The communications industry has evolved greatly. With the advent of the latest call centre software solutions and its ever-advancing features, it is becoming more and more convenient for start-ups or large brands to manage their business communication, both ways, without requiring much effort and investment.
But how important is good business communication? According to consumer research, 67% of customers will increase their business with a company because of effective communication. However, following a negative customer experience, 38% of customers are likely to cancel the order or go to a competitor, 66% will share their story with a friend, whereas 41% would completely quit doing business with the company.
Meanwhile, this is how much impactful role good (or bad) communication plays in shaping success of your business. Call routing is one of the features of our inbound call center software that is perfect to help you develop a profound business communication system.
What is Call Routing ?
Call routing is a feature that automatically aligns the inbound calls based on a predestined set of rules to specific agents. This allows customers to directly reach the most suited, or available sales representative or support team without much delay.
It is also known as an automatic call distributor (ACD), considering it automatically routes the call. Meanwhile, it can route calls based on call volume, language preference, agent’s availability, time, and department.
How Does Call Routing Work?
The process is intertwined with the use of Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and other features:
- Qualifying Phase: The caller gives some information about their purpose of calling using their voice, and keypad by answering some pre-set questions.
- Call queuing phase: IVR feature forwards the gathered information to the call routing or ACD for queuing. The call routing system also identifies the caller’s phone number, and with the use of information like extension number, historical data, and other existing data like demographics match them with the pre-set criteria for routing calls.
- Call distribution phase: The calls will stay in the queue until an agent takes the call. Here, the queuing process can vary depending upon the type of method you have set for the call distribution method.
Understanding Types of Call Routing Strategies
There are multiple call routing strategies, however, the most useful ones are the following:
- Skill-based Routing
Skill-based routing is used to connect incoming calls to the most qualified agents, as per the collected data by IVR. This strategy allows for the best customer interaction. However, in case of high call volume, this can also increase waiting time for customers as the best agent might be too busy to deal with every call.
- Time-based Routing
Time-based routing, as the name predicts, routes the call to the agents available as per the time zone or business hours. Call centers usually function 24/7, therefore, this can help you to make sure that your customers always reach the agent. That is available at the time of their call. Otherwise, if they are left hanging in the waiting queue after their call is routed, it can leave a very bad impression.
- Round Robin Routing
Round robin routing system rotates the call among all agents evenly unless someone picks up. This gives every agent a fair chance to succeed. It is also known as a stick routing system.
Why You Should Use Call Routing?
Whether you need call center software for small businesses, or large enterprise, the call routing features can really help you effectively implement your communication strategy and deal with customers in an effective manner.
It Can Help Improve Customer Experience
When a customer makes a call to any inbound call center software, what does he want? He wants his call to be picked up early and connected to the right agent, so he can get his answers without any delay.
Meanwhile, with just the right features to deliver it all, call routing can help enhance your customer experience. How? Let’s see.
- Less waiting time: Call routing enables you to connect incoming calls to the agents that are readily available at the time. Thus reducing waiting time in the queue and effectively decreasing the dropped or abandoned call number.
- Qualitative interaction: The routed system can help call representatives focus more on the problem and help them sort it out patiently.
- Enhanced productivity: This automatic system also helps optimize workflows leading to improved productivity and efficiency.
- No language barrier: With a call routing system, you can also directly connect the calls to the agents that speak the preferred language of the customer, reducing the chances of the language barrier.
- Connect to the right agent: Skill-based routing connects the call with sales and support reps with the right skills to accommodate customers.
- Round-the-clock availability: Time-based routing allows you to enhance your operationalization. With the feature, you can set up your call centre cloud software round the clock, so the live agent can take incoming calls.
How to Determine the Best Strategy for Your Business?
The type of routing strategy you select for your call centre software will make a significant difference in how customers perceive your service. The system you select will eventually determine your workflow. In the meantime, there is no hard and fast rule to help you decide which system would work the best for your business. It totally depends upon your business requirements and workflow.
However, here are some of the things you can do with call routing for efficient phone management:
- Personalize a greeting with some information about your business hours.
- Allow customers to leave a message for a specific employee with either name or extension.
- Set rules for a waiting queue, probably let callers know their place in the holding line. You can also allow them to even exit with a voice message. So they can be reached back to when an agent is available.
- Send customers to an automated voice response system.
- Send customers a message or to another department if no one is available.
- Set rules for how long the phone should ring before the system determines there’s no available agent to answer the call.
Ultimately, call routing will enable you to retain customers, keep the relationship strong, and improve chances of their interest in your other services. With Xinix World, you get top-quality Vicidial call center cloud software with numerous options for voice calling features. You would get multiple other features along with call routing, IVR, and VoIP that will help you profoundly impact your customer experience.
For more information about the Vicidial software packages, and other services, please visit our Xinix World website.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between call routing and call forwarding?
Call routing is the ability to connect calls to a specific agent depending upon the pre-set rules. Call forwarding is the process of redirecting incoming calls from one phone number to another for the same person if the initial line is not available.
How do I set up a call routing?
All you have to do is select the feature while purchasing our package. You can also let the representative know the specifics you are looking for. Our team will virtually manage the rest for you. Once the system is implemented, you can easily access all features and best utilize them for the benefit of your business.
What is advanced call routing?
Advanced call routing is the same call routing feature but is cloud-based call center software. This feature will help you effectively manage the call system, and retain existing clients as well as attract potential ones.
How are VoIP calls routed?
VoIP calls are routed in a similar manner as they work. They convert the incoming voice into compressed digital packets. The packets are then sent to the receiver over the internet where they are transferred back to the sound.
