Routing Contacts To Optimize Service

To optimize service, you can use the following routing strategies that involve resources outside of the target queues and agent groups:

Overflow contacts
You can overflow contacts from busy agent groups to less busy agent groups during peak periods. You can route contacts to agents who primarily perform non-ACD work but act as reinforcements during busy periods, and to supervisors.

lnterflow contacts
Contact centers that provide extended or around-the-clock service can interflow contacts to other queues and sites. For example, you can interflow mid-day contacts received by a busy center in San Francisco to agents working the late-afternoon shift at a center in Philadelphia. This optimizes contact handling without scheduling additional agents.

Forward calls to voice mail
You can program the ACD routing system to forward calls to voice mail so callers can leave messages instead of waiting for live queue members. Call-back messaging helps to balance employee workloads between peak call periods and slow periods.

Contract calls to customer-care bureaus
During peak periods, you can route simple, routine contacts externally to customer-care bureaus. Service bureaus collaborate with contact centers to set up scheduling and monitoring practices, and train agents to handle contacts that vary in complexity.