ACD

Automatic Call Distribution (ACD)

Description
You can put any agent in any group. An agent can be in more than one group. This allows, for example, a Technical Service representative to answer customer service calls at lunch when many of the Customer Service representatives are unavailable.
Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) uniformly distributes calls among agents of a programmed ACD Group. When a call rings into an ACD Group, the system automatically routes the call to the agent that has been idle the longest. Automatic Call Distribution is much more sophisticated and comprehensive than Department Calling and other group services – it can accurately judge the work load at each A agent and distribute calls accordingly. The system allows up to 2 ACD Groups and 16 ACD agents.
The ACD Master Number is the extension number of the whole group. Calls directly ringing or transferred to the ACD Master number enter the group and are routed accordingly. Although the master number can be any valid extension number, you should choose a number that is out of the normal extension range.
Automatic Call Distribution operation is further enhanced by: ACD Call Queuing
When all agents in an ACD Group are unavailable, an incoming call queues and causes the Queue Status Display to occur on the ACD agent's display. The display helps the agent keep track of the traffic load in their group.
The Queue Status Displays shows:
•The number of calls queued for an available agent in the group.
•The trunk that has been waiting the longest, and how long it has been waiting.
For each ACD Group, you can set the following conditions:
•The number of trunks that can wait in queue before the Queue Status Display occurs.
•How often the time in queue portion of the display reoccurs.
ACD Overflow (With Announcements)
ACD offers extensive overflow options for another ACD Group. For example, a caller ringing in when all agents are unavailable can hear an initial announcement (called the 1st Announcement). This announcement can be a general greeting like, “Thank you for calling. All of our agents are currently busy helping other customers. Please stay on the line and we will help you shortly.” If the caller continues to wait, you can have them hear another announcement (called the 2nd Announcement) such as, “Your business is important to us. Your call will be automatically answered by the first available agent. Please stay on the line.” If all the ACD Group agents still are unavailable, the call can automatically overflow to another ACD Group or the Voice Mail. If all agents in the overflow ACD Group are busy, Lookback Routing automatically ensures that the waiting call rings into the first agent in either group that becomes free.
You can assign an ACD Group with any combination of 1st Announcement, 2nd Announcement and overflow methods. You can have, for example, a Technical Service group that plays only the 2nd Announcement to callers and then immediately overflows to Voice Mail. At the same time, you can have a Customer Service group that plays both announcements and does not overflow.