Skills-based dialing

A skills-based dialing campaign selects only contacts from the call list that an available agent from the agent pool can handle. The system evaluates the required skills for the contacts in the campaign and the availability of agents before dialing contacts. 

With skills-based dialing, outbound administrators can assign skill requirements for an outbound record in a contact list to an available agent that has those specific skill sets. Skills-based campaigns display an overview of information for skills, associated records, and remaining records in a running campaign. This information enables you to diagnose and troubleshoot skills-based dialing issues. 

Requirements

  • Agents must be assigned to the skills that are used in the campaign.
  • For the queue used by the skills-based dialing campaign, All skills matching must be enabled as the Evaluation Method under the Routing tab in the Queue configuration menu
  • Skill columns must be selected in the Campaign configuration under Campaign Options.

Skills-based dialing considerations

Things to consider when creating and running skills-based campaigns:

  • You can have up to 52 different skill values per skill set, such as Auto, Home, and Life.
  • You can have up to two skill sets per campaign, such as Insurance type and Language.
  • The maximum number of skill combinations is 100, which is the number of possible skill values multiplied by the number of skill sets. This means if you have 50 different skill values in Skill A you can only have 50 values in Skill B. If you try to add 52 skills in Skill B, the system ignores records with the fifty-first (51) and fifty-second (52) value in Skill B. 
  • Dynamic queueing must have Sorting switched ON for skills-based campaigns.
  • If a record has a null value in the configured skills column, the system does not attempt to dial the record.
  • The system auto-maps records if the value in the record matches the associated skill name.
  • Skills are assigned to agents using the existing skill functionality used for Inbound interactions.
  • When you view the campaign progress indicator on the campaign management screen and the campaign does not proceed, it might mean that there are no agents with the skill required by the remaining records.
  • Campaigns do not complete until all of the records are attempted. For example, if one record has a skill value of Spanish and no agents with that skill are activated in the campaign’s assigned queue, that record is not processed, and the campaign cannot complete until an agent that matches that skill handles the record.
  • When using skills and languages together for skill-based dialing, avoid having skills and languages that share the same name. When the skill is specified on the contact, there is no way to indicate if it should be a language or skill. In this case, if a duplicate name exists, behavior will be erratic as it depends on the order that skills and languages are pulled for users. 
Notes:
  • If the number of skill combinations in a contact list exceeds 100, filters can be used to reduce the number of records the system must evaluate.
  • In a skills-based dialing campaign, calls might not follow the sort order if an agent skill is not available. The contact is skipped until a time when the agent skill becomes available.
  • If the agent pool has a wide variety of skills that cross over, the system might send a call to an agent, resulting in leaving another call unable to be taken. 
  • Adding a skill from a rule is not supported on a skills-based dialing campaign.
  • If you have a small agent pool for a specific skill combination, it increases abandon rate. Things that could give an agent a call from another place can cause an abandonment.
  • Additional abandonments can come from skills if, for example, only one agent has a skill combination, but the agent also has another skill combination.

Troubleshoot a skills-based campaign 

Problem

The skills-based dialing campaign is no longer dialing.

Cause

In the middle of a campaign, Agents with required skills is 0 and the campaign is no longer running.

Solution

Use the Skills-Based Dialing Overview window to view the Skill, Associated Records, and Remaining Records for the campaign. Use the Campaign Diagnostics window Skills section to view the Number of skill combinations and Agents with required skills. Use this data as a diagnostic to identify matching skills that have run out during a campaign.