Depending on the capabilities of Contact Center system and its internal organization and training, every organization should choose the one that best suits their needs, and certainly it can be a combination of several different ones. I will now list and briefly explain a few of them. Despite our general opinion about talents of the people from this area, unfortunately,there is no significant contribution to the development of these technologies in the region, so I will have to use terms in English which are accepted as a standard in the industry, regardless of the manufacturer, and you feel free to find the term which suits you best in our own language.
1. Hunt groups
This is the most basic way of call forwarding and is common in organizations that are just starting to do business. For example, if we want to talk with someone from the sales sector, we call a number that is assigned to them, and if we need marketing, there is a specific number for colleagues from the sector. It is common that a person who is the first on the list for the answer to take the call, and if he or she is not available, the call goes to the next person on the list. This method of distribution is characteristic for those organizations that have only, so called, home phone centrals (PBX) but not real Contact Center solutions.
2. Least Idle
When the first ACD systems came in usage, this was exactly the way all calls had been assigned and now it is often used as a synonym for it. This means that the call is assigned to an operator who has waited the longest for the next call since the last one he had done. Depending on the system used, there can be variations, so that the reference period of time in which the operators were answering calls varies from 30 minutes or to the whole day. With such distribution, the behavior of the operator must be taken into account, because, like every other living creature, operators also follow the line of least resistance and use tactics that, when they are available for a call, briefly change their status to “unavailable”, which means that the time from when they are available starts to tick again, so the calls bypass them and are assigned to someone else.
3. Skill Based Routing
More advanced organizations assign different skills to their operators so that the calls are answered by those who can solve the specific service requirements, and not only provide general information. Of course, different operators have different skills, and on a different level. Therefore, for the effective use of such forwarding, the organization has to carefully adjust all parameters in order to avoid the situation where the same operators always answer the calls. For example, if the user who speaks English makes the call and is interested in buying a specific product, the system should be assigned to an operator who speaks English and who can provide detailed information about the product. If there is more than one of such operators, the system compares their results obtained by a formula that takes into account the level of skills they possess, and of course the time they have been waiting since the last call. Operator that has a higher grade will be assigned to this call, which ensures that the call is answered by the most appropriate person. If, however, at the moment there are no free operators with the required level of skill(s), the call will be on hold until such a person is available.
4. Last Agent Routing
As the basic guidelines of successful Contact Center organization, customer satisfaction certainly has to be on top. For this reason, some of them decide to assign the call to the operator who had already spoken to that specific user.. These decisions arise primarily from the expectations of the caller who thinks that the operator they last spoke to knew their “case “best and therefore will be most efficient in conversation. Of course, this makes sense if the call occurred at a time that is relatively close to the previous one, let’s say 48 hours. The selection of such forwarding does not necessarily have to be good, because maybe the user was not satisfied with the last conversation that took place, and will not necessarily be thrilled if his call is assigned to the same operator. In more advanced systems, and if the organization has a well-organized CRM system, all data about previous calls are recorded, so that it is not really necessary that the same operator always responds to the same user, especially if one has to wait long for the operator to be available to answer that particular call. But of course, with good planning, this way of forwarding can be beneficial from the point of view of user satisfaction.
5. Bull’s Eye Routing
Although at first glance this way of forwarding can be related to a bullfight because of the name bull’s eye, the thing is completely different. Namely, in English, it means the center of the target, which is commonly used in archery.