What Is Call Routing? Call Routing Definition | Mitel

What is call routing?

Call routing is a call management feature for business phone systems where each incoming call is placed in a queue and is then routed to a specific person or group of people based on pre-established rules and criteria. Call routing occurs before someone on the receiving end picks up the call.

Call routing can be established by both user prompts and call attributes, such as call volume, time of day, language preferences of the caller, department requested and agent availability.

Call routing systems are also called Automatic Call Distributors (ACD), because of how they work to automatically distribute inbound calls.

Some Benefits And Advantages of Call Routing

A good call routing system not only maximizes agents’ time and reduces hold times for callers, but it also routes callers to the person best suited for the call. For example, having a language call route in place ensures that a Spanish-speaking caller gets routed to a Spanish-speaking agent. This helps improve first call resolution.

Common Types of Call Routing

The most common type of call routing is based on location and time. For example, if one company has a call center on the both the East and West Coasts, evening callers on the East Coast can be routed to the West Coast call center, which is still operating during regular West Coast business hours. This feature is also often used to route calls to offshore call centers.

The Types Of Companies That Benefit Most from Call Routing

Call routing is an essential feature of business phone systems for any business that has multiple employees, departments or locations. A good call routing system eliminates the need for as many internal call transfers, which are detrimental to the caller's customer experience and are time consuming for employees.