Enhancement of the customer experience is a tenacious hurdle in current call centers. Because of the increasing agents and the administration of a broader mixture of calls in different sales and support areas, customer experience is usually negotiated. This drives to disappointment and frustration in customers. However, one feature of the call center solutions can enhance the results, which is skills-based routing with an Automatic Call Distributor (ACD).
In comprehending the importance of customer satisfaction, we’ve perceived that 70% more sales can happen to happy customers than selling to a new prospect. Notwithstanding, as clients have also shown that they dislike being sold, they prefer to buy what you sell.
Skill-based call routing is one of the amazing features available in the advanced call center solutions and smart call center software, which assure better results.
What is Skill-Based Routing?
Skill-based routing is an advanced call routing feature available in the modern call center solutions. It assures connecting callers with an agent with the appropriate skills most suitable to meet the requirements of callers.
Instead of going over a complex process and connected to the first available agent, they connect with an agent that meets their requirements or skilled to resolve their queries. If their call is regarding a particular service or product, they will not be funneled into a common group of callers that agents move from. Alternatively, they are added in a queue of the agent that is skilled to resolve the query or questions.
Traditional call center solutions used automatic call distributor (ACS) features. The ACD routes call to assure the caller gets served promptly instead of accurately. As per the research related to customer experience, communications to the customer with unskilled agents turned into a major cause of frustration.
Skill-based routing enables your agents to take only those calls that match their skill-set. Nevertheless, your agents can yet take multiple calls. This feature of a call center solution routes the calls to the following available agent by keeping the skills of agents into consideration. So, yes, it will make sure to connect callers to the next available and most skilled agents.
Smart call center software also provides an option to make sure that the call is routed to the most skilled agent only. It means it can skip the option of next available, plus, skilled agent if that is your preference. Alternatively, you can use the standard functionality of skill-based routing.
To make sure skill-based routing is used perfectly, the call center still needs to have a proper phone hierarchy by having proper IVRs in place. Generally, it will save call handling time, reduces callbacks, and help increasr first call resolution.
Key Benefits of Skill-based Call Routing
It is one of the advanced features available in modern call center solutions. By employing it in the right scenarios, a customer care or customer support center can leverage multiple benefits. Let’s explore the top benefits of using skill-based call routing:
Increased First Call Resolution Ratio
It efficiently generates rules to add related questions in the same queue of the agent groups that have suitable skills for resolution. It completely automates the issue. When issues of clients are resolved during the primary call, they can leave happy and delightful. It means within the first call, the issue gets resolved and thus, the first call resolution ratio can be increased with this call routing strategy.
Decrease Total Call Handle Time
Designating customers to agents according to particular criteria like:
- Caller’s number
- Previous issues
- Selections of IVR prompts
- And more
This method adds the customer into an exclusive queue and harmonizes with the first possible agent with the best skills to resolve this issue. This approach clearly decreases the overall time required to handle customer calls and resolve the issue.
Boost productivity
Skill-based routing feature of the call center solution is capable of increasing agent productivity with moderate training. Agents can work on getting expertise in resolving certain issues and based on that call routing can be performed.
Handle premium clients more efficiently
Handling premium or high-end customers with better service assured is important. Using skilled-based routing, this can be assured as premium clients get connected with the most skilled agent and get a quick resolution to the concerns or queries.
All companies have some premium clients. Premium customers can be those who have been using your services for many years or those who prefer the better service and can pay for the quality of services.
Connecting these premium customers to any random agent who is the next available agent can be a bad idea. You may frustrate them and also lose their account.
Thus, using skill-based routing for premium customers is inevitable. Furthermore, you can use one more feature available in the smart call center software, which is a priority queue. It is a different queue than all other queues and predefined premium customers will be added to this queue when they connect to your call center to get support.
Importance of Skill-Based Routing
It assists to mitigate much stress of customers by streamlining the process of delivering customer service. Companies have to resist negative emotions of their clients dealing with the stress of something not working and support is not up to the mark.
Your customers might be already irritated and thus, expect support and positive experience. Thus, to maintain a long-term relationship with that client, it is necessary to provide a satisfactory response.
Major Cases When Skill-based Routing Is the Best Solution to Handle Calls
Repeat Callers
To increase the power of your call center solution, it is advisable to invest in call center CRM integration. If you own a feature-rich CRM solution, integrating it will help you double the power of your call center software. When your customers call recurringly, the call center software fetches the customer profile from CRM solution and shows on the agent screen in the call center software.
When agents possess all the information regarding a customer popped out, clients experience a delightful experience. If your agents recognize their name, purchased service or solution, and the difficulties they had earlier, it can make sure the customer receives a streamlined experience. It will further improve overall client delight.
Skill-based routing will route customers to the most-skilled agent to their reoccurred concerns. If they are facing the same issues with the same service or items, connecting them with the identical type of agent repeatedly does not make sense. It is better to advance their call to even a more skilled agent.
Do not follow the approach of “We’re sorry with the inconvenience you faced. Follow the approach of “Your experience matters to us. We will solve this issue at the earliest possible.”
Recurring Issues
Recurring issues are common in product and service-based companies. Some of the common issues are:
- Card got swiped
- Configurations are not working
- Discount is not getting processed
- And more
It is unusual for a business to even notice the greatest concerns, allow simply to build a solution channel.
If your call center solution offers a feature to route them undeviatingly to support a particular problem, it prevents them from obstructing your call queues for other everyday problems. It additionally prevents them from getting agitated because of long call queues or hold times.
Recurring concerns can decay trust and confidence in your business brand. Your most reliable tool for fighting that decay is to take the best option and quickly resolve their issues. This is possible with skill-based routing.
It is just a piece of a powerful call center solution. There are many amazing features and functionalities available in a call center software to deliver exceptional customer care services. We have different call center solutions to offer as per the nature of the business and customers or campaigns to be handled. For free consultancy and a demo, .
