In just about a week, we will be showcasing our Salesforce integration at the Dreamforce 2018 Demo Jam! Stop by the Service Theater in the Marriott at 10:30am on Sept 27th when we throw down our best 3-minute demo against 6 competitors and YOU decide the winner! You can get a sneak peek here:
Why is CRM and Contact Center Integration Important?
I recently received upgraded status from my rental car provider. I now get to pick any car I want from a special section for loyal folks, just like me! Instead of taking the next car available, I get to select the next best car available. I thought, “Finally! All this travel is starting to pay off!” Once the initial euphoria of this experience passed (and being a contact center person), I noticed a parallel to contact center routing methods. Two distinct and very different methods came to mind—queue based routing vs. skill based routing.
What’s the Difference Between Queue Based Routing and Skills-Based Routing?
Old-fashioned queue based routing has been around since the dawn of contact centers. It works like this: agents are assigned to a group (or queue) and contacts are delivered to the next available agent in that queue. There are some limitations of this approach, however. Queues usually focus on only one category. Typically, callers (or contacts) can only be in one queue at a time. In practice, this limits the ability to match caller to agent effectively. Let us say you have a customer service queue and a Portuguese language queue. Queue based routing would dictate that the call would be assigned to one or the other. This is a problem for the customer if they happen to need customer service and speak Portuguese. Skill based routing is a bit more sophisticated.
Skill based routing allows contact centers to route customers to the ‘next best’ agent. Best meaning the agent most qualified to satisfy the customer’s request. Skill based routing allows contact centers to categorize incoming contacts with much greater precision. In this scenario, agents are assigned multiple skills to handle as many categories as needed. Speak Portuguese and need customer service? No problem! Only agents who have both skills assigned could get your call. Do you see the difference? Back to my car rental epiphany.
Before my status upgrade, they routed me to the car queue based on my fixed preferences, i.e. economy/midsize/SUV, etc. They gave me the ‘next available car’ that fit this limited criteria. After my status upgrade, my preferences increased exponentially. Using my car selection ‘skill based routing’, I routed myself to the best car I could find. It was like magic! I have to admit, my satisfaction as a customer skyrocketed due to this one simple thing – skill based routing!
NICE CXone CRM Integration
At NICE, we’ve made it a priority to integrate our industry-leading CXone platform with the best CRM software in the market. You can learn more about our CRM integrations here and download our datasheet here, and don’t forget to attend our Demo Jam presentation on September 27th at Dreamforce!
