How do you set up skills-based routing?

Required tools

• Unified routing in operation — The basic routing must work first.
• Mapped competence — Who can do what, confirmed by the team leader.

Define the skills

1. 1.Keep the list short

   Languages and two or three areas of expertise are enough for most people. Twenty skills result in a model that no one maintains and that produces requests with no match.

2. 2.Register skills for the agents

   Each agent is assigned the skills they actually have. Have the team leader confirm the list—self-reporting tends to be either too modest or too optimistic.

Route and secure

1. 3.Add skill requirements to the routing rules

   Specify which skills are required for each type of inquiry. Be careful when requiring multiple skills at the same time—each requirement reduces the number of available agents.

2. 4.Set up what happens when there is no match

   This is the most important setting. If no agent with the right skills is available, the requirement must either be relaxed automatically after a certain period of time, or the inquiry must be sent to a catch-all queue. Otherwise, it will remain there until someone notices it.

3. 5.Review the skills quarterly

   People change roles. A skills model that is not maintained routes tasks to the wrong people and makes the system seem unreliable.