How ACD Systems Can Benefit Your Customers and Your Team

Justin Robbins of 8×8 introduces us to the ABCs of automatic call distribution (ACD) systems.

Customer satisfaction is the most important metric for any contact centre. Resolving calls correctly, quickly, and on the first try helps boost customer satisfaction.

Using an ACD saves time for your customers and agents, reduces hold times and misrouted calls, and helps people get their queries answered promptly.

What Is Automatic Call Distribution?

Automatic call distribution systems route calls to specific agents or teams based on predefined rules. The system can be used for many reasons, such as:

• Preferential response times for high-value callers
• Connecting callers to an agent that speaks their language
• Skill-based routing to a specific team
• Making sure simple inquiries, such as bill payments, are directed to a self-service solution

ACD systems can also be integrated with CTI tools to provide agents with information about a caller as soon as they pick up the call.

This allows the agent to handle the call more smoothly, reducing the risk of misunderstandings or frustration caused by the caller having to repeat themselves at each point in the call.

Happier customers make for happier contact centre agents, too, which means improved morale and staff retention.

How Automatic Call Distribution Makes a Difference in Customer Satisfaction

The most obvious benefit of using an automatic call distribution system is that it ensures maximum productivity from agents. This is then felt by the customers in several ways:

• Call waiting times are shorter, reducing customer frustration
• There’s a reduced need to transfer calls between departments
• First call resolution rates increase, so fewer customers need to call back to get queries resolved
• Customers feel empowered when they can solve their own problems through digital solutions
• Customers spend less time on the phone overall
• Software integration means customers don’t have to repeat their account numbers or other details multiple times on the call

All of these factors contribute to increased customer satisfaction and improved branding for the contact centre

Even in cases where the ACD does not route the customer to the correct department on the first try, the overall improvement in efficiency means customers can speak to a human more quickly and get their needs addressed in a timely fashion.

Information at Your Agents’ Fingertips

Modern ACD tools do more than just send calls to the right people. They can also be used to collect information for use in analytics tools, add information to call logs and provide agents with details about the nature of the call so they can start processing it effectively from the moment they’re connected to the customer.

The more information that you and your customer service agents have about the callers they’re dealing with, the easier it is to resolve their queries in the moment and plan for future calls.

For contact centre managers, tracking call volumes and understanding which skill sets see the most calls on a day-to-day basis is invaluable for making sensible staff scheduling and training decisions.

A clear understanding of which call categories are most common allows managers to decide whether to hire new employees, expand the skill set of existing ones, or change shift patterns to handle ever-changing call loads.