May 2003

By Mariane L''cuyer, Elix

In a contact center, skills-based routing (SBR) can be defined as the ability to route a call to the agent most able to respond to it. SBR takes into account customer requirements that can range from language preferences to product-specific information requests. It can also consider customer value and past and predicted future buying behavior. This sounds easy enough to do when you think of it as simply transferring a call to a qualified agent. But, when you add the challenges of multimedia and multisite contact centers, SBR offers a valuable opportunity to maximize your contact center's potential ' if you know how to make it work to your advantage.

Evolution ' From ACD To Skills-Based Routing
As technologies have evolved, so has our way of viewing and managing contact centers. The evolution from the old automatic call distribution (ACD) model, which distributed calls according to static configured parameters, to the current SBR strategy, reflects the paradigm shift that occurred in contact center philosophy. The ACD model focused on load distribution, or emptying queues and connecting callers to agents as quickly as possible. Call distribution was performed according to configured parameters, which in turn were based on static rules that did not conform to overall business logic. There was thus no direct relationship between the needs of the client and the skill of the agent who handled his call. The corporate objectives served by the ACD model focused on cost reduction by answering calls quickly. In fact, the 'automatic' in ACD was often a misnomer, because at peak times, calls often had to be manually switched from queue to queue.

The focus has now moved to a customer-centric approach. Call centers used to be considered cost centers; companies now see the potential of turning their contact centers into profit centers. Contact centers are now used much more as strategic elements in running a business. SBR helps to make this possible by establishing a direct relationship between the client's needs and the agent's skills. Whereas ACDs were introduced simply to reduce costs, SBR can help to generate profits. ACDs transferred calls to any available agents or to holding queues until an agent became available. SBR transfers each call to the specific agent who can best serve the customer and significantly reduces waiting time for calls that cannot be answered immediately.

SBR has also profited from the introduction of new technologies. Customers used to be identified through DNIS (the number they dialed) and ANI or CLID (the number they called from). Now, your company's IVR (interactive voice response) system can ask customers to identify themselves. With this information, the system can check the database and use the contents of the customer file to route the call. Routing calls based on customer profile, contact history (reasons for previous calls) and IVR navigation allows a company to be proactive in meeting customer requirements and expectations, to increase service levels while decreasing wait time, and to use real-time statistics to aid in routing the call ' all of which can lead to increased profitability. 

The Role Of SBR In CRM
If SBR is a result of the technology evolution, it has equally derived from the CRM (customer relationship management) philosophy of developing and maintaining relationships with customers, often based on their value to the organization. Because CRM directly touches processes, people and technology, a CRM strategy should include the need to identify customers and their value, to define how they will be serviced and to train employees to manage customer relationships. SBR has become a CRM enabler in the contact center. When products, service offerings and commodities are similar, the key differentiator becomes customer treatment. Customer defection rates are directly tied to customer treatment, and customers will go to whomever offers the best service. Customer service is thus critically important. In 2000, Purdue University concluded that 68 percent of consumers remained loyal to a company because of good customer treatment. Purdue has since revised that figure to 78 percent and, based on my observations, I would comfortably raise this percentage to the mid 80s. This information is even more relevant when you consider that it costs from 4 to 11 times more to attract new customers than to retain existing customers. There are thus significant benefits and strong ROI (return on investment) reasons to focus on retaining customers and maintaining good relationships with them ' positively affecting your bottom line. 

Not All Customers Are Equal
Is it good business sense to retain all customers? The obvious answer is yes. But it's a qualified yes, because some customers cost more to service than they bring in. No business wants to discourage customers, and this is where another key element of the CRM strategy comes in ' customer segmentation. When customers are divided into categories or segments, an appropriate treatment plan for each category can be devised. Less profitable customers can be encouraged to use self-service, rather than agent-assisted operations, and can be the focus of more intensive cross-selling and upselling efforts to make the customer more profitable. Highly profitable customers can receive top priority, so your organization can build and maintain long-term relationships with them. When implementing customer segmentation, you must remember to identify customers who have the potential to be more profitable; in other words, to identify 'rising stars.' The factors to be considered are then not only actual, but also potential, customer value. The objective is to move the most customers to the top right quadrant, which indicates the most profitable customers (assets).

Your SBR strategy can take prioritization strategy even further ' it can challenge the well established but often blind 80/20 service level, which is costly and not always sustainable. Therefore, another important business behavior to consider when building your SBR prioritization strategy is the value of the transaction. If a customer is calling to pay an overdue bill, which has cost you time, energy and money to recuperate, or to purchase something, these transactions should have a higher priority than less profitable transactions or those, such as changes of address, that have no profit potential. Prioritization, i.e., segmented service level objectives, can be applied to any type of contact, transaction or client. You must, therefore, ask yourself WHY your current service level objective is what it is, and how it could be improved or modified to increase profitability.

Using Your Business Data For Effective SBR
As you can see, SBR is much more than just routing calls to skilled agents. In fact, SBR encompasses everything from intelligent routing (matching each call to the right agent), to value-based routing (customer segmentation) and data-driven routing. All of these illustrate SBR's ability to embrace a wide range of business issues, strategies and technologies. The data-driven routing concept underlines the importance of access to and creation of new information ' a pillar of SBR. One of the keys to success is to leverage these data and transform them into business information that becomes a springboard for making business decisions. To implement an effective SBR strategy, you must start by setting rules according to a well-thought-out business process, based on the organization's current marketing, sales and call center data. The rules can then be used to develop SBR scripts, which in turn can generate powerful and granular business data that help to pinpoint adjustments and improvements that could be made to the SBR strategy. Properly used, SBR can provide a wealth of useful, pertinent business information that can highlight potentially profitable areas ' such as the high-potential customers mentioned above ' and identify areas of concern before they become problems. Managers can focus on resource management and achieving business goals through data collection and reporting, rather than on agent movement from one queue to the next and manual call load distribution. 

SBR can also provide reports that monitor the customer experience and contain a wealth of information on contact center activity. Contact center managers now become strategically important people in the organization, using SBR reports to identify trends and opportunities for cross-selling and upselling. If the contact center agent is the voice of the company, the manager has become its strategic facilitator. Because of the potential quantity of data, you should have a good idea of the data you want to capture before implementation. This underlines the importance of having a solid architecture to ensure that the routing strategy generates all the statistics required for future evolution. The reporting system thus becomes a subcomponent, and the technical requirements must be considered, along with the business rules used as the basis for the SBR functionality. This is where your organization can benefit from the wisdom of an experienced solutions architect who can advise you what your focus should be to achieve your business goals and recommend the best way to do this. Just as with life, with SBR, it's the journey that counts.

Designing The SBR Strategy
Since business data are critical to the creation of the SBR strategy, and business data will be generated following your SBR implementation, how do you design your first SBR strategy?

The answer would be to consider implementing SBR in phases. This allows you to start with a 'bare bones' system, based on your current business rules and requirements, with a simple strategy and limited skill weighting and segmentation. This yields information that can be collected, analyzed and used as the basis for the next phase. In this way, each phase is more refined than the previous one, yields more pertinent information, and points to the modifications needed in the next phase. Some information, such as customer language preferences and the most frequent reasons for calling, can be used to define and weight the skills your agents will need. Other information, such as what percentage of your total calls were successfully cross-sold or upsold, can help you to determine future sales and marketing strategies and to define and deal with potential problem areas. This method ensures that your SBR is custom-designed, because it is based on technical information and feedback from your customers, agents and sales and marketing personnel.

Technology
Technologically, SBR is a virtual solution. The link between your SBR solution and your PBX and/or Web servers is not necessarily physical. The same SBR solution can be deployed at several locations, unifying your contact centers into one virtual center supported from only one location. Any available skilled agent can then answer any call, no matter where the call originated or where the agent is working. This capability can also support agents who work from home, an attractive feature in highly competitive job markets. 

SBR also introduces the concept of the virtual queue, which correlates to the transformation of the call center into the contact center. The virtual queue ensures that the same routing tools, business rules, CRM strategy and reporting capabilities manage any type of interaction, whether by telephone, e-mail or the Web. Therefore, your contact center represents a constant for your customers, and its agents are a unified voice for your company. The contact center as customer information/service center is more profitable, more efficient and a mine of information that empowers a company to achieve its business goals and maintain a leading position in its industry, which is crucial in today's competitive world.

How SBR Benefits Agents
Since SBR focuses on people as well as processes and technology, we must look at the agent aspect. Traditionally, agents were trained for one or two months, after which they answered whatever calls the ACD directed to their workstations. Inexperienced agents often required weeks of coaching and peer help before they attained autonomy. This situation, overwhelming for apprentice agents, was often frustrating for experienced agents. SBR allows you to train agents incrementally, making agents productive earlier in their employment with you. It also allows development of a career path for agents, with scaled remuneration to reward increased skill levels. The opportunity to 'earn more as you learn more,' and be paid to move up the skill ladder, helps reduce turnover rates. 

SBR: A Powerful Tool Summary
Any SBR project starts with a strategy that defines how the people, processes and technology will interact. This interaction, in turn, indicates how the strategy should be modified. The SBR project is an ongoing progression in which each component influences, and is influenced by, the others. When intelligently planned and implemented according to a corporation's business rules, SBR empowers that company to speak to customers with one voice, empowers contact center agents to spend more time productively interacting with high-value customers and empowers managers to focus on the core tasks of resource management, training and data collection. A well-designed and implemented SBR strategy allows everyone to benefit. Customers get quick, efficient service ' no more long waiting periods or transfers to several agents before reaching one who can answer their questions. Your business delivers improved service, increases customer loyalty and the profit opportunities offered by cross-selling and upselling, and reduces both operating costs and staff turnover.

SBR is just a tool. But it is a very powerful tool that, when used as part of a clearly defined business plan and aligned with the overall objectives of the enterprise, can help to turn your contact center into a valuable resource for your customers, your employees and your enterprise.

Mariane L''cuyer is manager of Consulting Services at Elix, a developer of self-service and agent-assisted touch points solutions for contact centers.

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