Hunt Group Agent Selection

A-Train · August 22nd, 2008, 09:51 AM

I have an ongoing issue with one of the call centers I support. They are using a Definity v9, w/CentreVu. They do not have EAS. The agents all log into a single hunt group. There are multiple vectors that queue to this one hunt group.
The hunt group is set to Group Type UCD-MIA. This is what the Avaya documentation says about how UCD-MIA selects an agent to get a call: "The available agent who has been idle the longest since their last call"
However the supervisors of this call center contend that this is not actually happening. They have multiple copies of reports showing that certain people are getting calls almost immediately after being in Auto-In, while others sit in Auto-In for long periods of time not getting any calls. This pattern seems consistent to the point where certain people seem to get large percentages of the calls over the course of the day while others get very few. All of the people in question are auto-in and available to receive queue calls. This is becoming an issue as these reps have their annual performance reviews based in part on these numbers which means their compensation is tied to it.
Does anyone have any suggestions or ideas on what might cause this? Does anyone have any ideas on how to figure out this problem and come up with a solution? I could go to my BP, but I know that I will have to suffer through the first lower tiers of support (people who know less than I do) until I find an expert, particularly in the Call Center platform. Any suggestions would be welcome. Thanks!

2wire · August 22nd, 2008, 03:13 PM

Hi,

Here is some info to help....

DDC - Direct Department Calling (DDC) is also
known as "hot seat" distribution. The
system starts with the first extension in the
hunt group, and hunts for an available
extension. If the first extension is busy, the
system checks the second extension. If the
second extension is busy, the system
checks the third extension, and so on.
When an extension is available, the system
rings that extension to connect the call. This
type of hunting provides the most equitable
distribution of calls. Also, this type of
hunting is required for a modem pool,
data-line circuit ports, and data modules.
When the group is administered as a skill,
DDC is unavailable

EAD-LOA - The system hunts for the available agent
who has the highest skill level, and the
lowest percentage of work time since the
agent logged in. (Requires EAS (Expert Agent Selection) and Advocate)

EAD-MIA - The system hunts for the available agent
who has the highest skill level, and the
longest idle time since the last call. (Requires EAS)

PAD - The system selects from a group of
available agents based on a comparison of
work time in the skill, and the target
allocation for the skill.

UCD-LOA - The system hunts for the agent with the
lowest percentage of work time since the
agent logged in. (Requires ACD, EAS and Advocate)

UCD-MIA - The system hunts for the agent who has
been idle the longest since the last call.

Good Luck,

2wire

A-Train · August 27th, 2008, 01:50 PM

I still haven't figured this out yet. However I did work with an expert from my BP, and we discovered a ton of RONA going on. I watched the real time split report and saw calls rolling to 3 or 4 people before getting answered. Not so coincidentally the people who supposedly got calls ahead of others have no reported RONA situations, while the others who supposedly get less calls have a bunch. So I am trying to get the call center manager to put a clamp on that and then try and reevaluate the problem.
For those not familiar w/RONA it means Redirect on No Answer. Basically if RONA is in use on a hunt group and an available agent gets a call but does not answer it the call will revert back to the hunt group. The agent who missed the call is placed into Aux-Work to avoid getting the call back.

martinyoung · August 27th, 2008, 04:26 PM

I am not a call center expert so my suggestion may not apply to your problem, or be available. Your expert with the BP would know.

There is an auto in feature that does not allow agents to ignore calls. I believe you need to wear a headset to use this because you get a zip tone first then the call is yours automatically. As long as you are logged in and available, MIA rules will be followed.

oni_lucent · September 3rd, 2008, 09:56 AM

The skill level for each agent is the same ?

colt45 · September 4th, 2008, 02:22 PM

If you set the Station to 'Auto Answer = ACD" the agent will get a zip tone. If set to 'none', they must physically answer the ringing line. If set to 'none' and agent walks away while in available the call will ring on that station until abandoned.

Suggest either force the agents to wear headsets, set auto ans = acd. If they insist the phone should ring, then set auto ans = none AND change the hunt group form for RONA. Then if a call is delivered to a walk away agent, soon as the RONA # of rings is satisfied, that agent will be placed in AUX and the call delivered to the next available agent.

A-Train · September 10th, 2008, 01:30 PM

Thanks for the ideas guys. The culture in that unit will not allow me to make them auto-answer. I wish I could as this has worked well in my other call center. We did tweak RONA to work better which made an immediate improvement in their abandonment rate. I am running weekly reports showing every time this happens, which is occurring a lot. Hopefully they can get the reps to stop doing this, which will hopefully improve things.

One person mentions skill levels, but this group does not have EAS and therefore has no skills based routing. It is a straight up hunt group that they log into (no agent login IDs).

They are still sending me copies of reports showing that calls are not going to the rep that was available the longest. Strangely enough it looks like it is going to the rep that has been available the second longest. The screen shot will show a before and after report. The before report shows the group, with how long people have been available. The second one shows the call going to someone who was not the longest idle, while the longest idle still stays idle (counter keeps going up so you know they did not change states and reset). It is perplexing to say the least.

August 22nd, 2008, 09:51 AM	#1 (permalink)
A-Train PBXtech GOLD 100+ posts Join Date: Sep 2006 Posts: 241	Hunt Group Agent Selection I have an ongoing issue with one of the call centers I support. They are using a Definity v9, w/CentreVu. They do not have EAS. The agents all log into a single hunt group. There are multiple vectors that queue to this one hunt group. The hunt group is set to Group Type UCD-MIA. This is what the Avaya documentation says about how UCD-MIA selects an agent to get a call: "The available agent who has been idle the longest since their last call" However the supervisors of this call center contend that this is not actually happening. They have multiple copies of reports showing that certain people are getting calls almost immediately after being in Auto-In, while others sit in Auto-In for long periods of time not getting any calls. This pattern seems consistent to the point where certain people seem to get large percentages of the calls over the course of the day while others get very few. All of the people in question are auto-in and available to receive queue calls. This is becoming an issue as these reps have their annual performance reviews based in part on these numbers which means their compensation is tied to it. Does anyone have any suggestions or ideas on what might cause this? Does anyone have any ideas on how to figure out this problem and come up with a solution? I could go to my BP, but I know that I will have to suffer through the first lower tiers of support (people who know less than I do) until I find an expert, particularly in the Call Center platform. Any suggestions would be welcome. Thanks!

August 22nd, 2008, 03:13 PM	#2 (permalink)
2wire PBXtech SILVER 25+ posts Join Date: Oct 2004 Posts: 43	Re: Hunt Group Agent Selection Hi, Here is some info to help.... DDC - Direct Department Calling (DDC) is also known as "hot seat" distribution. The system starts with the first extension in the hunt group, and hunts for an available extension. If the first extension is busy, the system checks the second extension. If the second extension is busy, the system checks the third extension, and so on. When an extension is available, the system rings that extension to connect the call. This type of hunting provides the most equitable distribution of calls. Also, this type of hunting is required for a modem pool, data-line circuit ports, and data modules. When the group is administered as a skill, DDC is unavailable EAD-LOA - The system hunts for the available agent who has the highest skill level, and the lowest percentage of work time since the agent logged in. (Requires EAS (Expert Agent Selection) and Advocate) EAD-MIA - The system hunts for the available agent who has the highest skill level, and the longest idle time since the last call. (Requires EAS) PAD - The system selects from a group of available agents based on a comparison of work time in the skill, and the target allocation for the skill. UCD-LOA - The system hunts for the agent with the lowest percentage of work time since the agent logged in. (Requires ACD, EAS and Advocate) UCD-MIA - The system hunts for the agent who has been idle the longest since the last call. Good Luck, 2wire

August 27th, 2008, 01:50 PM	#3 (permalink)
A-Train PBXtech GOLD 100+ posts Join Date: Sep 2006 Posts: 241	Re: Hunt Group Agent Selection I still haven't figured this out yet. However I did work with an expert from my BP, and we discovered a ton of RONA going on. I watched the real time split report and saw calls rolling to 3 or 4 people before getting answered. Not so coincidentally the people who supposedly got calls ahead of others have no reported RONA situations, while the others who supposedly get less calls have a bunch. So I am trying to get the call center manager to put a clamp on that and then try and reevaluate the problem. For those not familiar w/RONA it means Redirect on No Answer. Basically if RONA is in use on a hunt group and an available agent gets a call but does not answer it the call will revert back to the hunt group. The agent who missed the call is placed into Aux-Work to avoid getting the call back.

August 27th, 2008, 04:26 PM	#4 (permalink)
martinyoung Moderator Join Date: Dec 2005 Posts: 1,435	Re: Hunt Group Agent Selection I am not a call center expert so my suggestion may not apply to your problem, or be available. Your expert with the BP would know. There is an auto in feature that does not allow agents to ignore calls. I believe you need to wear a headset to use this because you get a zip tone first then the call is yours automatically. As long as you are logged in and available, MIA rules will be followed. __________________ Marty Retired Avaya DSIC tech

September 3rd, 2008, 09:56 AM	#5 (permalink)
oni_lucent PBXtech GOLD 100+ posts Join Date: Jun 2003 Posts: 138	Re: Hunt Group Agent Selection The skill level for each agent is the same ?

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September 4th, 2008, 02:22 PM	#6 (permalink)
colt45 PBXtech GOLD 100+ posts Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 113	Re: Hunt Group Agent Selection If you set the Station to 'Auto Answer = ACD" the agent will get a zip tone. If set to 'none', they must physically answer the ringing line. If set to 'none' and agent walks away while in available the call will ring on that station until abandoned. Suggest either force the agents to wear headsets, set auto ans = acd. If they insist the phone should ring, then set auto ans = none AND change the hunt group form for RONA. Then if a call is delivered to a walk away agent, soon as the RONA # of rings is satisfied, that agent will be placed in AUX and the call delivered to the next available agent.

September 10th, 2008, 01:30 PM	#7 (permalink)
A-Train PBXtech GOLD 100+ posts Join Date: Sep 2006 Posts: 241	Re: Hunt Group Agent Selection Thanks for the ideas guys. The culture in that unit will not allow me to make them auto-answer. I wish I could as this has worked well in my other call center. We did tweak RONA to work better which made an immediate improvement in their abandonment rate. I am running weekly reports showing every time this happens, which is occurring a lot. Hopefully they can get the reps to stop doing this, which will hopefully improve things. One person mentions skill levels, but this group does not have EAS and therefore has no skills based routing. It is a straight up hunt group that they log into (no agent login IDs). They are still sending me copies of reports showing that calls are not going to the rep that was available the longest. Strangely enough it looks like it is going to the rep that has been available the second longest. The screen shot will show a before and after report. The before report shows the group, with how long people have been available. The second one shows the call going to someone who was not the longest idle, while the longest idle still stays idle (counter keeps going up so you know they did not change states and reset). It is perplexing to say the least.

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