Skills Based Routing Call Centre Technology
What is Skills Based Routing?
Skills Based Routing is a feature of a call centre ACD technology that enables you to direct calls to the most appropriately skilled and experienced call centre agent.
Normally, a call centre ACD (Automatic Call Distributor) allocates (aka routes) a call to the next available call centre agent regardless of their skill or expertise. Standard practice is that the next call will always go to the agent who has been available the longest.
Using Skills Based Routing, the call centre manager can start using logic to apply 'rules' on how each call gets allocated. This enables a range of different scenarios that can result in a better customer experience and a more efficient call centre operation.
Benefits of Skills Based Routing
There a numerous benefits of implementing skills-based routing into your call centre with the two primary reasons listed below:
- A better customer experience - Ensuring the call is answered by a contact centre agent who has the right skills to help the customer will ensure a much better customer experience
- Improved efficiency - Reduced call handle times, less call transfers, reduced need for customers to call back and so on, implementing SBR will dramatically improve the efficiency of your call centre.
You can learn a lot more about the different types of Skills-Based Routing on the CX Central Glossary >
Implementing Skills Based Routing into your call centre
The first step is ensuring your call centre phone system (aka ACD) has the capability to provide Skills Based Routing. Then, you need to design your SBR strategy which can take many forms including:
- Routing customers to agents with particular skills (e.g. in Emergency Services you can have different skills agents who handle Police, Fire and Ambulance).
- Routing customers based on communication channel skills (e.g. phone, live chat, email etc).
- Routing customers based on the complexity of the call - e.g. the simpler calls are routed to the less-experienced agents.
There really is no shortage of options! A good SBR strategy needs to also allow for different training, coaching, performance metric, pay sales etc. If you need help in determining the right strategy for your call centre you may want to look at engaging an experienced contact centre consultant who can help design the most efficient strategy for your business.
The vendors below are happy to provide you with additional information and a demonstration or, you can contact us for free assistance in determining the right technology solution for your business. Just call us on 03 9008 7287 or send us a message for a no-obligation discussion.