Defining Skill Reduction Values
You must have rights to modify the queue.
You use this procedure to define skill requirements and corresponding waiting times to reduce the queue's skill requirements. If there are no available agents who fulfill the queue's skill requirements, the defined skill requirements and waiting times are taken into use. Reduced skill requirements are absolute and, thus, conversations can be offered only to agents that have all skills at or above the defined level.
Skill reduction applies only to skill requirements defined for the queue and its extensions. These skill requirements are called reducible skills.
If you have defined a queue priority and values for Importance of Skill Matching and Importance of Contact Waiting Time in , do not lower skill requirements to 0. These priority settings and zero‑level skill requirements may lead to a situation in which conversations with shorter queuing time are offered before conversations that have been queuing longer.
- On the System Configurator main screen, choose .
-
Search for the queue whose settings you want to configure.
The search result list appears.
- Choose the queue by double-clicking it.
- Choose Skill Reduction.
-
Enter the skill requirements and the waiting time (in seconds) for each
requirement.
example:
Queue1
has a skill requirement 5 for skillGerman language
and the following reduction values:Time (s)
Skill Requirement
35
4
40
3
35
2
Agents that are available and serving in
Queue1
have the following skill levels:Agent
Skill Level
Agent 1
5
Agent 2
4
Agent 3
3
Agent 4
2
The conversation is offered to
Agent 1
but if they do not accept within 35 seconds, the conversation is offered toAgent 2
. IfAgent 2
does not accept, the conversation is offered toAgent 3
after 40 seconds and then toAgent 4
after 35 seconds. -
In the Use Absolute Waiting
Times field, choose if you want the system to always use the defined skill
reduction times. Options are:
Option Description Not Defined The system uses the value of this setting selected at the channel level. On The system offers conversations to agents using the defined skill reduction values. Off The system can offer a conversation to the agent with the highest skill levels immediately, if the agent’s skill levels fulfill the skill requirement of the last skill reduction step.
For more information about this option, see Skill reduction when Use Absolute Waiting Times is set to Off.
- Save your entries.
Potentially available agents
This means that if all the agents that fulfil the queue’s skill requirements are, for example, Not Ready or busy with another conversation, the system waits the defined skill reduction time before reducing the skill requirement and offering the conversation to the best available agent with lower skills.
Conversations transferred to another queue
Skill reduction is applied only to the skill requirements of the current queue. If the conversation has been transferred to the current queue and it has skill requirements that are not defined for the current queue, those requirements are handled without skill reduction. This means that if the conversation has such a skill requirement set to:
- level 5, the system offers the conversation only to agents whose skill level is at least 1
- less than level 5, the system offers the conversation also to agents whose skill level is 0.
Note that reducible skills of the previous queues are handled based on the current level of those requirements. This means that those requirements may have been reduced in the previous queue.
Skill reduction when Use Absolute Waiting Times is set to Off
If there are no potentially available agents in the queue with the required skill level, the system reduces the requirement to match the highest skill level of a potentially available agent and can offer the conversation immediately to the agent that best fulfills the requirement.
Time (s) | Skill Requirement |
---|---|
35 | 4 |
40 | 3 |
35 | 2 |
Agents that are available and serving in “Queue1” have the following skill levels:
Agent | Skill Level |
---|---|
Agent 1 | 5 |
Agent 2 | 4 |
Agent 3 | 3 |
Agent 4 | 2 |
Agent 5 | 1 |
If “Agent 1” and “Agent 2” have an absence profile, a conversation that arrives into “Queue1” is offered immediately to “Agent 3”. However, if “Agent 3” does not accept the conversation, it is offered to “Agent 4” only after 1 minute and 50 seconds, according to skill reduction waiting times (35 + 40 + 35). If “Agent 4” does not accept the conversation, the system will not offer the conversation to “Agent 5”, as they do not fulfill the minimum skill requirement (2).
The system can also offer the conversation immediately to the agent that best fulfills the requirements, if there are several skill requirements for the queue but no potentially available agent fulfills all of them.
Agent | Skill | Skill Level |
---|---|---|
Agent 1 | English | 4 |
Finnish | 3 | |
Agent 2 | English | 3 |
Finnish | 3 |
The highest skill levels for the queue are English 4 and Finnish 3, as Agent 1 has the highest English skill level and both agents have the same Finnish skill level. As a result, the system offers a new conversation immediately to Agent 1 if they are available.
Skill reduction in skill match calculation
Skill match calculation ignores possible skill reductions. This means that skill match calculation uses the original skill requirements instead of possible reduced skill requirements. For more information on skill match calculation, see the Monitoring and Reporting document.
Skill reduction in callback
If skill reduction is defined for the customer service queue, a callback is offered to an agent according to the skill requirements that may have already been reduced in the customer service queue. If you want to use skill reduction when offering callbacks to agents, define it for the callback queue. For more information on queue callback, see Queue Callback.