
Zendesk
Avaya OneCloud UCaaS (formerly (formerly Avaya Aura Contact Center)) is a cloud-based and on-premise call center solution that caters to all businesses across various industries. The solution allows users to offer personalized int...Read more
Virtual Contact Center by 8x8 is a cloud-based call center solution for small to midsized businesses. In addition to call center functionality, this solution also supports other interaction mediums such as voicemail, email, web ca...Read more
AireContact is a web-based inbound, outbound, and blended call center solution for small and mid-sized businesses. It's a fit for companies in almost any industry....Read more
ChaseData CCaaS offers cloud-based, standalone call center functionality with customer service and support built into the solution. It’s designed for outbound, inbound and blended call center teams. Dialing capabilities inclu...Read more
Nextiva offers a robust call center solution for business large and small. Nextiva Call Center allows companies to deploy a contact center in the cloud for inbound and outbound calling campaigns. Smaller organizations can now acce...Read more
VanillaSoft is a sales and marketing automation tool that also includes features for telemarketing. This makes it an ideal fit for those who specialize in inside sales. It can be accessed from anywhere because it's web-based. ...Read more
bxp software is a web-based, modular customer management solution that offers applications for customer service, call center, and help desk, among others. Developed for simple and multi-channel users....Read more
crmConnect is a cloud-based customer relationship management platform suite that includes tools to manage sales automation, field service, customer support, social CRM, call center and channel management. With crmConnect, c...Read more
The PIMS Dialer is flexible, scalable, and secure. It’s a cloud-based application, and the servers are housed in a state-of-the-art facility that’s operated around the clock, delivering extremely reliable uptime. Companies can cus...Read more
Mitel MiContact Center is a hybrid contact center solution that caters to businesses across various industries such as hospitality, healthcare, government, education and service providers. The solution can be accessed via web brow...Read more
Connect First is a cloud-based contact center solution, which provides users various applications such as multi-channel contact management, automated call distribution (ACD), interactive voice response (IVR), computer telephony in...Read more
Huawei eSpace is a unified communications (UC) solution that can support up to 50,000 users at multiple sites, and offers UC features and secure virtual private network (VPN) connections on mobile devices....Read more
Genesys Cloud CX creates fluid conversations across digital and voice channels in an easy, all-in-one interface. Designed to provide exceptional experiences for your customers and employees, it deploys quickly, is intuitive to use...Read more
NewVoiceMedia’s tight integration with Salesforce is reflected in its AppExchange 5-star rating and the large number of positive reviews. The solution is designed to work in tandem with Salesforce capabilities and data to deliver ...Read more
CallPro CRM is a cloud-based sales and marketing solution that comprises email marketing, customer relationship management, lead profiling, website tracking, and outbound calling functionalities. It has the ability to build campai...Read more
Clarity Connect is a call center management solution suitable for concurrent users and for organizations across a variety of industries. Clarity Connect is a contact center solution that runs on the Skype for business It help...Read more
Most callers don’t like being placed in a queue, but consider the alternative: to simply let them wait indefinitely on hold. Most of us can guess what the outcome of that strategy will be.
Moreover, if the call is placed to one of your business’s main numbers rather than an employee’s dedicated number, how will you ensure that the call on hold is answered by one of your available employees?
Automatic call distribution is a capability both of integrated call center suites and standard business phone systems that solves these problems by enabling call queueing and rules for routing calls from the queue to your employees.
We’ll answer the following questions you might have about automatic call distribution:
What is an Automatic Call Distribution System?
Which Kinds of Systems Offer ACD?
Common Functionality of Automatic Call Distribution Software
What Type of Buyer Are You?
Essentially, a phone system or call center system with ACD capabilities parks incoming calls in a "call queue" and then routes them to call center agents or employees as they become available.
This ensures that calls get answered in the order that they come in, minimizing the time that callers wait on hold.
Moreover, because calls are routed to available personnel instead of being blindly routed to a line regardless of whether someone is there to answer, ACD ensures that your business answers far more calls.
Without ACD, you don’t have the option of call queueing—all callers will have to wait on hold. Because of this, ACD is used in nearly any business with a main company number or a toll-free number answered by multiple employees.
ACD is included in nearly all business phone systems, except for the most basic and stripped-down small business offerings on the market.
Call centers, in which large groups of agents spend long shifts answering inbound calls, have specialized ACD requirements. Thus, call center suites offer far more advanced ACD capabilities than most business phone systems, particularly when it comes to call routing.
Let’s take a look now at some of the specific features of advanced ACD systems.
A queue dashboard in 8x8 tracks metrics for calls in various queues (highlighted in red)
The core functionality of an advanced ACD system is to route calls based on pre-defined rules, whereas simpler ACD systems merely route the caller who’s waited the longest to the first available employee.
One common form of ACD used in call centers. With skills-based routing in place, call center agents are first assigned to groups based on skills (e.g., a sales team, a billing support team, a technical support team etc.). When a caller selects that they need “sales” or “support” in the system’s menu, the call is then routed to the right team, instead of just being sent to the first available agent in any team.
Even more advanced systems are capable of routing calls based on algorithms that factor in historical data collected by the call center system. For instance, calls can be routed to the best-performing agents (as determined by historical metrics), or to the agent who’s been waiting the longest between calls if multiple agents are available.
Factors used to route calls can include:
Call center ACD systems also offer advanced options when it comes to reporting and queueing, such as:
Usage data capture | Allows users to gather data such as the number of incoming and outgoing calls, average time on call, average wait time and more. This information can be analyzed for reporting and used to populate agent scorecards. |
Virtual queueing | Allows callers to avoid waiting on hold by entering their numbers to receive a callback when it’s their turn. This reduces customer frustration and wait times. |
Differentiated call queues | ACD software users can create multiple call queues and have the ability to transfer callers between them. For example, a company may create one queue for support and one for sales, then transfer callers based on the purpose of their calls. |
Virtual queueing, also known as callback, offers a dramatically improved waiting experience for callers, as we explain in our report on the subject. However, it’s still far from being a universally included feature in ACD modules, so make sure to mention it in your Request for Information (RFI).
At the very least, most businesses are going to need basic ACD. Thankfully, the ability to create call queues is a nearly universal feature in business phone systems.
The need for an advanced ACD system depends on a company’s volume of calls and whether those calls need to be routed in a specific way. Almost all buyers of advanced ACD solutions are call centers.
Here are some specific recommendations about the kinds of ACD capabilities that different businesses will need:
• Small businesses with fewer than 10 employees needing to place calls in queues can simply use a small business phone system. Small business systems generally offer ACD or at least “hunt groups,” i.e. the capability to group lines together so that multiple lines ring at once for a single inbound call.
Very small call centers can get by with basic hunt groups rather than advanced ACD by using a “round-robin” approach. In this routing scheme, calls are delivered sequentially to different employees. For instance, once employee A’s line rings, the next call is sent to employee B, then C etc.
Alternatively, some small call centers send calls to all agents at once, on the assumption that competition over who gets to answer is a motivating factor.
• Call centers fielding a high volume of calls should implement an ACD system to manage a queue and distribute calls based on time-on-hold, caller data, agent skills and more.
• Outbound and inbound call centers with an IVR should use an ACD to route calls. Outbound campaigns utilizing IVR menus require that you have ACD in place in order to properly route calls based on recipients’ IVR selections.
• Complex sales and support teams that need calls to be routed to various departments should use an ACD’s skills-based routing capabilities.
Virtually all of the call center systems listed on Software Advice offer an ACD system, in addition to the standard business phone systems we list. Explore our product profiles to find the solution that works best for your needs.