Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) Strategies

ACD is commonly used in telephony, where ACD refers to "Automatic Call Distribution" or "Automatic Call Distributor". Simply, a system that does the distribution of incoming calls automatically to a group of people or agents. This is also called "Queues", where incoming calls are put in a call queue distribution process.

ACD Strategies

The ACD is built using some basic call distribution strategies. Most commonly used strategies are:

• Linear call distribution: Calls are distributed in a fixed order to the agents.
• Round-robin distribution: Calls are distributed in circular order, one-after-another in a circular loop.
• Least recent distribution: Calls are distributed to the agent who has been waiting for long duration.
• Ring all distribution: Calls are distributed to all the available agents at once. Any available agent can pick up the call.
• Priority/Skill based distribution: Calls are distributed to the available agents based on some parameters or pre-calculated percentiles that decide the priority or skill based routing.

Automatic Call Distribution (ACDs) add value to any company ranging from SOHO to Enterprise and Corporate. They allow end customers to interact with the company using a telephone. The services vary from gathering information, getting customer service, complaint cells, banking, over-the-phone shopping, travel bookings and many more….. The list goes on.

The skill based routing is very effective and adds benefit in such a way that a customer gets handled by the right agent. The agents who are specialized can be grouped to handle specific customers. This really adds value to the company and improves customer satisfaction and efficiency.

Distribution Algorithm

The ACD call distribution algorithm is decided using the following methods. They can be decided using single or combined with many methods.

• Call landed time (Working hours, Out Of Business hours, holiday)
• Customer Phone number
• Customer dialed number (DID / Toll free)
• Customer selected option in an IVR (Interactive Voice Response System)
• Customer provided information (card number, account id)
• CTI integration
• Customer data available with the CRM system
• Availability of Agents and many more

Simple ACD

A simple ACD will be designed like:

• Customer calls a customer care number
• Call gets answered, plays a Welcome message
• Interactive Voice Response takes control, provides options (press 1 for…)
• Based on option selected and call distribution strategy, the call is put to the waiting agent, who is appropriate to handle that customer.

Other benefits

The ACD call distribution can be designed to distribute calls to multiples queues that handle both Inbound and Outbound operations. The ACD can route the calls directly to specific extension if the customer is aware of direct extensions. The ACD can route to an automatic-attendant or Interactive Response Systems based on provided inputs. The ACD can connect to CTI (Computer Telephony Integration) systems and can handle multiple channels like phone, email, chat etc. The ACD can support callback, where a waiting customer can opt for a callback if he does not want to wait more inside the queue.

The ACDs help companies to handle their operations globally, sitting on the cloud. The ACDs have advanced to live chat, social media, helpdesk ticketing tools etc.

Challenge in ACD

The only challenge in ACD is callers getting abandoned. The waiting customer calls gets abandoned due to:

• More number of calls and less number of agents
• More waiting time in queues
• Technical problems
• Other external problems affecting call quality etc.

In terms of Contact Center, "A customer abandoned is a SALE lost".

Hunting Strategy

To overcome this challenge of abandoned callers in ACD Queues, Telerain Apayaa is working on a new strategy called ‘Hunting Strategy’.

• Usually ACD systems will not attempt to dial more than one agent unless the strategy is to Ring all.
• They wait until the available agent is answering the call sent.
• If not then they attempt calling another available agent. If that also goes unanswered, it tries another and so on.
• The customer will have to wait for more time. It is like testing his patience.
• Our Hunting Strategy will start looking for an available agent and start dialing the agent.
• After a fixed interval say 5 seconds, if the agent is not answering, system will fetch the next available agent and will ring him without waiting for the first one to answer.
• Then other available agent will be tried.
• On a probability, the call will get answered quickly by one agent using this strategy than others.
• This makes benefit to ACD, instead of waiting till the first agent goes unanswered and further waiting till the system gets notified to continue fetching another available agent.
• Using Hunting strategy, the abandoned callers can be greatly reduced, enhancing the sales and support process and turning agents more effective and productive.

Nancy Wilson is a professional writer and lover of all things tech, internet and telcom. Nancy Wilson is basically from Porter Ranch, California. She wrotes and published few articles on famous sites like Moz, Sej, ShoutME, etc.