[Term of the Day]: Automatic Call Distributor
Term of the Day
“Automatic Call Distributor”
Definition — What is ACD?
Automatic Call Distribution or (ACD) is a tool commonly used in the telephony industries like Call centers and BPO's. ACD intelligently routes incoming calls to the appropriate representatives or agents based on your business goals. The process works based on predetermined conditions, a set of rules or criteria used as instructions for routing incoming calls.
ACD not only has the intelligence to route the calls it also can import customer data from company CRMs and pass it along to your agents. This allows agents to handle requests with relevant information on a given caller – previous call history, open tickets, and much more.
Popular Call Distribution Methods:
Uniform Call Distribution: The systems determine the agent who has been idle the longest will receive the next call. This method ensures the optimum use of all agent’s working hours.
Circular/Rotary Call Distribution: The calls are distributed to agents, based on a pattern. The calls get routed to the agent who is behind the agent who took the most recent call. Lets says if the pattern is ABCDEA, if D-agent gets the call, the next one to get the call is E-agent then to A-agent then to B-agent. This process is a continuous loop.
Simultaneous Distribution: In this distribution method, the call rings for every agent at the same time and the first agent that picks up the call will handle it. This method is one of the quickest ways to connect the customer to an agent.
Weighted Call Distribution: Each agent in the team has a weighted score based on criteria such as language proficiency, experience, skills, etc. The calls will be routed to agents based on his scores in a specific skill.