Expert Agent Selection
Logical Agent implies that voice terminals are no longer preassigned to hunt groups; only when the agent logs in does the terminal become associated with all of the skill hunt groups assigned to the Agent Login ID.
With EAS optioned and enabled, ACD calls can also be directed to a particular agent, instead of to the skill hunt group, by using the Direct Agent Calling feature. The Direct Agent call is treated like an ACD call, but it waits in queue for a specific agent to become available. Direct Agent calls have a higher priority than skill hunt group calls.
This chapter describes EAS, and it explains, via a number of examples, how EAS is implemented. The chapter also discusses EAS upgrades. However, before you start with this chapter, you should take note of the following:
■With EAS, skill hunt groups replace splits. Skill hunt groups and splits cannot be administered simultaneously on a switch. This implies that all ACD hunt groups must be administered as either splits or skills. If EAS is optioned, all ACD hunt groups must be skill hunt groups.
■With EAS, all skill hunt groups must be
■With EAS,
■Agent Login IDs are extensions in the dial plan, and they decrease the total number of stations that can be administered.
■With EAS, agents have a new login procedure and a single set of work mode buttons, regardless of the number of skills assigned to the agents.
■Skill hunt groups can distribute a call to the
For information on converting a Call Center to EAS, refer to Appendix K.
Identifying Caller Needs
Caller needs for a particular call can be identified by any of the following methods:
■Interpreting information (in the form of DNIS digits or ISDN messages) passed from the network
■Processing Call Prompting digits or digits entered at a Voice Response Unit (VRU)
■Using ASAI or a VRU (such as CONVERSANT) in a host database lookup
To illustrate how a Call Center manager might match caller needs and agent skills (which can be viewed as capabilities needed from the caller’s perspective), let’s assume that a Call Center receives inbound calls from auto club members
