What is Omnichannel Routing?
The term "omnichannel" implies that a business is interacting with their customers in multiple service channels. Supported channels have expanded beyond traditional inbound calls to also include methods like email, chat, text messaging (SMS), and social media. Managing contacts from multiple channels can be a complex task and contact centers use omnichannel routing to address this need. Omnichannel routing is a routing method that assigns work to agents based on configured rules based on agent skills so that contacts get to the right agents at the right time, regardless of the interaction channel.
Contact center agents are often multi-skilled, meaning they can handle contacts from multiple channels. Without omnichannel routing, managers might have to assign agents to one channel only, and manually move them if another channel gets backed up. Omnichannel routing eliminates this juggling act by creating a universal queue that contains all pending contacts. The automatic contact distributor (ACD) that's at the heart of omnichannel routing assigns the contacts based on rules that consider parameters such as the customer’s needs, the agent’s skills, their workload and how long a specific contact type has been waiting in queue.
Omnichannel routing is powerful because it enables organizations to leverage the full capacity of their agent teams. Additionally, average wait times and abandon rates should decrease due to more effective queue management, and average handle times should decrease because contacts are routed to the most qualified available agent. This makes omnichannel routing a good tool to use for improving the customer experience.
How NICE can help
NICE CXone is the market leading contact center software in use by thousands of customers of all sizes around the world to help them consistently deliver exceptional customer experiences. CXone is a cloud native, unified suite of applications designed to help a company holistically run its contact center operations. CXone includes:
Omnichannel Routing – routing and interaction management that empowers agents to positively and productively interact with customers in digital and voice channels. These solutions include an automatic call distributor (ACD), interactive voice response (IVR), interaction channel support and proactive outbound dialer.
Workforce Optimization – unlocks the potential of your team by inspiring employees' self-improvement, amplifying quality management efforts to enhance customer experience and reducing labor waste. These solutions include workforce management (WFM), quality management (QM), recording and performance management (PM).
Analytics – turns insights into results by making data relevant, easy to consume and actionable to drive measurable improvements and understand the omnichannel experience customers receive. These solutions include interaction analytics, customer surveys, reporting and performance management.
CXone also includes pre-defined CRM integrations and UCaaS integrations with most leading solutions on the market. These integrations provide a holistic contact center software solution capable of elevating customer experiences for companies of all sizes.