Overview: Weight setting in Queues

This article explains the concept of queue weight.

In this article

Overview

In Console, the weight field lets you define if the interactions managed in one queue are more or less important than interactions created in other queues.

What is queue weight?

Queue weight is a numeric value that is assigned to a queue. Queues with a higher weight manage interactions that are more important than queues with lower weights.

If a queue user handles multiple queues, interactions in the highest priority queue will have priority over interactions in lower priority queues (regardless of when the lower priority queue interaction was created in the queue). Queue weight is just one of many factors that AID uses to determine when and how best to deliver an interaction to the next best agent.

Note: If you don’t set a weight on a queue, or if all of your queues have the same weight, interactions are served based on creation time (long-waiting interactions take priority over recently created interactions), tag routing, agent availability, interaction points, and more.

You can configure queue weight to define the relative importance of interactions created in that queue versus other queues.

How it works

Once an interaction is created, the system evaluates it based on its level of importance among interactions. This evaluation process is called AID (Automatic Interaction Distribution).

If a queue user handles interactions in multiple queues, AID delivers interactions created in higher priority queues to queue users first. This is just one factor used to determine when and how an interaction is routed once it’s created in the queue. AID also takes things like interaction points, tags, and a few other factors into account when making this decision.

• Step 1: Queue weight - yes or no

Once an interaction is created, the system evaluates it to determine which queue is hosting it and if that queue has a weight to it or not.

• Step 2: Compare queue weights between queues

Since the highest weighted queue is given highest priority, the interactions are ordered from highest to lowest queue weight.

• Step 3: Interactions further evaluated based on AID process

The queue weight evaluation process is complete. Now other factors such as interaction points and the length of time an interaction has been waiting in the queue are considered to determine how to route the interaction.

Use case

The bank you work for has three customer statuses: Standard, Gold and Diamond. Diamond customers have banked with you for 10 or more years and have met the highest minimum balance requirements to become eligible for Diamond status. Gold members have also met minimum balance requirements to become eligible for Gold status, but the requirements are not as stringent as the diamond requirements. Standard customers, meanwhile, do not have to meet any requirements for their status.

Because of their loyalty and ability to meet the highest minimum balance requirements, diamond customers are given the highest priority when contacting your bank. Therefore, the queue weight for the queue that manages diamond customers is 20.

Gold members have the second highest priority when contacting your bank. The queue weight for the queue that handles gold customers is 10.

Standard customers do not have any priority over other queue when contacting your bank. The queue weight for standard customers is 0.

The bank uses the same queue users to manage interactions for all customer status types. If a standard customer has been waiting in the standard queue for two minutes, a gold customer has been waiting in the gold queue for one minute, and a diamond customer has been waiting in the diamond queue for 30 seconds, when a queue user becomes available, the diamond customer will be connected first because they are in the highest weighted queue. If no one else enters any of the queues, the gold customer will be connected next, followed by the standard customer.

If the bank ever adds or adjusts its customer status tiers, it would be possible to assign weight to a new queue or modify the weight of existing queues. The queue weight just needs to be higher or lower relative to the other queues’ weights. If a queue’s weight is greater than 20 in this circumstance, they’ll be prioritized over the diamond customers.

Queue weights are extremely helpful for organizations that handle multiple queues with the same queue users and who have different customer care practices based on customer status. Since queue weights can be changed at any time, it is easy to adjust the priority of queues to meet your needs.