Lucent Technologies Lucent Call Centers Little Instruction Book For Advanced Administration

							Lucent Call Center’s Little Instruction Book for advanced 
administration  585-210-936  Issue 1
December 1999
Call and agent selection methods 
119 How call selection works 
If you determine that you want to administer reserve skills, consider the 
following questions for each skill:  
nWhich agents are able to back up that skill?
nAre you willing to have agents work differently in order to serve as 
reserve agents for the skill? (Agents are typically not as effective at 
skills that are not their primary assignments.) 
nWhich reserve levels will you assign for selected agents?
Overload thresholds
When using reserve agents, you need to assign overload thresholds that 
dictate when contingency operations will go into effect for a skill.  Overload 
thresholds are assigned a wait time that indicates a potential wait time 
condition at which the call center is willing to have reserve agent become 
eligible for work on that skill.  You can set one or two overload thresholds 
that determine how long callers should wait in queue for a skill before 
reserve agents are activated.     
						

							Call and agent selection methods 
120 How call selection works 
Lucent Call Center’s Little Instruction Book for advanced 
administration  585-210-936  Issue 1
December 1999
Call Selection Override
Call Selection Override determines whether agents will be diverted from 
their primary (standard) skills when the threshold for a reserve skill is 
exceeded.  Consider the following situations in which agents hold both 
standard and reserve skills.
nIf Call Selection Override is ON for the reserve skill:  The agent 
takes the reserve call regardless of whether any standard skills are 
waiting or how long they have waited.  This is a good choice for a 
skill that is critical in nature.    
nIf Call Selection Override is OFF for the reserve skill:  The call 
selection method administered for the agent affects whether the 
agent takes the reserve skill call:
— If the call selection method is Greatest Need, a calculation of 
the Predicted Wait Time and the Service Objective of the 
reserve and standard skills is made and compared for the call 
at the head of each queue.  The reserve skill call will be taken 
if its PWT/SO is the highest.  The intent is to make the skill 
important, but not critical, to back up.
— If the call selection method is Skill Level, the reserve skill 
call can be taken only if there are no standard skill calls 
waiting. (The reserve skill is given an “honorary skill level” 
of 16.) The intent is to back up the skill only on a 
convenience basis.
— If the call selection method is Percentage Allocation, a 
reserve skill call is taken any time the skill is in overload.  (A 
percentage allocation plan does not include percentage 
entries for reserve skills.) 
						

							Lucent Call Center’s Little Instruction Book for advanced 
administration  585-210-936  Issue 1
December 1999
Call and agent selection methods 
121 Call selection examples 
Call selection examples
The following examples show how the various types of call selection work 
for situations in which calls are in queue for three skills that an agent is 
eligible to serve.  Each scenario is based on the same skills and call wait 
times so that you can more clearly see the effects of call selection methods.  
Greatest Need without Service 
Objective 
In the following example, Greatest Need is administered for each of the 
available agent’s skills.  Service Objective is not set, and Predicted Wait 
Time is set at the system level.  Which call will be selected first when the 
agent becomes available? 
Using Greatest Need (without Service Objective), the call in skill 2 is 
selected.  This is because Greatest Need is administered in this situation, and 
calls are selected according to the longest Predicted Wait Time.Skill Number Predicted Wait Time 
1 45 seconds
2 90 seconds
3 50 seconds 
						

							Call and agent selection methods 
122 Call selection examples 
Lucent Call Center’s Little Instruction Book for advanced 
administration  585-210-936  Issue 1
December 1999
Greatest Need with Service Objective
In the following example, acceptable service levels or Service Objectives 
have been added for each skill by administering Service Objective.  Now 
which call will be selected first if calls are queued for an agent who is 
eligible to serve all three skills? 
In this situation, the call in skill 3 is selected because it is at the highest 
percentage (250%) of the 20-second acceptable service level for that skill.  
(Keep in mind that the ratio used with Service Objective is PWT/SO.)  The 
90-second call, in this case, with a service level of 45 seconds, is only at 
200% of the acceptable service level and therefore it is not selected.   Skill Number Acceptable 
Service 
LevelPredicted Wait Time
120 
seconds45 seconds
245 
seconds90 seconds
320 
seconds50 seconds 
						

							Lucent Call Center’s Little Instruction Book for advanced 
administration  585-210-936  Issue 1
December 1999
Call and agent selection methods 
123 Call selection examples 
Skill Level without Service Objective 
In the following example, the Skill Level call handling preference is set for 
the agent’s three skills.  Service Objective is not set for this agent.  Which 
call will the agent receive in this situation?     
In this instance, the 90-second call in skill 2 is selected because it is the 
oldest call in the agent’s highest level skills.  
Skill Level with Service Objective
In the following example, Service Objective is administered with Skill 
Level.  Which call will be selected for the agent?  
In this situation, the agent receives the call waiting in skill 1.  CentreVu 
Advocate identifies two level-1 calls in queue and selects the call that is at 
the highest acceptable service level (the call with the greatest ratio of PWT/
SO).     Skill Number Skill Level Predicted Wait Time
1 1 45 seconds
2 1 90 seconds
3 4 50 seconds
 Skill Number Skill LevelAcceptable 
Service LevelPredicted 
Wait Time
1 1 20 45 seconds
2 1 45 90 seconds
3 2 20 50 seconds 
						

							Call and agent selection methods 
124 Call selection examples 
Lucent Call Center’s Little Instruction Book for advanced 
administration  585-210-936  Issue 1
December 1999
Percent Allocation
Consider the following scenario in which Percentage Allocation is 
administered for each of the agent’s three skills.  If the agent has already 
spent 50% of his time serving skill 1, 35% of his time serving skill 2, and 
15% of his time serving skill 3, which of the queued calls will be selected for 
him? 
The agent has spent more time on skills 2 and 3 than the plan calls for, 
therefore he will receive the skill 1 call. (Note that Predicted Wait Time is 
not used to select calls when Percentage Allocation is in effect for an agent.)    Skill NumberPercent 
Allocation 
PlanActual Calls 
Queued
1 60% 50% 45 seconds
2 30% 35% 90 seconds
3 10% 15% 50 seconds 
						

							Lucent Call Center’s Little Instruction Book for advanced 
administration  585-210-936  Issue 1
December 1999
Call and agent selection methods 
125 How agent selection works 
How agent selection works
Agent selection methods are activated when there are more available agents 
than incoming calls.  They are administered as a Hunt Group method for the 
skill.  CentreVu Advocate allows you to select agents according to 
occupancy, idleness, and individual skill level, as described in the following 
paragraphs.   
Least occupied agent 
Least Occupied Agent (LOA) selects agents based upon their occupancy 
rather than position in an idle agent queue.  The occupancy calculation 
considers such variables as the agent’s time with calls ringing, calls active, 
calls on hold, and logged after call work (ACW).  It is designed to spread 
work time more evenly between agents, reducing the number of “hot seats” 
(agents who receive the most calls) and idle agents.  
There are two types of LOA selections.
nExpert Agent Distribution - Least Occupied Agent (EAD-LOA):    
Takes the skill level of agents into consideration before distributing a 
call.  It selects the highest skill level, least occupied agent in the skill 
to take the incoming call.
nUniform Call Distribution - Least Occupied Agent (UCD-LOA): 
Selects the least occupied agent when more than one agent is 
available to take a call.  UCD-LOA does not consider the agent’s 
skill level when distributing the call, but distributes the calls evenly 
across agents.  
Tip:
Occupancy levels can be more fair under UCD-LOA distribution.  
EAD-LOA results will vary depending on the number of skill levels 
used in the center for each skill.  
						

							Call and agent selection methods 
126 How agent selection works 
Lucent Call Center’s Little Instruction Book for advanced 
administration  585-210-936  Issue 1
December 1999
Most Idle Agent 
Most Idle Agent (MIA) selects the most idle agent with the skill for the 
incoming call.  Unlike LOA, this method does not take occupancy into 
consideration, but delivers the call to the agent who has been idle the longest 
in that particular skill.   
There are two types of MIA selections.
nExpert Agent Distribution - Most Idle Agent (EAD-MIA):  
Selects the highest skill level, most idle agent in the skill to take the 
call.
nUniform Call Distribution - Most Idle Agent (UCD-MIA):  
Selects the most idle agent in a skill, regardless of the agent’s skill 
level.    
						

							Lucent Call Center’s Little Instruction Book for advanced 
administration  585-210-936  Issue 1
December 1999
Call and agent selection methods 
127 Agent selection examples 
Agent selection examples
The following examples, each using the same agents and profiles, are 
designed to demonstrate how agent selection works.   
Expert Agent Distribution - Least 
Occupied Agent 
Using Expert Agent Distribution-Least Occupied Agent (EAD-LOA), if the 
following three agents are available to serve the arriving Sales skill call, 
which agent will receive the next call?      
In this situation, Agent A receives the next arriving Sales call because she is 
the highest level, least occupied agent.  Agent Skill 
LevelStaffed Time Time Occupied with this 
Skill
A 1 120 minutes 100 minutes
B 1 90 minutes 80 minutes
C 2 240 minutes 160 minutes 
						

							Call and agent selection methods 
128 Agent selection examples 
Lucent Call Center’s Little Instruction Book for advanced 
administration  585-210-936  Issue 1
December 1999
Uniform Call Distribution - Least 
Occupied Agent 
With the same agents available for the arriving Sales skill call, but with 
Uniform Call Distribution-Least Occupied Agent (UCD-LOA) administered 
instead of EAD-LOA, which agent will receive the next call?    
With UCD-LOA administered, Agent C receives the next arriving call for 
the Sales skill.  Agent Skill 
LevelStaffed Time Time Occupied with this 
Skill
A 1 120 minutes 100 minutes
B 1 90 minutes 80 minutes
C 2 240 minutes 160 minutes