Real-Time Routing Rules

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Real-time routing rules let you improve interactionClosed The full conversation with an agent through a channel. For example, an interaction can be a voice call, email, chat, or social media conversation. routing without editing Studio scripts. This helps you respond quickly to changing conditions in your contact center.

Real-time routing rules adjust which agents your contactsClosed The person interacting with an agent, IVR, or bot in your contact center. can reach when waiting in the queue for a specific ACD skillClosed Used to automate delivery of interactions based on agent skills, abilities, and knowledge.. They monitor live queue statistics and update the proficiency range of the waiting contacts when certain conditions are met. This way, you can expand the pool of available agents for each skill separately based on specific metrics. You can configure rules to monitor queue depth, available agents, and time in queue.

For each rule, you set guardrails, which are conditions that trigger the rule to apply a different proficiency range to contacts. When the rule is active, the system checks the queue against the rule at regular intervals. When the configured conditions are met, the system applies the routing instructions from the rule.

 

Mowgli Kipling is the contact center administrator for Classics Inc. He wants to ensure contacts are routed to agents appropriately based on how busy their contact center is. So, he configures real-time routing rules to route contacts efficiently.

Mowgli creates a Queue Depth rule and assigns it to a skill. Then, he selects three ranges:

  • Slow: The Classics contact center can easily handle 1-45 contacts at a time, so when the queue depth meets that criteria, this rule assigns contacts to agents with a high Proficiency Range up to 4.

  • Normal: On an average day, the Classics contact center usually handles 46-84 contacts at a time, so Mowgli sets the Proficiency Range to 8 for these circumstances.

  • Busy: If there are more than 85 contacts waiting in the queue, the Classics contact center is very busy, so Mowgli sets the Proficiency Range to 20.

Now, when the queue depth changes, real-time routing rules automatically adjust proficiency ranges to account for the contact center's bandwidth.

Real-time routing rules override any adjustments made in Studio. For example, if you use UpdateContact loops in Studio, those are ignored in favor of real-time routing rules.

You can control which groups can access which rules. Users only see rules relevant to their permissions.

Guardrails

Guardrails define thresholds that trigger the system to apply a new proficiency range to contacts in the queue waiting for agents with the rule's ACD skillClosed Used to automate delivery of interactions based on agent skills, abilities, and knowledge.. Guardrails also define how the system responds when a threshold is crossed.

Each real-time routing rule uses one of three metrics to monitor the queue for the rule's skill. You can choose how many guardrails to add to the rule. Rules support between one and five guardrails. The more guardrails you add, the more granular you can make the ranges of the condition and the proficiency changes.

For example, for one skill you might want to define two guardrails on a time in queue rule so that when contacts have been waiting longer than five minutes, the system applies a big change to their proficiency. But for a different skill, you might want to define five guardrails to apply a more gradual change in proficiency when contacts have been waiting 0-1 minute, 1-2 minutes, 3-4 minutes, and so on.

Monitored Metrics

Real-time routing rules monitor for queue overflow. This happens when the number of contactsClosed The person interacting with an agent, IVR, or bot in your contact center. is larger than the pool of agents available to handle them. You can use three metrics to create routing rules that improve the routing of interactionsClosed The full conversation with an agent through a channel. For example, an interaction can be a voice call, email, chat, or social media conversation. in overflow situations. The metrics are:

Routing Rule Evaluation

Real-time routing rules evaluate the queue at regular intervals. The interval depends on the media typeClosed A medium, such as voice, email, and chat, through which a contact connects with an intended recipient. of the ACD skillClosed Used to automate delivery of interactions based on agent skills, abilities, and knowledge. assigned to the rule:

  • Synchronous media types: Every three minutes. This includes voice and digital skills.
  • Asynchronous media types: Every 15 minutes. This includes email skills.

During an evaluation, the rule: 

  1. Reads the current value of its metric for ACD skillClosed Used to automate delivery of interactions based on agent skills, abilities, and knowledge. it's configured to monitor.
  2. Matches the metric's current value to one of the configured guardrails.
  3. Determines which action to take: 
    • If the matching guardrail is the same as the last cycle, the rule makes no change.
    • If the matching guardrail is different, it updates the proficiency range for the contacts in the queue waiting for agents with the rule's skill. It uses the proficiency range that you assigned to that guardrail.
  4. Waits for the next evaluation cycle, then repeats the process.

Rules only react to a metric 's value at the time that the rule evaluates the queue. If the metric's value rises and then falls back to the same level between one evaluation cycle and the next, the rule does not change routing instructions.

When you activate a real-time routing rule, it evaluates the queue immediately. After that, it follows the expected cycle frequency based on skill media type.

You can see the results of each evaluation cycle in execution logs.