Actionable Guide to Call Routing

Team LimeCall

December 30, 2021
minutes to read

Call center software program functions like call forwarding and IVR self-carrier shorten Average Handling Time (AHT) and growth of first call decision rates, ensuring callers get the help they want quickly. Call routing is another special VoIP smartphone device characteristic that connects callers with qualified dealers who have the education and skillsets needed to provide the best help to the client. 

Businesses can use numerous call routing techniques to reduce preserve times, save you endless call transfers to more than one call center agent, and enhance the general client experience.

WHAT IS CALL ROUTING?

call routing

Call routing is the procedure of setting live calls in a queue and dividing them into the correct departments or marketers based on pre-installed policies and standards. These policies may be based totally on each purchaser and agent’s behavior and encompass routing elements like the cause for the purchaser’s call or the quantity of time an agent has long passed without speaking to a caller. 

Call routing is likewise called an automatic call distribution (ACD) machine. Intelligent call routing permits the machine administrator to immediately join the caller to a particular smartphone line or extension without setting the caller on hold. 

The communications enterprise had become protracted from the times while switchboard operators obtained incoming calls and manually transferred them to the receiving party. As the communications enterprise evolved, small companies usually employed a receptionist to reply to incoming calls and manually direct calls to someone who ought to assist them. It’s a procedure that works nicely for corporations that hire professional receptionists. However, it’s now no longer the maximum efficient workflow by today’s standards.

Call routing systems, also called automatic call vendors or ACD, are aptly named because they paint to distribute calls automatically. Call routing is a characteristic of a smartphone machine based on a fixed set of custom-designed policies. In essence, it’s a characteristic that automatically locates incoming calls right into a queue and routes them to a particular income or help consultant or a collection of humans primarily based totally on the policies and standards that you’ve preset. Call distribution takes place seamlessly and inside seconds.

The phone remains the full favored mode of conversation for consumers. Call routing is a unique characteristic that streamlines smartphone conversations, increases efficiency, and enhances the purchaser experience.

DIFFERENT TYPES OF CALL ROUTING:

Routing techniques are the preset call routing regulations and standards you may pick from to divide your calls better. The concept of routing techniques evolved as a more excellent efficient answer than direct call routing, which uses different enterprise phone numbers for departments, dealers, or precise offers.

While direct call routing may be beneficial if used conservatively, having too many extraordinary enterprise smartphone numbers confuses clients, results in lengthy wait times, and increases the call center abandonment rate. It’s now no longer an effective call control method, mainly for medium to large-sized businesses.

The below call routing techniques get clients to assist faster, lower holds, and regularly take away the want for consumer callbacks. 

Least Occupied Routing:

The least dynamic routing, sometimes called maximum idle routing, connects the inbound call to the agent that has taken the fewest range of calls or has the lowest communication time that day. This is mainly useful for customer support and help departments because it prevents the man or woman representatives from getting overburdened with calls.

Round Robin Routing:

Round robin routing frivolously distributes inbound help or income calls amongst dealers. System directors create an enterprise VoIP set of rules for coping with incoming calls to the income team, growing a greater equitable income branch.

Predictive Behavioral Routing:

Predictive behavioral routing (sometimes called wise routing) uses live and historical call center information to attach the caller to the agent who might be capable of offering the exceptional answer and which agent the caller is the maximum possible to prefer.

This routing method uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to assess elements like the caller’s favored verbal exchange channel, their purchase/customer support history, and the caller’s persona and behavioral profile.

Time-Based Routing:

Time-primarily based routing route calls are primarily based totally on the agent’s time-sector or enterprise hours. It’s mainly famous with international and geographically diverse call centers because it guarantees that your dealers won’t obtain consumer calls at 2:00 AM their time or on every occasion they may now no longer be scheduled to work.

Sequential Routing:

Also called constant order routing, sequential routing is a list-primarily based order that continues a particular agent on the front of the road to obtain consumer calls at a particular time. 

VIP Routing:

VIP routing, or caller ID routing, prioritizes your maximum essential clients, pushing them to the front of the road after touching your call center.

STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE CALL ROUTING:

There are simplified kinds of call routing, of which each has a vital function to play, relying on the complexity and adulthood of your consumer touch operation.

Direct Routing (Hunt Groups):

Typically, companies that might be simply setting up themselves have a greater fundamental technique to consumer carriers; they need to attach consumer calls with the proper branch inside their commercial enterprise. Here direct routing is the same old model. If you need Sales, call the Sales number, and if it’s busy, you wait. For Service, you call an utterly extraordinary number. The call is continually related to a character, and if they’re busy, it is going directly to the subsequent character on the list.

Least Idle/Least Occupancy Routing:

Using an Automatic Call Distributor (ACD), configurations can alternate from greater fundamental ‘hunt groups’ to barely greater state-of-the-art routing techniques consisting of least idle routing wherein calls are positioned with the agent who’s been looking ahead to a call the longest. With Least Occupied Routing, the subsequent call is dispatched to whoever’s been least applied all through the day. This receives across the lower back of the queue recreation wherein retailers who do now no longer need to take calls hit the equipped country after which hit the idle country (consequently making them now no longer available).

Skills-primarily Routing:

Selecting abilities-primarily based routing surroundings ensures that your assets are utilized effectively, so you no longer have lengthy wait instances for carrier calls. You can assist enhance the consumer’s enjoyment by matching the very best professional agent to the caller. As a result, multi-professional retailers want to be assigned extraordinary abilities in addition to a talent stage for every talent assigned.

Dynamic and Service Level Routing:

However, choosing through abilities on my own won’t always assure a glad consumer. Does the agent sincerely have all of the abilities needed? Is the agent sincerely empowered to reply to the consumer’s query, or will they skip the call directly to a manager for completion? In addition to abilities primarily based on totally routing, we’re also searching at anticipated wait instances to offer higher consumer enjoyment inside carrier stage thresholds. Here dynamic, primarily based routing can assist in making the good picks. In conjunction with Dynamic Routing, if anticipated wait instances for a selected talent are at threat of being breached, ‘lower back up’ or ‘reserve’ retailers may be pulled into the queue to hold the carrier stage. This kind of routing is referred to as carrier stage routing.

Intelligent Call Routing:

Routing becomes simpler while you truly realize who’s on the road and their motive for calling. By using an easy speech-enabled IVR method on the front-quit of the call, companies could make the method a lot simpler for clients by actually asking them who they’re and the motive for their call. From this degree, an Intelligent Routing method can direct calls to the quality employer resource agent or self-carrier in line with pre-described rules. For greater complicated consumer inquiries, it’s vital that retailers have unique knowledge, enjoy and empowerment to make selections. Enterprise packages integration and display screen pop abilities also can aid retailers with the proper consumer and employer records on the time of the call, enhancing each carrier tier and agent productivity.

Business Rules Routing:

Once your ACD and routing engines are in place, companies can begin configuring their call routing method to aid unique commercial enterprise objectives. Examples should be routing better price clients via to professional Premier retailers, connecting clients who point out they’re finally an account to a committed Retentions crew, or providing callers with a choice to be related to the agent they spoke with remaining time they called.

Data-directed Routing:

Taking intelligent call routing a degree further, companies can now construct inside the intelligence to assist facts-directed routing picks approximately consumer calls primarily based on their current status. For example, a credit score card consumer might call with an inquiry; however, if their account is overdue, this can get flagged up for the duration of the preliminary ID, and the touch can be routed first to the fee collections function. Integrating the preliminary IVR ID method with contemporary consumer facts can offer a practical answer for corporations. Identifying clients early within the call opens up masses of possibilities community call centers and greater non-public dating routing of calls to retailers or carrier experts who have treated a consumer earlier.

Value-based Routing:

This mixture of the consumer ID with greater unique CRM-fashion records opens up new possibilities for price-primarily based routing. These routing selections move past price and fine to introduce a price or revenue-primarily based totally into the equation. It is probably a mobile phone consumer calling in 3 months earlier than their settlement comes up for renewal to test on its details. A price-primarily based routing choice might acknowledge that the consumer has a better propensity to exchange at this point and routes the call at once to a retention crew to make sure that the caller remains with their current issuer. Or it can be a credit score card enterprise upselling a consumer right into a consolidated mortgage primarily based totally on their first-rate contemporary balance.

Outbound Routing:

Another vital improvement is that routing selection doesn’t continually be on inbound interactions. While we know the significance of conventional metrics consisting of standard call duration or common managing time, many companies are turning to more recent measurements consisting of Net Promoter Scores that tune what number of clients indeed suggest the carrier they receive. Its modern services consist of outbound routing, which might allow a loan issuer to textual content a consumer right away their mortgage utility has been approved and is some distance much more likely to steer a consumer to make recommendations.

Multimedia and Multimodal Routing:

As for character purchasers, we’re all now interacting with our providers throughout more than one channel. We may also get an outstanding voice carrier. However, that doesn’t make paintings continually while we touch an enterprise through electronic mail or SMS. The key routing venture many corporations now face is the way to now no longer aid multimedia routing throughout more than one consumer touch channel. However, the way to course the one’s transactions continually whether or not it’s voice, electronic mail, IVR, speech, Web or SMS. This turns into even greater acute while multimedia extends to include multimodal routing, wherein a consumer is probably calling or emailing from a selected kind of tool or location.

BENEFITS OF ADVANCED CALL ROUTING:

Advanced call routing offers companies an array of routing alternatives to pick. These are smart call routing techniques designed for most excellent efficiency. Whether you’ve got workplaces and personnel in more than one place or need to cater to international clients who call at some point of off-hours, you could course calls to more than one place, lines, or numbers in a manner that guarantees no calls cross unanswered and that all callers attain the proper branch on the proper time. Here are the essential advantages of using a superior call routing provider for call management.

Help Callers Reach the Right Employee:

With smart call routing, your ACD or superior IVR device that routes calls can discover the reason for the call through asking questions and offering the caller exceptional menu alternatives. Then, the automatic device transfers the caller to the proper branch, worker, or agent for help. With this, you could: 

Connect callers with retailers inside their time region or place, and Connect callers with the personnel they’ve formerly interacted with. Doing so guarantees easy transfers and a more desirable purchaser experience. Customers can connect to the worker’s best appropriate to help them create a buy or resolve an issue, with no hurdles.

Reduce Wait Times and Call Abandonment Rates:

You could course and ring calls on more than one phone simultaneously with superior call routing. Or, you could send calls down a predetermined listing of personnel; while one is busy, the call actions to the subsequent in line. This will increase the probability of the caller connecting with a worker fast, decreasing wait times. Additionally, the much less time a caller spends ready in a call queue, they’re much less likely to desert a call. In this manner, callers are getting their queries resolved, possibly at some point of the first call, to better purchaser pleasure scores.

Reduce the Number of Missed Calls:

Since you could course calls to exceptional places and workplaces, you could pick ahead calls coming in outdoor or commercial enterprise hours to far-flung retailers or personnel in different places and time zones. In this manner, callers nonetheless get help, and your personnel does now no longer ought to paintings strange shifts or paintings over time. And through making sure that callers connect to a person even at some point of off-hours, you could lessen the wide variety of calls neglected or unanswered.

Adopt a Follow the Sun Support Model:

Whether you’re a large multinational corporation or a small commercial enterprise trying to increase offerings to neighboring nations and areas, complying with the solar routing will assist you in providing 24/7, round-the-clock help even if your commercial enterprise isn’t always placed across the globe. You could make your commercial enterprise available to clients and callers by routing incoming calls in your commercial enterprise places and far-flung retailers in exceptional areas and time zones.

Provide Global Customer Support:

Part of any international customer service method is to make your commercial enterprise to be had in your clients anywhere they’re. By establishing exceptional area workplaces in key goal markets and places, you can achieve this. Or, through presenting multichannel customer service, this is monitored 24/7 through chat, phone, email, etc.

In an identical vein, call routing with international call forwarding permits you to ahead incoming calls from one place to any other without traumatic approximately international calling fees. And you could course those calls to precise workplaces or more than one place, as needed. Together, those offerings can enhance the manner your commercial enterprise gives help to international clients.

Offer Voicemail and Self-Service Options:

If your personnel or retailers are busy and callers are left ready, provide them voicemail and self-provider alternatives. Let callers opt-out of the IVR device and depart a voicemail with touch records. As quickly as an agent is to be had, they could call the purchaser lower back, and the purchaser no longer ought to wait on the phone.

You may also even allow your callers to know, through pre-recorded messages, that they could publish a ticket or take a look at your online help guide. These are self-provider alternatives they could use to get help fast on their own while not having to speak to a rep on the phone. You could even layout your IVR device to provide troubleshooting assistance and solutions to questions. The routing device will send callers to the proper pre-recorded message primarily based totally on their input.

Add Custom Greetings and Messages:

As clients navigate your ACD or IVR device, tell them about the latest capabilities and offerings, corporation records and updates, and prerecorded messages (human, now no longer automated). You can use custom greetings for positive businesses of clients (predetermined through the wide variety they call from), vacation greetings for significant holidays, and so forth. This makes your commercial enterprise seem extra-human in place of simply having an automatic reaction on the phone.

Balance Out Employee Workload:

By routing calls effectively, you could distribute the workload amongst your personnel. In this manner, no unmarried worker is inundated with numerous calls and duties simultaneously as others live idle. Balancing the workload will allow your commercial enterprise to efficiently manipulate high call volumes.

Improve Customer Satisfaction:

Finally, all the techniques mentioned above and advantages assist your commercial enterprise in providing higher customer service. And while you provide dependable and responsive help, you boom purchaser pleasure and benefit extra unswerving clients.

IMPORTANCE OF CALL ROUTING:

Call routing is essential to organizations, whether or not massive or small, because it allows them to be extra correctly speak with their clients or customers while on an equal time assisting them in holding a great public image.

The precept behind call routing is creating your commercial enterprise to be had to everyone and at any time, even if you are closed or your personnel is in any other case occupied. It additionally offers extra customized attention, making it viable to switch callers, normally automatically, to the personnel or departments that could deal with precise needs. Call routing is a digital necessity for corporations or companies with many departments or carrier alternatives.

Advanced call routing is going past the cap potential to switch a person to every other line. This generation permits corporations to acquire facts approximately their clients and assist them in apprehending their precise needs. The result is the maximum customized customer support viable. Businesses themselves will enjoy the manner advanced call routing enables them to hold clients or even offer extra or associated services.

Call routing techniques are to be had to fulfill the necessities of personal organizations. These alternatives consist of the switch to or as a minimum identity of the wanted branch or associated store, the distribution of calls to save you personnel from being crushed through purchaser questions or court cases, and the filtering of messages to assist organization representatives in addressing difficult callers.

Modern call routing structures also can be used for promotional reasons, allowing you to split your organization from aggressive organizations or even assisting you perceive your purchaser base. However, any call routing plan must be cautiously tested earlier than it’s far followed through your commercial enterprise. A session together with your phone company will let you work out the information and set up the gadget to be of maximum use in your organization and your personnel. A call routing carrier could make your commercial enterprise efficient and extra profitable.

HOW SOFTWARE HELPS IN CALL ROUTING:

You may make critical selections concerning your phone gadget that determine what standards you may use to the direction of your incoming calls and your preference of call routing software program. This software program method is likewise called Automatic Call Distribution (ACD). You can switch the call to the following to be had by a person. That’s one manner you may manage an incoming call. These are some others, which you can discover are benefits for your enterprise.

Language preference: There is an exceptional gain to being transferred immediately to a person who speaks your local language or in a preferred language.

Emergency-first call routing: This is a no-brainer, have urgent calls routed immediately.

General branch filtering: The calls visit an appropriate branch, which includes accounting, technical support, sales, etc.

For return calls: If a caller does now no longer wants to preserve on, however, chooses to get a return call, they may be transferred to a voicemail gadget to permit them to send a message.

The excellent routing answer on your enterprise will range substantially with the aid of using your enterprise type, geographic location, personnel, etc. 

What else can a call routing software program do?

In addition to presenting a manner to channel your incoming phone calls.

Dialed Number Identification Service (DNIS): You want a manner to perceive which phone range the caller dialed. This is performed with the aid of using DNIS. 

Graphical User Interface (GUI): The person interfaces (call routing software program package) will ever have one-of-a-kind interfaces. That’s commonly the determining thing to your preference of software program. Your operators and provider technicians ought to have a look at those displays all day so that you need to ensure it’s on their eyes.

Multiple Messages and Customized Agent Screens: Do you want one-of-a-kind messages to greet callers to one-of-a-kind numbers? If so, your call routing software program will assist you. You may additionally want custom-designed displays. This may be dealt with as well. 

Multimedia Support: This consists of electronic mail and chat (the ones little pop-up containers that seem on websites that provide the possibility to speak to an agent). 

Call Queuing: Do you’ve got instances in which you’ve got extra callers than marketers to address them? You can “stack” them. This is called a Call Queue. You can do some matters even as the caller is on preserve, which includes playing a tune or using an IVR for additional (pre-screening) facts from the caller, which lets you know the direction of the call extra effectively.

Read more about Limecall’s Call Routing feature here: https://limecall.com/features/call-routing/.

CONCLUSION

Customers are online in any respect hours of the day and night. Your commercial enterprise has to offer a few forms of verbal exchange any time they call to offer the friendly purchaser help. This holds genuine even if all representatives are busy or your commercial enterprise hours are over.

Whether income or help representatives are without delay to be had or not, the proper routing functions and workflows make sure that your clients realize who’s assisting them and while they can anticipate getting answers. With call routing, retailers are freed as much as recognition on high-cost conversations and duties in preference to transferring calls manually. Not to say it offers purchaser pleasure a lift since callers do not have to wait as long to get to the proper person.

Whether you run an inbound income group in a small commercial enterprise or a big contact center group, an effortlessly customizable call routing characteristic permits you to lessen the probabilities of your retailers getting beaten through purchaser calls and is palms down one of the nice matters you could do to enhance purchaser enjoy. Ultimately, call routing will help your efforts to keep clients to preserve the connection robust so they’ll be receptive while providing extra merchandise and services. 

Now, a terrific communications platform or phone machine can automatically route calls for you, permitting you to offer a superb purchaser enjoy with low call wait instances while making sure callers get to the maximum professional retailers for their specific questions.

You get a couple of alternatives for voice calling functions and an extensive type of different voice calling functions. What’s more, dashboard analytics supply you with widespread perception into call volumes, period of calls, decision instances, and different metrics in real-time. Proper routing is simply one of the many abilities you could gain while you operate a contact center software program to offer excellent viable purchaser service, which profoundly affects the purchaser’s experience.

, December 30, 2021, Team LimeCall

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