Skills based routing or S.B.R., as we know, is considered an enhancement to the automatic call distributor systems that may found in many call centers. There are continued necessities to use this type widely.



Previously, agents who are answering calls were assigned to one only queue taking one category of call. Yet, agents who deal with many call types ought to be manually reassigned to various queue at various times per the day, to be able to do their utmost usage of their skills. They had to face a wide several of calls, which they were not trained previously for them.

Generally, with the S.B.R., we can see that the number dialed of telephone, the selection made in any associated I.V.R. system, and the number of calling as well often assessed the skills required for a certain call.

The S.B.R. in this regards are trying to match the call to a trained well agent, to be able to submit a better service instead of only one who does not.

It is appeared that each caller get his own waiting area, which he may share with one person only. In the skills based routing, calls can be served as agents with suitable skills.

As to the positiveness of the skills based routing, this enhanced technology can improve well the customer service. It may lesser the time of call handling. It provides training easier and increases the utilization of the agent as well as his productivity and revenue.

Yet, some criticism arose that the S.B.R. involves many complexity of skills, which may not get the expected benefits required. There is a difficulty of predetermining the skills required, which may be resulted in some deficits in providing services, due to using the poor measures of service quality.

Recently, there are some trials and researches aiming to get the most suitable benefits from it. The necessity to get the convenient operations research models and queuing theory are important to be able to solve problems existed.

Operations research models are actually considered an interdisciplinary branch of the applied formal and mathematics science, which may use certain methods, such as algorithms, statistics, and mathematical modeling to be able to get the optimal solutions to many complex issues. This issue is very important to assist in realizing the aimed targets, while getting involved with skills based routing.

The queuing theory in this matter is concerned with studying the waiting lines mathematically to enable the mathematical analysis of various related process, while dealing with S.B.R..

Skills based routing is not easy. Yet, understanding it deeply is required to be able to enhance the progress of your call center perfectly.