7.5.7 Strategy
With the Strategy settings you can select how calls from the queue are distributed between the agents. There are eight different call distribution strategies available:
Ring the agent who has been idle the longest
In this strategy, calls will be offered first to the agent which has been idle for the longest time. The idle time of an agent is the elapsed time since the agent was offered a call from this queue. If this agent is unavailable or does not answer, the call will be offered to the agent on the next position. If this agent is unavailable or does not answer the call, it will be offered to the agent on the next position, etc. The cycle will be repeated until the call is answered by an agent or the forward timer is expired and the call is forwarded to another destination, see 7.5.19 Forward options.
Ring agent with the fewest calls
In this strategy, calls will be offered to the agent which has answered the fewest calls. If this agent is unavailable or does not answer, the call will be offered to the agent with the second fewest answered calls. The amount of answered calls is calculated starting when the agent logged into the queue. When the agent logs out of the queue, this count will be reset to zero. The cycle will be repeated until the call is answered by an agent or the forward timer is expired and the call is forwarded to another destination, see 7.5.19 Forward options.
Ring agent in random order
In this strategy, new incoming calls are offered to a random agent. If this agent is unavailable or does not answer the call, one of the other remaining agents is randomly chosen. This is repeated until all agents are offered the call. If all agents are unavailable or do not answer the call, the cycle will start again and is only stopped when an agent becomes available and answers the call or when the forward timer is expired, see 7.5.19 Forward options.
Ring agents in a sequential order
In the Members section of the queue extension you can configure the ranking position of each agent, see Ordering of members. In this strategy, the call is first offered to the agent with the highest rank. If this agent is not available or does not answer within the Ring Timeout, the call is offered to the agents with the second rank. If this agent is not available or does not answer within the Ring Timeout, the call is offered to the agent with the third rank, and so on. If the last agent is tried, the call is offered to the first agent again.This cycle is repeated until the call is answered by an agent or the maximum wait time has expired and the call is redirected to another destination.
Ring agents in a sequential order but remember last tried agent
This strategy is a variant of the Ring agents in a sequential order strategy and takes the rank of each agent into account. In this strategy, the calls are first offered to the agent to which the last call from the queue was offered. If this agent is unavailable or does not answer the call, it will be offered to the agent with the next rank, etc. If all agents were offered the call, the first agent will be tried again and the cycle is repeated. Only when an agent becomes available and answers the call or when the forward timer is expired, the cycle is stopped.
Ring the agent with the least talk time
In this strategy, the calls will be offered based on the total amount of time an agent has been in a call. Only calls from the queue are included in the calculation of the agent talk time. The talk time is measured from the moment the agent log into the queue and is reset when the agent log out and is no longer a member of the queue.
Example
The queue consists of three members. Agent 1 has a total talk time of 1 hour, agent 2 a total talk time of 46 minutes and agent 3 has a talk time of 12 minutes. A new call is first offered to agent 3, then to agent 2 and then to agent 1. If agent 1 is also not available or does not answer the call, the call is again offered to agent 2, repeating the cycle. The cycle is only stopped when an agent becomes available and answers the call or when the forward timer is expired, see 7.5.19 Forward options.
Ring all agents simultaneously
This strategy is not recommended as it can lead to an increased workload for your agents.
In this strategy, the first call in the queue will be offered to all available agents at once.
Example
When the queue has three members and has a call pending, the call is offered to all three agents simultaneously. If one of the agent answers the call, the call will stop ringing for the other agents and these agents will become available to receive another call from the queue.