Call distribution

Traditionally Vonage Contact Center routes interactions to the longest waiting agent. With skills based routing, if two agents have identical skills, the longest waiting of those agents gets the interaction. Equal call distribution is a type of skills based routing.

What is equal call distribution?

With equal call distribution, Vonage Contact Center distributes interactions more equally between the available agents.

'Available' agents are those who are ready to answer interactions—that is, in a Ready state. An agent who is in any other state is 'unavailable'.

Equal call distribution is ideal for outbound contact centers. In an outbound contact center, agents might perceive inbound interactions as being more valuable than outbound calls. Without equal call distribution, the agents making the most outbound calls may miss out on these inbound interactions; with equal call distribution, Vonage Contact Center allocates inbound interactions more fairly.

We cannot guarantee full equality because equal call distribution only considers available agents—that is, the agents who are not working on an interaction. If an agent spends all day unavailable—for example, on outbound calls—Vonage Contact Center has no opportunity to deliver them an inbound interaction.

If equal call distribution is enabled for your account, the following call distribution methods are available:

Time since answering last inbound call (descending). Vonage Contact Center selects the agent who has been the longest without an inbound interaction and is available to answer. If enabled for your account, Vonage Contact Center disregards personal interactions in the calculation.

The time since an agent's last inbound interaction is never reset. So, when an agent logs in, their last inbound interaction from when they were last logged in applies. If an agent logs out for a significant period of time—for example, if the agent goes on holiday—Vonage Contact Center is quite likely to route the next inbound interaction to them when they next log in as their last inbound interaction will be longest ago.
When you create a new agent, the time since the agent's last inbound interaction is set to the time of agent creation. As a result, the agent will have to wait until all other agents have received an inbound interaction before Vonage Contact Center routes an inbound interaction to them.
Time since handling last interaction or changing presence (descending). This method is the default method of call distribution and works the same as if equal call distribution is not enabled for your account. If two agents have identical skills, the agent who handled an interaction or changed their presence longest ago, gets the interaction. If you don't want to use equal call distribution, use this method.
In this context:
- The agent finishes 'handing an interaction' when the conversation between the agent and customer ends.
- An agent 'changes their presence' when they:
  - Log in to VCC
  - Go into a Ready state from any other presence state. Any other presence changes are not included.
Time since handling last interaction (descending). If two agents have identical skills, the agent who handled an interaction the longest ago, gets the interaction.

In this context, the agent finishes 'handing an interaction' when the conversation between the agent and customer ends.
Random Agent. With random call distribution, Vonage Contact Center allocates the interactions on a random basis to available agents.

For information about setting up equal call distribution, see Configuring equal call distribution.