In a simple agent/queue setup, your calls go into the queue and get handled by the next available agent, no matter who. Your call center deserves better from its ACD.
Being able to automatically log agents into the right queues, keep them out of the wrong queues, and prioritize between them is going to be your key to a top notch customer experience. A sophisticated solution will include agent skills, skill levels, and queue priorities. Using skills-based routing and priorities, you can mix and match to get your best agents doing their best work, and make sure your priority callers are handled as quickly as possible.
Skills-based routing is simply the ability to direct a call to agents who have the right skills to deal with the call. When you choose a queue for a call to go into, you are specifying that calls require a specific set of skills: those that are assigned to the queue. Only agents having those skills should receive calls from that queue. The call can then be handled correctly.
Agent skills are simply tags that can be assigned to your agents. If Maria speaks Spanish, you can give her the Spanish skill. If she is also trained in Reservations, you give her the Reservations skill. You also assign the skills required to handle a queue to that queue. When Maria logs in to the system to take inbound calls, she would then be automatically logged in to any queue that has Reservations, Spanish, or both as the skills assigned to that queue. If a queue also requires the skill Widgets, Maria would not be logged in to that queue as she lacks that skill.
Not all agents have the same level of skill. Maria may be exceptionally fluent in Spanish, while Harvey is only moderately skilled. You probably want Maria to handle as many Spanish calls as possible, and only have Harvey answer the Spanish calls if Maria is already talking. You can set this by giving Maria a higher skill priority than Harvey. On the other hand, with Spanish being a rarer skill than Reservations, you may give Harvey a higher skill priority in Reservations than Maria so that if a Reservations call comes in that is not Spanish, he can handle it. This helps make sure that Maria will be available for more of the Spanish calls.
Some calls may just be higher priority than others. You may want to handle Sales calls immediately, with any Reservations calls taking a back seat. Or you may have an emergency support line that takes priority for any agent with that skill. To handle this need, you can set queue priorities. This indicates that if two calls are waiting and an agent becomes available who can handle both calls, the call from the priority queue will get answered, no matter which call was waiting longer.
Being able to automatically log agents into the right queues, keep them out of the wrong queues, and prioritize between them is going to be your key to a top notch customer experience. A sophisticated solution will include agent skills, skill levels, and queue priorities. Using skills-based routing and priorities, you can mix and match to get your best agents doing their best work, and make sure your priority callers are handled as quickly as possible.
Skills-Based Routing
Skills-based routing is simply the ability to direct a call to agents who have the right skills to deal with the call. When you choose a queue for a call to go into, you are specifying that calls require a specific set of skills: those that are assigned to the queue. Only agents having those skills should receive calls from that queue. The call can then be handled correctly.
Agent Skills
Agent skills are simply tags that can be assigned to your agents. If Maria speaks Spanish, you can give her the Spanish skill. If she is also trained in Reservations, you give her the Reservations skill. You also assign the skills required to handle a queue to that queue. When Maria logs in to the system to take inbound calls, she would then be automatically logged in to any queue that has Reservations, Spanish, or both as the skills assigned to that queue. If a queue also requires the skill Widgets, Maria would not be logged in to that queue as she lacks that skill.
Skill Priorities
Not all agents have the same level of skill. Maria may be exceptionally fluent in Spanish, while Harvey is only moderately skilled. You probably want Maria to handle as many Spanish calls as possible, and only have Harvey answer the Spanish calls if Maria is already talking. You can set this by giving Maria a higher skill priority than Harvey. On the other hand, with Spanish being a rarer skill than Reservations, you may give Harvey a higher skill priority in Reservations than Maria so that if a Reservations call comes in that is not Spanish, he can handle it. This helps make sure that Maria will be available for more of the Spanish calls.
Queue Priorities
Some calls may just be higher priority than others. You may want to handle Sales calls immediately, with any Reservations calls taking a back seat. Or you may have an emergency support line that takes priority for any agent with that skill. To handle this need, you can set queue priorities. This indicates that if two calls are waiting and an agent becomes available who can handle both calls, the call from the priority queue will get answered, no matter which call was waiting longer.