The Automatic Call Distributor (ACD) is the core technology system in a call centre that recognises, answers and routes incoming calls to the appropriately skilled agents.
Functions of an Automatic Call Distributor
As the ACD is the primary technology in call centres, it is the enabler for a range of other technologies and features that you will find in this glossary including:
- Skills-Based Routing and other Routing strategies
- Automatic Callback and Intelligent Callback
- Inbound and outbound blending
- Reporting & Monitoring
In short, if you have a call centre you almost certainly have an ACD.
Aside from the ability to route customers to the appropriate agent, today’s ACDs also have a variety of additional features that’ll help keep efficiency high and costs down.
For instance, some ACDs have the ability to estimate queue times and give customers the option of being automatically called back once a qualified agent becomes available.
Inbound/outbound call blending is also another popular offering within an automatic call distributor. This feature routes calls to outbound agents whenever inbound call volume surges, ensuring customers are assisted quickly and with as little headache as possible.
Additionally, the more information your agents have on a customer, the better.
A modern ACD system will import customer data from company CRMs and pass it along to your agents so they can handle requests with all available information, including previous calls, recurring issues, etc and with CTI and CRM tools, it can pop that information onto the screen as the call comes through to help the agent.
Recommended Read: Benefits of call centre phone systems
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