The present invention provides a method for managing requests for service over a communications network. The method of the invention comprises the steps of: receiving a request for service from a customer terminal at a queue server via the communications network; allocating a queue identifier to the request for service; sending the queue identifier to the customer terminal; receiving the queue identifier from the customer terminal at the queue server as part of a subsequent request for service; performing a comparison between the queue identifier and queue status information; and forwarding the request for service to the service host in accordance with the result of the comparison. Preferably, if sufficient resources are available, the request for service is forwarded directly to the service host without entering a queue. If there are insufficient resources, the request for service is held in an automatically managed queue and the risk of catastrophic failure is eliminated.