Introduction to ACD Processing

The ACD Processing Technical Reference provides an overview of how ACD (Automatic Communication Distribution) works in CIC (Customer Interaction Center) and explains how to set up and configure ACD processing to meet your organization's needs.

Audience

The information is for two groups of people:

• People who want to learn about Customer Interaction Center’s ACD capabilities.

• People setting up and configuring ACD on their Customer Interaction Center system.

Summary

Customer Interaction Center’s ACD intelligently routes telephone calls, chat calls, email messages, social media conversations and direct messages, and generic objects (collectively referred to as interactions). ACD routing is based on agent availability, skill levels, costs, priority, and any other attribute you choose. There is no limit to the number or size of the ACD queues configured to receive interactions. Customer Interaction Center’s ACD quickly finds the best match between agent and interaction by calculating agents' scores and interaction scores. A subsystem on the CIC server, called ACD Server, calculates these scores. This subsystem’s main job is to calculate agent and interaction scores, even when there are many interactions in an ACD queue. By configuring the formula used to calculate these scores, you customize the ACD system to meet your needs.

Some of the elements of the agent score and interaction score formulas are:

• Agent skills

• Agent cost

• Time an agent has been available

• Interaction skill requirement

• Interaction priority level

• Time an interaction has been in an ACD Queue

• Time an interaction has been in CIC

An administrator can configure Customer Interaction Center’s ACD capabilities using Interaction Administrator settings and handlers, and can assign attributes for each agent (skills, proficiencies, cost, or other attributes you create). Whether you add an agent or update an agent’s profile, the change takes effect immediately.

Handlers assign the skill, priority, and cost requirements to an interaction. When an interaction comes in, handlers assign minimum requirements to an interaction. Customer Interaction Center generates a list of available qualified agents who can take the interaction. Then Customer Interaction Center selects the most appropriate agent to take the interaction based on any combination of skills, cost, or availability. If an interaction goes unanswered or remains on hold too long, you can flag that interaction for special processing.

Customer Interaction Center’s ACD is designed to work in two scenarios:

• There are many agents available to take an interaction. In this situation, Customer Interaction Center chooses the best agent to take the interaction.

• There are many interactions waiting and an agent becomes available. In this case, Customer Interaction Center selects the best interaction for that agent to answer.