, controlled by soft- ware) to be answered. Abandon rate is another favorite, measuring the length of time after which callers tire of waiting in queue and hang up. As mentioned above, telephone service representatives in a Call Center are often called TSRs or agents. ACD System Features Here are some of the system features you may find on an ACD: Routing INBOUND CALL ROUTING The heart of any inbound Call Center operation is Inbound Call Routing. There are two phases of inbound call routing: routing to a group, and then routing to a specific agent within The Telecom Handbook 77 THE ACD a group. Inbound Call Routing uses intelligent programming to recognize and accommodate Call Center traffic and agent per- formance. The system may have the flexibility to: Anticipate changing traffic and performance patterns, re- spond to unanticipated changes in traffic or agent performance and play announcements at any point. Route callers to voice processing devices such as IVRs, Fax Servers or Voice Mail equipment, always providing the caller the option to return to his place in queue. Recognize priority callers. Advise callers of the number of callers ahead of them or anticipated time before they will be answered. Put a pause in inbound routing until some predefined event occurs or some period of time passes. Queue calls to multiple groups simultaneously, including groups at re- mote centers and agents at home. Permit supervisor, administrator or management to make changes as needed. Most Call Centers try to distribute calls evenly among all agents within a group. However, there are instances where some agents are better prepared than others. For example, when new agents are added to a more experienced group, management wants the better-qualified agents to handle more calls than the new agents. Several different schemes can be used for selecting an agent within a group: 1. Top down/bottom up 2. Longest idle 3. Agent priority (based on experience or skill set) 4. A combination of longest idle and agent priority 5. Performance 