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.

Note: If a conversation has a preferred agent, the system ignores skills and offers the conversation to this agent.
Note:

If you have defined a queue priority and values for Importance of Skill Matching and Importance of Contact Waiting Time in System Services > Voice Channel > Weight Value Settings, 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.

To define skill reduction:
  1. On the System Configurator main screen, choose Queue Management > Queues.
  2. Search for the queue whose settings you want to configure.

    The search result list appears.

  3. Choose the queue by double-clicking it.
  4. Choose Skill Reduction.
  5. Enter the skill requirements and the waiting time (in seconds) for each requirement.
    example:

    Queue1 has a skill requirement 5 for skill German 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 to Agent 2. If Agent 2 does not accept, the conversation is offered to Agent 3 after 40 seconds and then to Agent 4 after 35 seconds.

  6. In the Use Absolute Waiting Times field, choose if you want the system to always use the defined skill reduction times. Options are:
    OptionDescription
    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.
  7. 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.
“Queue1” has a skill requirement for skill “English” set to level 5. Skill reduction is enabled for “Queue2” that has a skill requirement only for skill “Finnish”. If the conversation is transferred from “Queue1” to “Queue2”, the conversation is offered only to agents whose “English” skill level is at least 1. The requirement for skill “Finnish” is handled according to the defined skill reduction steps.

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.

If skill reduction is enabled for “Queue1” in the previous example, and the skill requirement for “English” has been reduced before the transfer (that is, the current skill requirement for “English” is less than 5 in “Queue2”), the system can offer the conversation to agents with any “English” skill level (0-5).

Skill reduction when Use Absolute Waiting Times is set to Off

Note: This also applies when Use Absolute Waiting Times is set to Not Defined for the queue but set to Off on the channel level.

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.

“Queue1” has a skill requirement 5 for skill “German” 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
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.

A queue has two skill requirements: English 5 and Finnish 5. Skill reduction is enabled for the queue and there are two potentially available agents in the queue:
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.