Overview
Queues allow you to manage the distribution of incoming or outgoing interactions for a given channel ( , , ). Every queue is omnichannel.
For a finer processing, they can be gathered in a distribution group where they will be prioritized to distribute the interactions according to the agents’ skills.
Prerequisites
- Playlists (for voice) and greeting messages (email).
- For estimated waiting time messages: the corresponding TTS.
- Qualification questionnaires.
- Scripts.
They are to be configured in the Maker.
Configuring
Everything is done in the Maker, in the “Routing” module.
The first step in creating a queue will be to determine whether it is incoming or outgoing.
There is no exclusive option for outgoing, but it has fewer parameters.
Once your queue is created, you can click on it to open the editable grid.
It is divided into six sections, all accessible through the menu on the right side of the screen.
General
For each section, we will explain the content of the fields to be filled in.
General settings
- Name: the queue’s name you entered upon creation.
- Reference: the unique reference (or ID) of your queue.
- Tag: if you have more than 10 queues, a tag is useful to sort them.
- Type: incoming (green) or outgoing (red).
- Queue weight: between 1 and 100, allows to prioritise the queues.
- Reset time: used for the calculation of ALS and SQ (see statistics section).
External queue
- Transfer to number (voice): to redirect to a number if the agent is not at their desk.
- Number (voice): if the transfer was previously activated, the phone number with the flag
Waiting
Welcome
- Welcome message (omnichannel): it will be different depending on the chosen channel (TTS or music for voice, email template and manually written text for messaging).
Entertainment
- Waiting playlist (voice): select a playlist of your choice.
- Indicator of estimated waiting time (voice, messaging): a Yes/No button.
Deterrence
- Strategy when no agent is connected (omnichannel): will you send a customer to a queue, or use your overflow strategy?
- Count agents without channel enabled: if an agent is connected, but has not activated their channel(s), the interaction will still be presented to them.
Overflow
- Enable monitoring of the number of pending interactions (omnichannel):
- Maximum number of pending interactions (omnichannel):
- Enable maximum wait time before overflow (omnichannel): if disabled, the waiting time will be unlimited.
- Maximum waiting time (omnichannel): the default setting is 5 minutes.
Note: overflow parameters are only useful if they are then linked to an action in Smart routing.
- Maximum estimated wait time (omnichannel): if the estimated waiting time is higher, the interaction will be returned to the “Maximum estimated waiting time” branch of the smart routing.
- Key to get out of line (voice): the key to be pressed by the caller to leave the queue.
Distribution
- Endpoint user for outbound interactions (omnichannel): the customer will be put in touch with someone who has already interacted with them, or their favorite agent.
- Prioritize the agents who have treated the customer (omnichannel): to redirect the client to the last agent that interacted with them.
Treatment
Presentation
- Presentation duration (omnichannel): if the agent does not take the interaction during the presentation time, it will be counted as a missed interaction for the daily statistics.
Processing time
- Processing time in open interaction (email, messaging): you have to choose between “Unlimited” and “Limited”. The second choice opens additional fields.
- Max processing time (email, messaging): if the maximum time is exceeded, the user will be alerted with a colour change in the Banner.
- Number of possibles chases (email, messaging): how many times can the agent request an extension of the treatment before automatic abandonment?
Put on hold
- Hold playlist (voice): the chosen playlist while the caller is on hold.
Automatic monitoring
- Automatic interaction monitoring (voice, email): so that every call/email is automatically recorded or reviewed.
- Supervision rate (voice, email): what proportion of interactions will be subject to supervision?
- Maximum recording time (voice): ranging from 10 seconds to 180 minutes.
- Data retention (voice): choose between “default configuration”, “unlimited”, “per day” and “per minute”. For EU companies and customers: please note that the GDPR requires you to apply a reasonable retention period (which you can justify in the context of your business).
- Conversation duration (voice): if you have chosen “per day” or “per minute”, you will have to enter a duration between 20000 and 100000 minutes.
Post interaction
- Post-interaction mode (omnichannel): will there be a break before the next interaction? You have to choose between limited (see below) and unlimited.
- Post-interaction duration (omnichannel): ranging from 0 second to 1 hour.
- Ability to extend post-interaction duration (omnichannel): can the agent request additional time before moving on to the next interaction?
- Max number of extensions (omnichannel): how many times can the post-call be extended? Between 1 and 10.
Options
Qualification
- Qualification questionnaire (omnichannel): if you want your agents to use a qualification questionnaire, those you have already created in Maker can be selected here.
- Automatic lifting of the questionnaire in post interaction: so that the questionnaire appears automatically at the end of an interaction.
- Mandatory questionnaire: to make the questionnaire mandatory (or not). Available only if you have selected a questionnaire and set the post interaction duration to “unlimited”.
Script
- Script: the scripts provide a framework (greeting, introduction of the company, reason for the call, etc.) that the agents can use.
Statistics
Explanations: SLA and QoS
This section is dedicated to the SLA (Service Agreement Level), and will allow you to calibrate the different alert levels for your agents.
According to Wikipedia, a SLA is “a commitment between a service provider and a client. Particular aspects of the service – quality, availability, responsibilities – are agreed between the service provider and the service user. The most common component of an SLA is that the services should be provided to the customer as agreed upon in the contract. As an example, Internet service providers and telcos will commonly include service level agreements within the terms of their contracts with customers to define the level(s) of service being sold in plain language terms. In this case, the SLA will typically have a technical definition of mean time between failures (MTBF), mean time to repair or mean time to recovery (MTTR); identifying which party is responsible for reporting faults or paying fees; responsibility for various data rates; throughput; jitter; or similar measurable details.”
The thresholds are set with sliders for each channel.
What are these levels for? If one of them is exceeded, the Banner’s colours will change accordingly.
The concept of QoS (quality of service) is also used. According to Wikipedia, this is what it entails:
Quality of service (QoS) is the description or measurement of the overall performance of a service, such as a telephony or computer network or a cloud computing service, particularly the performance seen by the users of the network. To quantitatively measure quality of service, several related aspects of the network service are often considered, such as packet loss, bit rate, throughput, transmission delay, availability, jitter, etc.
Statistics
SLA
- Custom SLA duration: do you want to keep the default duration (60 seconds)? If not, click on the “Yes” button.
- Max time interval sur SLA calculation: ranging from 10 seconds to 1 hour.
Landings
- Level of voice QoS: at what threshold do you want the Banner’s colours to change to signify an overload?
- Level of QS messaging: same as the above, but for another channel.
- Call waiting levels: the number of calls waiting at which point the colours of the Banner change (to orange, then to red).
- Level of pending emails: same as the above, for emails.
- Level of pending messages: same as the above, for messaging.
- Waiting time increments for a call: to trigger an alert if the client is put on hold for too long/
- Waiting time levels for emails: same as the above, for emails.
- Waiting time levels for messaging: same as the above, for messaging.
Tips
- If you add a queue to an agent’s profile while the agent is logged in, the agent will have to log out and then log back in to access it.
Preview
Once created and set up, the queue can be integrated into a profile (in the “Configuration” tab) to be used by your agents, up to a limit of 10 queues per profile.
Use case
Issue: I need to create a new queue for the smart routing (voice) of my SAV, which was distributing to agent.
Step-by-step process:
- Open the Maker, and go to “Routing”, then “Queues”.
- Create a new incoming queue: whether you use it to complement the distribution to agent or to replace it, the direction of the interaction will be the same.
- Set up the queue as needed.
- Go to your smart routing. If you want to replace the distribution to an agent, you will have to delete this action to recreate it with all its sub-items. If you want to add the distribution to file as a complement, create an action from the previous one, and do not forget to select the right branch.
- Optional: don’t forget the links if you want to return to the queue from another smart routing action!
- Go to “Users”, then “Profiles” and add the queue to the agent profile(s). If they are logged in and need it immediately, they will need to log out and log back in.
All is in order, congratulations!