Specifying the Preferred Routing Method for an Inbound Service

On the Configure > Services> Routing tab, the Preferred Routing option provides the following routing methods:

• If you select Services, calls are routed to the agents assigned directly to the service. You can further route the call to subsets of agents for specific purposes.
• If you select Service Group, calls are routed to the agents assigned to the services associated with a service group. The degree to which a service group uses the agent skill is defined by the type of service group. The following types are available for service group routing:
  • LONGEST_AVAILABLE_AGENT: If no agents with the required agent skill set are available, the call is transferred to the agent who has been available for the longest period of time in the same service group regardless of skill. Once the configured Service Max Wait Time is reached, the call is routed to the exit or failure path.
  • STRICT_CLASSIFICATION - If no agents with the required agent skill set are available, the call is routed to the exit or failure path. Also, once the configured Service Max Wait Time is reached, the call is routed to the exit or failure path.
  • Service Group STRICT_OVERFLOW - If agents with the proper skill are not available to take the call, it is placed on hold until the maximum hold time is reached. You can configure the ACD Max Wait Time Proficiency (1-10) in the message template. This parameter controls how long a call remains on hold while waiting for an agent with the corresponding skill set to become available. After the required waiting time, the system expands the target selection to include all agents in the service group, regardless of skill set and the call is bridged to the agent who has been available for the longest period of time. The search for an available agent continues until the service's Max Wait time is exceeded.
• If you select Agent Teams, calls are routed to the agents within the Agent Teams.

Specify the preferred routing method for the inbound service. 

The Routing tab enables you to view and select the preferred routing method being Service, Service Group, or Agent Teams.  

The Routing tab will not be displayed if the ACD mode option of "No ACD" is selected in General Tab.

Preferred Routing

The available options are:

• Service routing: Displays the agents associated with the service. These are the agents who have been granted the ability to "log into" the service directly.  
• Service group routing: Displays the service group to which the inbound or outbound service is associated as well as the agents associated with these services.  Additionally, displays the Service Group Routing Type for the target service group.  
• Agent Teams routing: Displays the agent teams assigned to the service as well as the agents belonging to the assigned agent teams. Additionally, displays the Agent Team Routing Type for the target agent team.  

Agent

Agent section allows you to view existing agents and their characteristics. Double-click the agent row to update their details.

The Filter/Search interface allows you to search for Agents using the magnifier icon. The cog icon in the upper right-hand corner allows you to customize agents panel columns and enables you to view all the details of the agents.

For more information on agent characteristics and filter/search tools, please visit the Viewing Existing Agents and Creating Agents and Agent Profiles sections

Routing Calls to Agents Based on Their Skills

An admin user or a manager, you can categorize agents for preferential routing of inbound or outbound traffic based on the attribute or skill of that agent, the type of clients that agent handles,  or the agent's proficiency (level of expertise) in handling certain types of call traffic. 

The Agent Skill attribute is used at the exit points of a Contact Flow to assign an agent to handle a particular customer language, type of business, value of account, or other factors. For example, managers can assign agents with multi-language capabilities or strong collection experience and link them to accounts that require these qualifications. You can map skills/agent associations by skill or by an agent for ease of use.

This section describes how you can manage the skills assigned to agents.  A skill influences routing priority to certain agents over others or completely limits routing to specific agents. These skills are assigned to exit points of an interactive voice response (IVR) through the Messages editor and represent the ability of agents to handle customer language, business line, value of account, or other factors.  

To access the Agent Skills editor, on the LiveVox Portal, navigate to Configure > Agents > Agent Skill.

Expand below to learn more:

Viewing Agent Skills

You can view all added agent skills in the Agent Skill editor. The basic settings are defined here.

• ID: System-assigned identifier. This setting cannot be changed. 
• Name: Assigned by you to identify the skill.
• Description: Description of the agent skill.

You can use the Filter option to search for specific skills. 

Filter options can include characters, numerical values, and special characters (such as _, -, *).