Sophisticated call routing lies at the very core of the Vision Call Centre system presenting calls to agents based on priority and skills in line with business goals and Service Level Agreements.

Vision Call Centre utilises a highly sophisticated call allocation engine to ensure that these business specific goals are always met, whilst making the most efficient and effective use of the available agents, dramatically improving the ability to maintain high levels of service, even in periods of heavy traffic.

Each call in each queue is assigned an initial call priority that is determined by the queue it is assigned to, and the length of time it has been in that queue. This allows the priority of a call to dynamically escalate at a defined rate over time. Calls can also have their priority manually boosted by a supervisor, whilst key customers’ can have a pre-defined priority that allows their calls to be automatically forwarded to the front of the queue. When an agent becomes available (either by logging on, completing a previous call, or by returning from a break), Vision Call Centre will assign the highest priority call to that agent.

Calls can be allocated on either a longest idle or least busy basis. In longest idle, calls are allocated to agents based on how long it has been since the agent last handled a call. This is the traditional method of allocating calls and tasks within a call centre, and can be useful for customers looking to replicate the operation of their existing system. Alternatively, in least busy mode, the next call is always allocated to the agent who has averaged the least number of calls per hour since they logged in. This has significant advantages, including; a fairer allocation of tasks to agents, based on work-rate rather than idle time, eliminating the possibility of agents avoiding (or prioritising themselves for) calls by briefly going into the Not Available state, whilst agents joining a shift are immediately put to work handling new calls. These choices ensure that the workload is shared fairly amongst users of equal skill – however the management wish to define “fair.”

Alternatively, Skills Based Routing can be utilised, routing calls to the most appropriately skilled, available agent(s) first. In a scenario where agents have identical skill levels the queued calls will then be distributed using Longest Idle or Least Busy.

The Vision Call Centre call allocation engine is also responsible for handling in queue messaging. Whilst callers are waiting for their call to be answered comfort announcements will normally be played. An initial announcement is played upon entering a queue, with a second “repeat” announcement being played there after at administrator-defined intervals until the call is answered. Vision Call Centre offers two further alternatives. Position In Queue lets a caller know where they are in the queue upon entry, with timed updates. Estimated Time To Answer operates in the same manner but let the caller know how long the system estimates it will take for their call to be answered, based on previous call profiles.