Recent searches
No recent searches
Call Routing to Secondary Groups
Posted Apr 19, 2023
Curious if anyone else has experienced this:
We have our phone teams set up in groups, a primary for specific products and then an overflow group that contains everyone.
In addition to seeing weridness WITHIN a group of calls more heavily going to the same resource even if they just got off a call and others are available is weirdness BETWEEN groups.
It's my understanding for Talk routing that when a call comes in the system looks for an available agent and picks the one with the most time since their last answered call. I'm not sure that's working within a group but I am curious what the expected result would be with multiple groups.
For instance:
Conditions:
Group 1 contains: Rep A, Rep B, Rep C
Group 2 contains: Rep D, Rep E, Rep F
Group 3 contains: Rep D, Rep G and rep H
Calls come into Group 1 as primary and then Group 2 resources are secondary.
When a call comes into Group 1 it's serviced by Group 1 or goes to Group 3 as overflow
When a call comes into Group 2 it's serviced by Group 2 or goes to Group 3 as overflow
Scenario 1:
Call comes in at 8AM to Group 1 and Rep A is available and gets the call. Rep A finishes the call at 8:10AM
Next call comes into Group 1 at 8:15. All reps available. Expected result is that Rep B or C would get this call because A just finished a call and would have the shortest time since last answered call (unless the system is treating the fact that B& C haven't answered any calls as 0 time since last answered call and therefore pushing them back in the queue). What we routinely see is Rep A getting that call while B & C remain idle which should only make sense if the other two had shorter last answer times (which again COULD be the case if they haven't gotten ANY calls yet and the system is reading that as 0).
Scenario 2:
3 calls come in simultaneously to Group 1 at 8AM and all three reps (A, B and C) are occupied.
3 calls come in simultaneously to Group 2 at 8AM and all three reps (D, E and F) are occupied
At 8:15 Rep D finishes their call.
A call comes into Group 1. All those reps are still occupied so call then goes to secondary group (Group 3). In this case, since D just finished a call, Expected Result G or H would get a call. Actual result D routinely gets this call.
Does the system not track the just finished call from the other group or is it tracking G and H as zero elapsed time since last call and doesn't assign because that's less than D's elapsed time?
0
7 comments
Official
Sean Chuang
Thank you for your question and the detail description.
Your description of how Talk routes calls between and within each group is correct. If you believe the behavior is not correct, it would be best to start a ticket and let us investigate it to make sure there isn't a but in the system.
Thanks,
Sean
0
Jon Daniels
Can you clarify your question or issue further? If you have calls set to route to multiple groups, agents in the first group will be routed the call in a round robin fashion, after which the next group will be routed the call (until your Maximum queue wait time value is met and the call routes to voicemail or ends if you have voicemail off).
0
Lloyd Marcom
Yeah, it's hard to type out clearly.
What we are experiencing is that round robin doesn't seem to work within or among groups.
Within a group I can have 3 agents who are all available. Depending on the flow of calls, I can have days where every call goes to that first agent even though the other two are available.
Like if calls come in every 15 minutes and that first agent takes 10 minutes to wrap up a call and is therefor available for each new call they will literally get EVERY call that comes in and nothing will go to the other two.
It seems to work this way until all three of them have gotten a call are and all occupied at the same time and then round robin starts to work.
I suspect that in the cases where you are in a group with multiple people that round robin doesn't behave right until everyone has received a call (like for some reason the logic in the code doesn't account for having answered no calls as being next in line for the next call for some reason). In a busy call center where all of your agents will be on the phone simultaneously very quickly you wouldn't notice it but in situations where you have lighter call volume than staffing where it's possible for one person to cover all the calls over a period of time I think it becomes apparent.
I have seen other comments in the community from other folks experiencing this and the common thread seems to be a light call volume with agents who either haven't yet gotten a call for the day or have gone offline and back on (which I think is probably setting their call answered counter to zero).
0
Lloyd Marcom
On the secondary group question:
When you have a primary group set up and that group is busy and the interaction goes to the secondary group, does the round robin look at all the calls taken by people in that group (whether as a secondary location or as a user in a different primary group) to determine the next person to assign to? Or does it only look at calls answered as part of that secondary group?
For instance if I am part of Group A (my primary group) and Group B (an overflow secondary group) and I take a call at 8AM that finishes at 8:10AM and then a call goes to that secondary group at 8:15AM does the system recognize I had a call in my primary group until 8:10AM when it analyzes if I should get that call or does it assume no answered calls because I haven't yet had any from that secondary group yet?
0
Jon Daniels
For your first question, this should go to the agents that answered calls the longest ago - If possible, please reach out to us from within Zendesk directly and share any call examples that you are saying were routed to the first agent (Rep A) but should have been routed to agents (Rep B & C) - with some examples, we can look at the call routing on the back-end and find out exactly why calls were routed where they were (and what specific state the other agents were in when the call came in and was routed to the agent you don't think it should have been routed to).
Also, you'll want to make sure your Maximum Queue wait time is long enough to give these other agents a chance to answer (if it's too short, the call can go to voicemail before other agents have a chance to answer)
As for your second group question, once the call is routed to that secondary group, all the system is looking at is the availability of the agents in that group - it's not performing any logic on the group itself, only the agents within it and their availability.
Looking forward to helping you troubleshoot this in detail directly!
0
Lloyd Marcom
Thanks. I will search for examples.
Related to this based on your answer:
If Rep A is in a Primary Group and Backup Group and is on a call for the Primary Group does Zendesk realize they are on that call if a call goes to the Backup group they are also in?
What I appear to be seeing is:
Rep A is in Group 1 (primary)
Rep A is in Group 2 (Secondary)
Rep A is on a call in their group.
Call gets routed to Group 2. Even though Rep A is on the phone with a call from Group 1, in Group 2 is looks like they appear available and Zendesk tries to assign them the call. When they don't pick up (because they don't even know they are getting a call because they are already on a call) Zendesk is marking a missed call against them.
0
Jon Daniels
Thanks for the clarification, Lloyd! Talk only looks at the agent availability when the call routes to the group - if the agent is in a call, the agent is in a call (regardless of the group the call came through), and the call should immediately route to the next available agent with the most time since the last answered call.
If you have any examples where you are seeing different behavior, please start a direct conversation with us from within Zendesk (from the "get help" option under your avatar in Zendesk), and we can help you investigate your routing on specific call IDs/Ticket numbers in detail!
0