afternoon work best: 10am–noon and 2pm–4pm.
• Skip Mondays for non-urgent recall. Mondays are busy, and your office may also be playing catch-up.
• Stay inside the legal hours. Federal and state rules generally limit solicitation calls to between 8am and 9pm in the recipient's local time. PostKnock only hands out contacts inside the window you set, in each contact's own local time, so keeping that window inside the legal hours is up to you.

Customizing Scripts Per Wave

Each wave in your campaign has its own call script. Wave 1 scripts are warmer ("we just sent you a card…"), wave 2 scripts reinforce ("we sent you another reminder this month and wanted to check in"), and wave 3 scripts add urgency ("our offer expires Friday and I wanted to make sure you didn't miss it"). PostKnock ships starter scripts for every playbook. You can edit them per campaign.

A good recall call script has four parts:

1. Greeting + identification. "Hi, this is Jamie from Dr. Smith's office. Is this Sarah?"
2. Reference the postcard. "We sent you a card last week about scheduling your overdue cleaning."
3. Specific offer + next step. "We have a Thursday at 2pm or Friday morning if either works."
4. Soft close + thank you. "I'll text you the confirmation. Thanks, Sarah!"

Variable tokens (contact name, first and last name, phone, company name, your name, city, state and campaign name) populate automatically inside the script panel during the call, no copy-pasting from a spreadsheet. Your team reads the script as personalized text on screen.

Logging Outcomes

Outcome logging is the data backbone of the call queue. After every call, the team picks an outcome from a short button list. The available outcomes are:

• Talked to them: you reached the person. No further call is queued.
• No answer: nobody picked up. The contact comes back on the next call day, up to the attempt limit in Settings → Calling.
• Left a voicemail: you left a message referencing the postcard. Same as No answer.
• Line was busy: the line was busy. Same as No answer.
• Asked for a call back: they asked you to call back. The contact comes back on the next call day, and no callback date is set.
• Wrong number: the phone is bad. Ends the calls for that wave. It does not mark the person do-not-contact, and later waves still call.
• Not interested: ends the calls for that wave and pauses the contact: four weeks if a decision maker said it, two weeks for a manager, one week for a receptionist or staff.
• Interested: ends the calls for that wave, marks the person a qualified lead, and counts in your campaign summary.
• Asked us to stop: they asked not to be contacted. They are marked do-not-contact for your whole account, and their unsent cards and calls in every campaign are cancelled.

Outcomes decide who is called again and feed your campaign reports. The call analytics page shows your team's call volume and outcome mix, and Interested contacts roll up into the campaign summary, so you can spot what's working and where to coach.

Voicemail Handling

Roughly half of all attempted calls hit voicemail. Don't skip the voicemail: a 15-second message tied to the postcard increases response by 20–30%. The script panel includes a separate "voicemail script" field for each wave so your team doesn't have to improvise.

Effective voicemail script template:

"Hi Sarah, this is Jamie from Dr. Smith's office calling to follow up on the postcard we sent. We're calling because you're due for your cleaning and we'd love to get you back on the schedule. Give us a call at 555-0123 when you have a minute. We have a couple of openings this week. Thanks!"

Keep voicemails under 20 seconds. Reference the postcard. State the reason. Give the phone number twice (once is enough to forget). Don't pressure.

Free vs Pro

The call queue is a Pro-plan feature. The Free plan lets you launch postcard campaigns but does not generate call queues or scripts. If you're running recall, reactivation, or any campaign where the call follow-up doubles response, Pro is the obvious choice. See How PostKnock Pricing Works for the cost details.

For the broader case for adding calls to a postcard campaign, our patient recall best practices guide covers the response math. It's typically a 2–3x lift on the same postcard list.

Was this helpful?

If this guide answered your question, great. If not, we want to hear about it.

Need more help? Email support@postknock.com and we'll respond within one business day.

Related articles

• Multi-Wave Campaigns: Sequencing Postcards Over Time
• Getting Started with PostKnock