Effective use of Queues and IVR (Interactive Voice Response) within a back office phone system or call center ACD (Automatic Call Distributor) will have positive impact on the overall efficiency and productivity. A versatile ACD capable of supporting flexible queue arrangement and call handling is essential to meet the queuing demands and requirements of modern inbound contact center operation.
Within a typical inbound call center setup, one or more DID numbers belonging to an inbound service will bring phone calls into the ACD. An IVR may or may not be used depending on business requirements, to automate part of the early interaction with the caller. The caller then gets branched into a particular queue and is connected to the first available agent operator with appropriate skills. Agents have skills with skill levels identifying their proficiency in handling calls belonging to queues which have skills association. Therefore agents can handle calls from queues for which they have the required skills. ACD with Queue Prioritization will ensure that the agents handle calls from queues with higher priority ahead of calls from queues with lower priority. Skills based routing and prioritization of queues are key drivers of efficiency. They also ensure that calls are handled properly by agents with the right skills based on the queue priority.
Many inbound operations require interaction with back-end databases. These databases are tied to existing CRM and ERP systems and allow effective handling of calls. The IVR capability of the ACD should include hooks and interfaces for connecting to such back-end databases.
There are other important triggers associated with queues like ‘Maximum number of callers waiting in a Queue’, ‘Waiting time in a Queue’, ‘Putting a caller on Hold in a Queue’ etc. These triggers should ensure follow-up actions that result in better customer care. For example, once the number of callers exceeds the set maximum number, there should be an overflow queue or the ability to add more agents to handle the calls.
Quality call center software should provide all these features right out of the box.