What is Omnichannel Routing?

The term "omnichannel" implies that a business is interacting with their customers in multiple service channels. Supported channels have expanded beyond traditional inbound calls to include email, chat, text messaging (SMS), and social media. Managing contacts from multiple channels can be a complex task and contact centers use omnichannel routing to address this need. Omnichannel routing is a routing method that assigns work to agents in accordance with preconfigured rules based on agent skills, so that customers get to the right agent at the right time, regardless of the interaction channel they are using.

Contact center agents are often multi-skilled, meaning they can handle contacts from multiple channels. Without omnichannel routing, managers might have to assign agents to one channel only and manually move them if another channel gets backed up. Omnichannel routing eliminates this juggling act by creating a universal queue that contains all pending contacts. The automatic contact distributor (ACD) that's at the heart of omnichannel routing assigns the contacts based on rules that include parameters such as the customer’s needs, the agent’s skills, their workload, and how long a specific contact type has been waiting in queue.

Omnichannel routing is powerful because it enables organizations to leverage the full capacity of their agent teams. Additionally, average wait times and abandon rates should decrease due to more effective queue management, and average handle times should decrease because contacts are routed to the most qualified available agent. This makes omnichannel routing an excellent tool for improving the customer experience.