Automatic call distribution
An Automatic Call Distribution ( English for automatic call distribution ; and ACD system / ACD system ) distributes the incoming via the telephone system calls from customers ( "Inbound Telephony") of a company to the individual customer service staff. This can be an internal customer service department or an external service provider ( call center ). If no employee is currently available, the caller ends up in the queue.
commitment
With the help of the ACD software, those responsible for customer service define the rules for the distribution ("routing") of customer inquiries. This includes, for example, the "longest idle principle" - the caller who has been waiting the longest is put through to the employee whose last call was long ago. Alternatively, inquiries u. a. also distribute according to urgency / relevance or customer concerns. For this purpose, keywords such as “order”, “question about invoices”, “technical problems” or “complaint” are offered in an upstream voice menu ( Interactive Voice Response, IVR ). For the distribution, an ACD then uses certain “skills” of the employees, i.e. skills and qualifications such as language skills, technical knowledge, etc. and sends the inquiries to the employees in a correspondingly sorted manner (“skill-based distribution”). In the case of cross-location ACD solutions (see Cloud ACD), for example, requests can also be distributed by region. The connection to the regional customer service center is established based on the area code of the caller. In addition, an ACD usually offers features such as fixed or dynamic queues, overflow rules, contact reasons, text modules, telephone guides, routing plans, preset routing criteria to choose from and much more
Statistics and reporting
Modern ACD software records numerous parameters such as call times, caller waiting times, connection duration / processing time, wrap-up time, break times, status of employees (e.g. "occupied"; "free"; "break" etc.), abandoned calls (if a caller hangs up before being connected to an employee), origin of the calls and much more. This data can be filtered and assigned according to criteria, e.g. according to locations, groups, employees, projects or time periods and are used for statistical analysis of service performance.
quality control
To improve the quality of contact processing, ACD solutions enable, for example, call recording (call recording of individual, selected or all telephone calls), screen recording (screen recording of the entire screen or individual applications or areas) and monitoring (listening in) during contact processing. When using such solutions, however, the consent of the employee or the caller must be obtained in advance. Sometimes ACD systems also offer the option of carrying out a customer satisfaction survey by voice or on the web directly after a customer contact. The participant is either queried on the phone or receives a link to a written survey at the end of an email contact or chat. Customer surveys can be initiated and carried out manually by the employee or carried out semi-automatically / fully automatically. Automated surveys are usually cheaper than manually conducted surveys and reduce the possibility of manipulation by employees. On the other hand, the willingness of customers to take part in a personal survey by an employee is usually greater, which leads to a higher participation rate in a customer survey.
Cross-channel solutions
While ACD systems were initially only responsible for distributing telephone inquiries, modern ACD solutions are now able to integrate virtually any form of customer inquiry into the distribution. Such so-called “multichannel ACD” or “omnichannel solutions” distribute not only calls but also e-mails, scanned faxes and letters, SMS, processes from external systems (CRM / ERP), entries from Facebook and Twitter, WhatsApp inquiries or incoming chat - Inquiries in Live Support. Ideally, the employees in customer service can then handle inquiries from all channels in just one user front end (“client”). Several thousand users, any number of groups and mailboxes can be set up in modern ACD systems.
Operating modes
On premise
A physical system on site is called a local or on-premise system. This is suitable for companies in which calls are processed exclusively and permanently at one location, and the call volume is high and even.
Cloud ACD
If an ACD is not used as a physical system but as a web-based or cloud-based solution via the Internet, it is referred to as a "cloud ACD", a "virtual ACD" or a "virtual call center". Service employees do not have to sit together at the same location to receive inquiries via the ACD, but are involved in the distribution and processing across all locations. All employees at all locations access the same solution at the same time. If companies use web-based personnel scheduling or workforce management in addition to the ACD, the data from the ACD and workforce management can ideally be linked with one another, for example for billing purposes. Cloud-based ACD services are usually billed flexibly "pay per use", ie according to the number of calls / minutes actually processed. A cloud ACD is suitable for companies that want to build up their customer service step by step, where call volumes fluctuate or grow significantly. A cloud ACD is also suitable if a cross-location solution is required to integrate multiple locations and / or home offices or to create a transition or fallback solution in the event of a failure of the on-premise ACD.
According to Bitkom, an important criterion when selecting cloud service providers is the issue of data protection, in particular the requirement that data remain within the EU or in Germany and that the service providers meet the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).