Skills-Based Routing

Overview

Skills-based routing has three parts:

1. Create skills your team routes by (e.g. Spanish, Billing, Technical Support).
2. Rate members for each skill as Primary, Secondary, or Training.
3. Use the Skills strategy on a hunt group or call queue — the best-rated people ring first.

Skills and ratings are organization-wide, so one rating change affects every hunt group and queue that uses that skill. Managing skills requires an organization admin.

Create Skills

1. Go to CRM → Admin → Phone Settings → Skills.
2. Click + New Skill at the bottom.
3. Enter a Skill name (must be unique) and click Add skill.

To rename a skill, edit its name in the list — it saves when you press Enter or click away. Click N members rated to see who has the skill, in ring order.

Rate Members

1. Go to Phone Settings → Member Phones. A Skills column appears once your organization has at least one skill, showing each member's top three skills.
2. Click Add skills (or Skills) in the member's row.
3. Under Add skills, search and click Add next to each skill — new skills start at Primary.
4. Set each skill's level, or click Remove.
5. Click Save N changes.

Supervisors can also change an agent's skills from the Call Center wallboard with Queues & skills — see Call Center.

Proficiency Levels

Older in-between ratings show as Custom rating (N) and ring as their own tier between the standard levels.

Skills in Hunt Groups

1. Open the hunt group in Phone Settings → Hunt Groups.
2. Set Strategy to Skills — highest-rated for a skill first.
3. Pick one skill in Rank members by skill.
4. Set the Ring timeout (5–120 seconds, default 20) and save.

• Members with the same rating ring together; each level rings for the ring timeout before the next level starts.
• Members already on a call are skipped.
• Group members without a rating for the skill don't ring.
• If nobody is rated (or no skill is picked), everyone rings at once.

Skills in Call Queues

1. Open the queue in Phone Settings → Queues.
2. Set Strategy to Skills — best proficiency first, then longest idle.
3. Add one or more Required skills (agents need all of them). You can't save a Skills queue without at least one.
4. Set Ring each attempt (seconds) (5–120, default 20) and save.

Queue agents missing any required skill don't receive that queue's calls.

How Tiers Ring

An agent's level for a queue is their weakest required skill — someone who is Primary in Spanish but Training in Billing counts as Training for a queue that needs both.

Within a tier, the agent who has been idle longest gets the call. Each ring timeout opens the next tier while earlier tiers keep ringing as they free up. Backup agents always come after every primary agent, whatever their skill level.

Checking Coverage

In Call Center → Reports → Skill coverage, each queue shows its required skills, how many agents are eligible, how many are Primary / Secondary / Training, how many are Available now (red when zero), and Calls per eligible agent. Use it to spot skills with too few people.

Tips

• Keep skill lists short and specific — languages, product lines, and tiers of support work well.
• Rate at least two Primary agents per skill so callers aren't waiting on one person.
• Use Training for new hires so they get calls only when experienced agents are busy.
• Members need a softphone or desk phone to ring — see Softphone and Desk Phones.