Skills-based Routing

Agents can often have Skills or special attributes that make them more qualified to handle certain types of calls over other agents. For example, many auto-attendants/IVRs have an option to choose between English or Spanish as a preferred language. Calls will then be routed to an agent with the skills of speaking the selected language. 

The same concept can be applied to the routing of records in a list/campaign where certain types of records can be routed to a skilled agent. AutoReach can lookup values against a record in AutoReach CRM to determine if a record has a special attribute that requires special attention. 

Let’s use the same example as above to help illustrated skills-based routing in the context of AutoReach. Inside of AutoReach CRM you have a custom field called language preference and the value will contain languages based on your customer demographic like Spanish, French, Chinese, etc.  If an agent has a skill assigned to them for any of these languages, we can route accordingly. 

Skills-based Routing Fundamentals

1. Create a skill-name
2. Assign the agents who should be marked as having this skill
3. Define the rule
   • This is the logic the determines why a call should be assigned to an agent with this skill
4. Apply skill-based routing on the list/campaign level 

Create a Skill

• Create and label a new skill by clicking New. 
• Name the Skill.
• Assign which agents should be marked as having this skill
• Select the Create button to save the Skill and the assignees of the skill
• Select which skill(s) you want to define by checking the empty boxes then click Rules
• Define your skill by building out rule(s) based on the filters that are made available to you, similarly to the example from Defining Dynamic and Static Lists. Here’s an example of a rule that you can build for your agents that are fluent in Spanish:
• In this example we added a rule with the Add Rule button, selected the Language Field, chose the equals operator, and typed in "Spanish".
• We then Previewed the Matches which members in the CRM database would qualify as a record that would be routed to an agent that has been assigned this skill
• To save the logic of this skill rule, select the Update Rules button

Enforcing Skills Based Routing on a List/Campaign

Now that skills have been created, you can chose which lists enforce routing records to specific agents with certain skills. To learn more about creating lists see here.

• If you would like to enforce certain records being assigned to agents with specific skills, when creating a list select the Skills Based Routing checkbox.

  • Example with Skills Based Routing Enabled:

    • Scenario: A list with 'Skills Based Routing' enabled. The list is assigned to 5 agents. 

    • Setup: You previously defined a skill for agents fluent in Spanish and assigned it to three agents assigned to the list. The two other agents do not have this skill.
    • Result: Contacts marked as Spanish speakers are routed only to the 3 Spanish-speaking agents. However, these agents may also receive non-Spanish contact call assignments. The remaining two agents will only get contact call assignments who are not Spanish speakers.
• A second checkbox is available titled Exact Match on Skills Only. This option ensures that records requiring specific skills are only assigned to agents with those skills. Agents marked as skilled will not receive records that don't require their specific skills.

  • Example with Skills Based Routing with Exact Match:

    • Scenario: The same setup as above, but with 'Exact Match on Skills Only' also enabled.
    • Result: The 3 Spanish-speaking agents will only get assigned calls for contacts who are Spanish speakers. The other two agents will be assigned all of the other calls.