Automatic Call Distributor

Automatic Call Distributor. A simple way of describing not just a piece of hardware, but really everything that goes on in a call center. That’s the basic function, anyway: taking incoming calls and moving them to the right place, the agent’s desk.

Over the years, things have changed. The ACD is responsible for more than just moving calls. That’s probably not even the best term for it anymore; I should probably be using something closer to telephony server, though that term is already in use for the LAN server that moves call control commands from client workstations to the attached ACD or PBX.

Now, the ACD’s job is not just to route calls, but to manage the information associated with those calls as well. “ACD” is really a function that can be carried out by a wide variety of different kinds of processors.

At the very low end, you can buy a PBX that has “ACD” (read: call routing to agents) built in, or you can choose to add it on through a PC application. (Yes, the switches are generally open enough to third-party or other add-on apps.) You can route calls in the network, thanks to intelligent features built into the carrier networks.

The ACD is the heart and soul of the modern call center. It is the engine of productivity — the single piece of technology without which the whole edifice of inbound sales, order taking and customer service all crumble. What the ACD has done is enable the volume of calls you take to escalate intelligently, and in ever more specialized complexity. It has matured beyond call routing. It is the brain and control point for the call center, for both inbound and outbound, for voice calls and data traffic. It’s a call center’s arbiter: setting priorities, alerting supervisors to patterns and crossed thresholds.

Once the term “ACD” meant a very specific type of telephone switch. It was a switch with highly specialized features and particularly robust call processing capabilities that served at least 100 stations (or extensions). It was purchased mostly by airlines for their reservations centers and large catalogs for their order centers.

Companies with less specialized needs bought different technologies that didn’t offer the same specialized features. Currently, true ACD functionality is found in telephone switches that range widely in size and sophistication.

Today, there are PC-based ACDs, key systems with ACD functions, key systems that integrate with a computer and software to create a full-featured ACD, PBXs with ACD functions, PBXs with ACD functions that are so sophisticated they compete with stand-alone ACD systems, stand-alone ACDs that serve centers with less than 30 agents, traditional stand-alone ACDs (don’t misunderstand, these are usually the most sophisticated), ACDs that integrate with other call center technologies, and nationwide networks of ACDs that act as a single switch.

There is simply no technology more suited to routing a large number of inbound calls to a large number of people than an ACD. Using an ACD assures your calls are answered as quickly as possible. It can provide special service for special customers.

ACDs are capable of handling calls at a rate and volume far beyond human capabilities, and in fact, beyond the capabilities of other telecom switches. They provide a huge amount of call processing horsepower. Using an ACD assures your human resources are used as effectively as possible. It even lets you create your own definition of effectiveness. An ACD gives you the resources to manage the many parts of your call center, from telephone trunks to agent stations to calls and callers to your agents and staff.

With all these call handling options, many of them surprisingly open and modular, why would anyone still want an expensive standalone ACD for their center? Two simple reasons:

Power. Nothing has more raw call processing ability than a first-tier standalone. Nothing else is so uniquely suited to the needs of today’s reservation or financial service megacenters.

Technology. When it comes to integration with other call center systems, like IVR, data warehouses and intranets, nothing can beat a powerhouse ACD. The same goes for multi-site networking and skills-based routing — two of today’s most sought after inbound features.

No knock on smaller systems like PC-ACD and PBX/ACD hybrids (which account for much of the industry’s phenomenal growth in small centers), but there is no substitute for the call-crunching strength of a standalone ACD in many high-volume applications.

The ACD is being changed by two dramatic trends in the call center. First, it is being asked to channel more information, of many different kinds, in more directions. A decade ago, there were two kinds of information: the call itself, and raw log information about the calls in aggregate. Little else was needed, and if you did need more details about what was coming through the ACD you could analyze the data (which often came out a serial port) on your PC with a cumbersome third-party tool.

Now, call center managers need information — presented in a form that makes it easy to grasp quickly. High-end ACDs vendors have added data management modules at a rapid clip. Also there are many outside programs that can connect to the ACD and funnel data in and out. These include workforce management tools that forecast load, and software systems that put real-time and historical data into any form needed (like reports and readerboard displays).

ACD vendors are improving the tools the supervisor has to tweak the ACD while it’s in motion: things like creating groups on the fly, moving calls and personnel around, monitoring for quality, to name just a few things.

The other dynamic change is in what kinds of calls the ACD has to route. Sometimes this is referred to as alternate methods of call delivery. Call centers have been integrating ACDs with IVR for years, and the same goes for the combination of ACD and fax. Now I’m seeing vendors grapple with the Web and the Internet, with calls that come in from PCs and that terminate in databases instead of agents.

The call center itself is giving way to something more amorphous known as (for lack of a better term) a “customer contact zone,” in which what’s important is the transaction between the customer and the company, not what wire that transaction passed through.

Another thing that’s shaken up ACD design is skills-based routing. At first, this was a feature that was added to switches more because the technology was possible and cool than because call centers were clamoring for it. It’s taken a long time for call centers to figure out how to make it work because (for reasons that I’ll go into in more detail in another chapter) skills-based routing rubs the wrong way against the proper use of workforce management software.

Be that as it may, skills-based routing is a highly interesting and advanced system for distributing calls that come into an ACD. Traditional routing is based on two factors — an equitable distribution of calls among available agents, and the random nature of incoming calls. Skills-based routing changes this somewhat: it routes calls to the agent “best qualified” to handle the call, measuring “qualified” by agent parameters you set.

The ACD does this in two steps. First, some front-end technology must be used to identify the needs of the caller. That’s usually accomplished through DNIS, ANI or an IVR system. Then that information is matched against the sets of agent skill groups. There are two ACD advances that let you run skills-based routing effectively:

• Leaving a call in an initial queue while simultaneously and continuously checking other agent groups for agent availability;

• Or allowing an agent to be logged on to more than one agent group (in this case a skill group) at a time, assigning priorities to those groups by skill type.

And finally, changes have been hastened by the need and desire to link call centers together into multi-site call center networks. In some ways, this is operationally an extension of skills-based routing: it’s not enough to choose the best available agent — often you have to choose the best available agent at the most appropriate location (based on time of day, traffic at one or more sites, skill clusters or call priority).

To a greater or lesser degree, vendors of standalone ACDs are pushing the technology envelope with their switches. Some are concentrating on software development to add value to the core switch. Others are paying more attention to integration with third-party call center technologies like the Internet and IVR. Still more are adapting their switches to smaller, departmental call centers, hoping to catch some of the growth in the industry that way. In all, it’s created a dynamic atmosphere — one in which if you want a feature, all you have to do is ask.