Reserved agent vs Preferred agent

If you want a caller/chatter/email/social media request in queue to be connected to the same agent as last time, Puzzel support can configure Reserved agent for the selected queue. Two parameters must be configured:

• Auto-store reserved agent (d): How many days to store which agent an answered customer's call/chat/email/social media request was last connected to. As customer ID here we use the caller's number, the chatter's ID (email address), the email's sender and the "source" from a social media request.
• Reserved agent (s): How many seconds an incoming call/chat/email/social media request should wait for the reserved agent only (if found in the Auto-store table). After x seconds (when the reserved time has ended), the request no longer has this agent as "reserved", but instead as "preferred", and the request can be offered to other agents.

For a Facebook public post and the belonging comments, we treat all users' commenting on the same post as the same end-customer when we are looking for a reserved agent for a new request related to this post.

For an incoming call or chat the request's reserved agent will change to preferred if the agent is logged off now or the agent logs off during the reserved time.

For incoming emails (including e-task/scheduled tasks) and social media requests, the reserved agent will be kept as reserved for the defined reserved time even if the agent is logged off or logs off during the reserved time.

• If you put email/e-task in queue using Puzzel's web-services RequestEtaskAdd, you can provide information about each request's reserved agent and reserved time.
• If you put Scheduled tasks in queue using Puzzel's web-service RequestScheduledETaskAdd, you can provide information about each request's reserved agent and reserved time. If no reserved time is given for the request, the pre-defined "Scheduled task reserved time" is used.

Allocation of requests with a reserved agent

• When an agent becomes ready, and there is a phone call in queue reserved for this agent, this call will be sent to this agent even if the agent is not logged on to the queue the reserved request is waiting in, and even if this request is not first in queue.
• If there is a request in an Email (task), Chat or Social media queue reserved for an agent, the request will be offered to this agent only if the agent is logged on with a profile containing the relevant media type (Email, Chat or Social media).
  • If the agent is logged on to queue using a profile not containing e.g. Email when an Email (or task) in queue has this agent as reserved, the request will show in the agent's Personal Queue tab, but it will not be allocated/offered to the agent.

Alternative allocation of requests with reserved agent (in email queues)

For email/task queues, the standard allocation of requests with a reserved agent might not always be the "best" solution, since an email reserved to an agent might not be more important than other emails/chats/or calls in queue with (much) higher SLA scores.

To adjust the standard behaviour for requests with a reserved agent, option 1 or options 1 and 2 below can be chosen for one or more of your (email) queues:

1. Allocate request reserved to agent only if the agent is logged on to the relevant queue (aka 'Require Skill on queue for Reserved')
2. Allocate request reserved to agent only if the request is "first" in queue ('Require First in queue for Reserved')

For phone queues you can consider option 1, but we do not recommend option 2 since this might result in (significantly) longer wait times for callers with a reserved agent.

For email queues we recommend option 1 if agents should not get emails when not logged on to the email queue, or 1+2 to avoid that emails with a reserved agent are prioritised before calls/chats without a reserved agent.

If you want to turn on one or both of these options for one or more of your queues (email), please contact Puzzel Support.