ACD features, or Automatic Call Distribution, is an every day part of the business world and does what it says on the tin by automatically distributing the incoming calls amongst the advisors in the contact or call centres who are sitting waiting for the calls and help or advise customers. Most of these systems are network based and there are various features that come with the ACD systems.
These are controlled by the call recipients to allow them to take calls, make themselves busy, take time out for breaks or give them the chance to update notes on accounts or make amendments that they have agreed with the customers. Having these features at their fingertips is essential to phone advisors to allow them to do these tasks which are expected of them without calls backing up in a queue waiting to get through to them.
Once an advisor logs into the network based ACD system, which can vary greatly in name and composition between customers but all serve the same basic purpose, they will click on a part of their screen that makes them available to take calls. Another feature is being able to put the caller on hold if they don’t have any necessary information to hand and have to make a secondary call without disconnecting the original caller.
Call transfers are another feature; they may have a direct line to another department whereas they will introduce the caller to the new receiver and pass them another. Another way is blind transferring, where they pop the caller into the call queue for the other department and they can wait their turn while listening to music.
A ‘busy’ feature stops calls trying to get through to that advisor and they are diverted elsewhere, this is a well used feature for catching up with notes or nipping to the toilet. Clicking on it again on their return makes them available to take calls once again.
