Agent prioritization

The Agent Prioritization feature gives you a greater level of control over which Agents are offered for appointments. For example, you can use this feature to ensure that Agents with the most knowledge or experience in a particular subject are always offered first (if they are available) for appointments about that subject.

Agent prioritization is an optional feature. It will only be visible in the Engage Backoffice if it is included in your contract. Please contact your Pexip Engage Customer Success Manager for more information.

How does it work?

Normally, you only configure whether or not an Agent is available for a subject. Then, when a customer is making an appointment, they will be offered appointments with all available Agents.

When the Agent Prioritization feature is enabled, instead of just configuring which Agents are available for each subject, you can decide which of those Agents will always be offered first, which second, and which third.

You do this for each subject by giving each Agent a ranking from 1 to 3 (or no expertise, if they should never be available for that subject), and configuring a priority threshold (in days) for each ranking. Customers will then only be offered appointments for that subject with Agents ranked 1, unless there are no rank 1 Agents available within the priority threshold timeframe. In that case, customers will be offered appointments with rank 2 Agents instead for that timeframe. Likewise, appointments with rank 3 Agents will only be offered if there are no rank 1 or rank 2 Agents available.

For example, if the Latest slot shown for a subject is 15 days and you set your Rank 1 priority threshold to 5 days and your Rank 2 priority threshold to 10 days, when a customer is booking an appointment:

  • If there is a Rank 1 Agent available in the next 5 days, the customer will be shown all available Rank 1 Agent appointments for the next 15 days.

  • If there are no Rank 1 Agents available in the next 5 days, the customer will be shown all available Rank 2 Agent appointments for the next 5 days, and all available Rank 1 Agent appointments for the last 10 days.

  • If there are no Rank 1 Agents available in the next 10 days, the customer will be shown all available Rank 2 Agent appointments for the next 10 days, and all available Rank 1 Agent appointments for the last 5 days.

  • If there are no Rank 1 or Rank 2 Agents available in the next 5 days, the customer will be shown all available Rank 3 Agent appointments for the next 5 days, and all Rank 1 Agent appointments for the last 10 days.

  • If there are no Rank 1 Agents available in the next 10 days, and no Rank 2 Agents available in the next 5 days, the customer will be shown all available Rank 3 Agent appointments for the next 5 days, all available Rank 2 Agent appointments for the 5 days after that, and all available Rank 1 Agent appointments for the last 5 days.

Configuring Agent rankings

To assign a ranking for each Agent for a subject:

  1. From the left panel, select the Team tab.

  2. From the Offices drop-down, select the office for which you want to set the rules, and from the Settings section select Scheduling.

  3. Select the Assignments tab.

    You see a list of all the categories and subjects offered to customers from the selected office, and a list of Agents for the selected office. For each Agent / subject combination, a drop-down menu shows Rank 1, Rank 2, Rank 3 or No expertise.

    The default settings are Rank 1 for all Agents who were available for that subject when the feature was enabled, and No expertise for any Agents who were not available for that subject.

    If the Agent Prioritization feature has not been enabled, you see toggle buttons for each Agent / subject combination instead of the priority drop-downs.

  4. Use the drop-down menu to select the Agent's ranking. If you select No expertise, that Agent will never be available for that subject.

  5. Review your changes (which will be highlighted in yellow) and select Save.

Configuring priority thresholds

After you have assigned a ranking to each Agent / subject combination, you must configure the length of time after which, if a higher ranking Agent is not available, appointments with a lower-ranking Agent will be offered. This is known as the priority threshold. You configure this per subject for both Rank 1 and Rank 2 Agent availability.

To set the priority thresholds for a subject:

  1. From the left panel, select the Team tab.

  2. From the Offices drop-down, select the office for which you want to set the priority thresholds, and from the Settings section select Scheduling.

  3. Select the Planning rules tab.

    You see an overview of all the subjects offered to customers from the selected office.

  4. Select the subject name. The subject is expanded to show the full set of rules. Scroll down to the Rank 1 priority threshold and Rank 2 priority threshold settings:

    For a description of the other options configurable under the Planning rules tab, see Setting the scheduling rules.

  5. Set each threshold to the required number of days. The default is 0, meaning that only Rank 1 agents will be offered; Rank 2 and Rank 3 Agents will never be offered.

  6. Review your changes (which will be highlighted in yellow) and select Save.