Skills Based Routing Definition

The following is the Wikipedia definition for Skills Based Routing:

• "Skills based routing (SBR) is a call assignment strategy used in call centers to assign incoming calls to the most suitable agent, rather than simply choosing the next available agent. It is an enhancement to the Automatic Call Distributor systems (and IVR systems) found in most call centers. The need for skills based routing has arisen as call centers have become larger and dealt with a wider variety of call types."

Example

Best way to describe this is if you have 3 agents in a call group each having a different skill level in their certain field,
Agent 1 best knows Windows
Agent 2 best knows Linux
Agent 3 best knows Mac
But each person may know a bit about the other

Each Agent has a weight rating

Agent S-|-Win-|-Lin-|-Mac-|
Agent 1-|-100-|-050-|-025-|
Agent 2-|-025-|-100-|-050-|
Agent 3-|-050-|-025-|-100-|

When a client calls the ACD group number the system will prompt them with a menu and ask them something like..
Press 1 for Windows Support
Press 2 for Linux Support
Press 3 for Mac Support

Now before the call is automatically assigned to an agent the system will look up the skill table and then look to see which agents are free

Example 1:
A call comes in asking for windows support,
The system then sees that Agent 1 has the highest skill rating out of all the agents and checks that the agent is free to process calls
Agent 1 was free so the call gets routed to and answered
Agent 2 stays free
Agent 3 stays free

Example 2:
2 calls come in asking for windows support,
The system check the skill table, Agent 1 has the highest priory Agent 2 has the next highest, both agents are free so the system then defaults back the standard ACD mode distributing call based on order, but only including Agents 1 and 2
Agent 1 was free gets the first call in the queue
Agent 2 was free get the second call in the queue
Agent 3 stays free

Example 3:
4 calls come, 2 asking for windows support, one for Mac Support and one for Linux support
Agent 1 was free gets the first windows call
Agent 2 was free gets the second windows call
Agent 3 was free get the first Mac call
Caller 4 waits until an agent gets free for the system to reevaluate the skill table


Advantages of this method over a traditional ACD,
1. Used to train agents to build up their skill level
2. Used to get the best quality support to the calling client
3. Saves time of the higher trained agents (gets them away from password reset requests)

Other Uses
1. Software packages
2. Different Language Agents


This information is from what I understand from the rather pricey Ericsson Solidus eCare package.
Ericsson CN - Solidus eCare3 CE brochure

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See Also

• Database Systems Corp. - ACD and IVR with Skills Based Routing.
• PBX Features
• UCN Inc - UCN combines advanced IVR, CTI Software and Hosted ACD to create skills based routing delivered over a nationwide VoIP network.