Queue and Route

1. A company can receive calls, and messages on their business phone numbers, or receive messages from web/mobile chats or social channels.
2. Each conversation over a channel is referred to as a contact, and a company can receive multiple such requests (over each channel) at a given period in time. Sometimes, these requests could be more than the agents available to pick up the contacts. 
3. Companies would want to place the contacts in the queue before routing them to an agent. The company can hold onto customers' requests even when agents are unavailable and then assign an agent once one becomes available to assist the customer.
4. In a routing workflow, the ‘Queue & Route’ component will be used to perform 2 operations - Holding customer requests in a queue and Routing the requests to the appropriate agents based on availability. 

5. Output states of the Queue and Route component: 

   • Completed: When the conversation with the customer is complete, this state is triggered. In the case of a call, the state is triggered when the conversation between the agent and the customer is completed. In the case of a chat/message, the state is triggered when the agent marks the conversation CLOSED from the desktop application.
   • Enqueue Failed: This state is triggered when a queue has reached its capacity to hold contacts.
     Example: Let’s assume that the queue capacity if set to 5 and there are 6 incoming requests waiting in the queue. 5 incoming requests would be dequeued(based on the dequeue order) and the 6th one would fail. 
   • Wait Timeout: When a contact is enqueued, it waits in the queue till it is assigned to an agent. If (time-out for channel > wait-time for contact), the Wait Timeout status of the ‘Queue & Route’ component is triggered.
   • Assignment Failed: If the contact is not assigned after the specified number of retries, this state is triggered

Queue

In the component, the user has the option to do the following - Create a new queue/ Select an existing queue

1. Select an Existing Queue: In the dropdown for the queue selector, the user can select a queue from the list of available queues. On selecting an existing queue, the details of that queue will be shown.
2. Configure New Queue: Users can click the ‘Create New Queue’ option in the dropdown for the queue selector to create a new queue.
3. Queue Name (Max: 255 characters): Queue name has to be unique for every organization.
4. Queue Capacity: Maximum number of contacts the queue can hold at any given time. Ranges between 1 and 10; defaults to 10.
5. Queue Priority: Priority of the queue in comparison to other queues in the contact centre. A lower value indicates higher priority. This value would be used to decide the Queue to de-queue when an agent (who serves multiple queues) becomes available. Ranges between 1 and 10; Defaults to 5

   • Example:

     • Agent A is a part of 2 Queues: Queue 1 and Queue 2.

     • The priority set for Queue 1 is 3 and the priority set for Queue 2 is 6

     • As incoming requests enter the queues, those entering the queue with the lowest priority will be the first to be dequeued (Queue 1) and assigned to the agent.

6. De-queue Order: Order in which contacts are dequeued from a queue, i.e either in First-in First-out or Last-in First-out. Defaults to First-in First-outEvent Callbacks:
   • When a Flow execution is in the Queue and Route component, multiple events take place related to a conversation. 
     • Agent Assigned
     • Conversation Transferred
     • ACW Completed
   • Admin can consume these updates by configuring a callback URL in the component. They can choose to configure a different URL for each event or consume all the events on the same URL. 
     

Channels

1. Time-out:
   • Specifies the period for which a contact can be present in the queue
   • The default is set to 20 seconds, for all channels
2. Waiting Prompt: 
   
   • The prompt played to contacts, while they are in the waiting queue. The prompt can be a mix of waiting music(Add Audio Prompt) and waiting messages(Add Text Prompt). 
   • Waiting music/messages allows businesses to provide users with a greeting message, options to exit the queue, etc and take alternative actions. 
     • Multiple steps of play audio/speak text can be configured
     • Play Audio step has an option to repeat the music for a specified period

        

       

     • Play Audio & Speak text steps have the option to be played in a loop till the Contact times out

       

        

3. Key Presses to exit queue

   • While the Contacts are in the queue (waiting to be assigned to an agent), the business can provide them to stop waiting, exit the queue and take alternate actions (like requesting a callback, escalating or changing the team they want to speak, etc.). 
   • Contacts can press keys on their phone (& provide DTMF input) and take alternative actions on the call.
     • Each selected key is shown on the ‘Queue & Route’ component as an output state on the node. New nodes can be connected to this output state, and they will be executed when a contact presses the corresponding input while waiting in the queue. 
     • Ex: If ‘1' is selected as a valid input, there would be a ‘1’ output state on the ‘Queue & Route’ component. The nodes connected to '1’ will be executed when a contact presses 1 when waiting in the queue
       

       

        

       

4. Hold Music: Music to be played to the agent or customer when the call is on hold.

Route and Assign

1. Assign To: Users can configure the agents or teams to which the conversations of that particular flow must be assigned.
2. Routing Strategy
   • Highest Idle Time: Routes conversations to the agent/s who have been inactive or unengaged while on duty for the longest duration.
   • Simultaneous: The simultaneous routing strategy of agents involves distributing incoming conversations to multiple available agents simultaneously, 
   • Lowest Conversations Handled: Route conversations to the agent/s who have handled the least number of conversations. 
   • Lowest Conversation Handle Time: Route conversations to the agent/s who have spent the least time handling conversations. 
   • Auto Answer Calls: If this feature is enabled, the incoming calls are automatically answered(once assigned to an agent) without requiring manual intervention from the agent.
   • Ring time before Auto-answering: Using this feature, a delay can be set before an incoming call is auto-answered
3. Assignment Reservation and Assignment Retry: This goes hand-in-hand with the routing strategy.  

   • For example:

     • Routing strategy = Highest Idle Time

     • Assignment Reservation = 3

     • Assignment retry = 1

   • As per the above configuration, the conversation is routed to the 1st 3 available agents (Assignment Reservation) who have the highest idle time. If none of the agents accepts the conversation, then there is 1 Assignment Retry made to the next 3 available agents who have the highest idle time.
     If the count of agents are unavailable, then the system will route the conversation to the agents (<3, in this case) who are available. 

      

4. Sticky Routing: 
   • This feature is used when you would want the conversations to be routed to the same agent who attended the previous conversation of the customer so that the customer does need not to explain the issue again and also can get a faster resolution.
   • Types of sticky routing: 
     • Loosely bind:  Route to the same agent if the agent is available else the routing will happen based on the ‘Routing Strategy’ selected by the admin.
     • Strictly bind: Route only to the same agent. If the agent is not available, the conversation will not be attempted further.
     • No sticky routing: Routing Strategy will be followed for all conversations from the same customer.

5. Expiry of Sticky Routing: You can select the time in days/hours for which the mapping between an agent and customer must be present. If, “No Expiry” is selected, then the mapping between the agent and customer will remain.