Genesys Cloud - Main

Hey guys,

As the Genesys administrator at my organisation, I've a (big) conundrum that I'd like to run-by the community to get opinions or / and possible solutions. 

Within our Genesys Org we have multiple queues, both voice and email. We do not have queues assigned to specific teams or sets of individuals. The direction from our Exec team is that all agents should be able to handle all incoming queries / interactions, and as such, for the most part agents are assigned to numerous voice and email queues (having dedicated email or voice only teams is an absolute 'no' – mandated by our Exec). As well as inbound queues, we also have queues associated with outbound voice campaigns for sales call purposes for instance. We also leverage outbound digital (email) campaigns to send email interactions to other Genesys email queues, as a means to serving work to agents when idle time is high – an example of one of these self-generated email interactions might be, 'contact customer X and request they provide updated contact details'. 

Furthermore, quite a number of our email queues require 'Enable Multiple Actions' enabled, ensuring that email interaction correspondence between the agent and the customer remains 'open' and assigned to the agent until the query is dealt with, as the query might be complex and require multiple email interactions between the agent and the customer. This only applies to a number of queues due to the nature of the interactions. The agents that serve these queues are configured to have up to 15 concurrent email interactions, as due to the nature of the emails, they may remain open for some time and therefore we need to ensure additional interactions reach the agent. Hopefully that makes sense.

Through 'Utilisation' settings, email interactions cannot interrupt voice interactions. That's globally configured. Our Call Centre, after around 18 months of fine-tuning, is running quite efficiently! 

Enter the problem… 

Our Exec are concerned that as voice interactions are able to interrupt email interactions, they believe that this results in agents having to re-read emails that have been interrupted by a voice interaction and that this is costing us time and efficiency. Therefore, the mandate is (absolutely not up for discussion) that email interactions can no longer be interrupted by voice interactions. I can set priority for voice interactions to heavily 'trump' email interactions, but still, in my view, this resolves one (suspected) issue and creates a multitude of issues elsewhere. The below are the issues that I believe this will create:

Multiple Actions Email / 15 Concurrent Email Queues

If email interactions can no longer be interrupted by voice interactions, the agents that are members of these queues will rarely (if ever) receive a voice interaction, as 99% of the time, they will have active email interactions. If we disabled multiple actions and configure concurrent emails to '1' for these email queues / agents – each time an agent responds to one of these complex customer interactions, once the customer responds it will likely route to a different agent within the queue, who would then need to read through the whole interaction and potentially discuss with other agent (or agents – a single interaction could be potentially handled by numerous agents). This creates a whole new (chaotic) problem in my opinion. The only solution being to exempt the agents dealing with these queues from the 'emails not interrupted' utilisation configuration?

Outbound Voice Campaigns (Sales etc)

If emails are not interruptible, and outbound agents have open email interactions, the dialler will not 'kick-in' until all emails are dealt with. In times of heavy email interactions, this will seriously affect our outbound campaigns as agents are dealing with emails as you can't set priority on outbound voice interactions. The only solution being to exempt the outbound agents dealing with these queues from the 'emails not interrupted' utilisation configuration?

Agent Behaviour / Supervisor Governance Overhead

Having gone to huge efforts to maximise agent productivity through GCCX configurational fine-tuning, in preventing voice interactions interrupting email interactions, we are introducing a considerable mechanism / operational feature into the platform that enables agents to take advantage / 'slack off' (as they potentially casually process email interactions, knowing they will not receive a voice interaction whilst doing so). Supervisor governance of this is going to be considerable – both monitoring / investigating within the platform and engaging agents to discuss discrepancies with email interaction resolution time / processing.

Administrative Overhead

If, though highly unlikely, a concession is made and we are allowed to exempt outbound campaign agents and agents that deal with 'Multiple Actions Email / 15 Concurrent Email Queues', we are going to be introducing additional significant platform complexity / administrational overhead where the agent utilisation configuration settings pertaining to the agents that are members of these queues / campaigns are concerned. Utilisation settings will need to be managed at the agent level and not globally.

Increased Customer Call Waiting Time / Call Handling Time

Within periods of high call volume, despite any prioritisation measures / mechanisms favouring voice interactions over email, we are going to experience increased customer call waiting time – potentially a significant increase. The resulting effect being customers spend more time complaining to agents about call waiting times, thus affecting call handling time.

Self-Generated Email Interactions / Outbound Digital Campaigns

Currently, the Call Centre team heavily employ digital (email) campaigns to send emails to Genesys queues, to 'serve' actionable items / work to agents and to minimise idle time. If emails can no longer be interrupted, use of this mechanism needs to be very closely managed / supervised and 'balanced'. Failure to do so could create an overload of emails resulting in impacted outbound campaigns (dialler paused), increased customer call waiting time and thus increased call handling time (as detailed above). Conversely, under-utilisation of this mechanism will lead to increased agent idle time.

The above are the issues that immediately 'spring-to-mind'. I'm sure that there are others that I have not considered? Perhaps there is a solution I've not considered, although to be honest, it feels to me like we are putting a 'wrecking-ball' through a stable environment to resolve an issue we aren't even sure exists. I'm interested to hear the opinions of others that have heroically read through this whole post! 😊 This mandate is coming from the top and there is no room for negotiation.

Hello Matthew,

Thank you for that excellent write up. Hopefully someone from the Community will be able to share their idea for best practices in the comments below.

Hey guys,

As the Genesys administrator at my organisation, I've a (big) conundrum that I'd like to run-by the community to get opinions or / and possible solutions. 

Within our Genesys Org we have multiple queues, both voice and email. We do not have queues assigned to specific teams or sets of individuals. The direction from our Exec team is that all agents should be able to handle all incoming queries / interactions, and as such, for the most part agents are assigned to numerous voice and email queues (having dedicated email or voice only teams is an absolute 'no' – mandated by our Exec). As well as inbound queues, we also have queues associated with outbound voice campaigns for sales call purposes for instance. We also leverage outbound digital (email) campaigns to send email interactions to other Genesys email queues, as a means to serving work to agents when idle time is high – an example of one of these self-generated email interactions might be, 'contact customer X and request they provide updated contact details'. 

Furthermore, quite a number of our email queues require 'Enable Multiple Actions' enabled, ensuring that email interaction correspondence between the agent and the customer remains 'open' and assigned to the agent until the query is dealt with, as the query might be complex and require multiple email interactions between the agent and the customer. This only applies to a number of queues due to the nature of the interactions. The agents that serve these queues are configured to have up to 15 concurrent email interactions, as due to the nature of the emails, they may remain open for some time and therefore we need to ensure additional interactions reach the agent. Hopefully that makes sense.

Through 'Utilisation' settings, email interactions cannot interrupt voice interactions. That's globally configured. Our Call Centre, after around 18 months of fine-tuning, is running quite efficiently! 

Enter the problem… 

Our Exec are concerned that as voice interactions are able to interrupt email interactions, they believe that this results in agents having to re-read emails that have been interrupted by a voice interaction and that this is costing us time and efficiency. Therefore, the mandate is (absolutely not up for discussion) that email interactions can no longer be interrupted by voice interactions. I can set priority for voice interactions to heavily 'trump' email interactions, but still, in my view, this resolves one (suspected) issue and creates a multitude of issues elsewhere. The below are the issues that I believe this will create:

Multiple Actions Email / 15 Concurrent Email Queues

If email interactions can no longer be interrupted by voice interactions, the agents that are members of these queues will rarely (if ever) receive a voice interaction, as 99% of the time, they will have active email interactions. If we disabled multiple actions and configure concurrent emails to '1' for these email queues / agents – each time an agent responds to one of these complex customer interactions, once the customer responds it will likely route to a different agent within the queue, who would then need to read through the whole interaction and potentially discuss with other agent (or agents – a single interaction could be potentially handled by numerous agents). This creates a whole new (chaotic) problem in my opinion. The only solution being to exempt the agents dealing with these queues from the 'emails not interrupted' utilisation configuration?

Outbound Voice Campaigns (Sales etc)

If emails are not interruptible, and outbound agents have open email interactions, the dialler will not 'kick-in' until all emails are dealt with. In times of heavy email interactions, this will seriously affect our outbound campaigns as agents are dealing with emails as you can't set priority on outbound voice interactions. The only solution being to exempt the outbound agents dealing with these queues from the 'emails not interrupted' utilisation configuration?

Agent Behaviour / Supervisor Governance Overhead

Having gone to huge efforts to maximise agent productivity through GCCX configurational fine-tuning, in preventing voice interactions interrupting email interactions, we are introducing a considerable mechanism / operational feature into the platform that enables agents to take advantage / 'slack off' (as they potentially casually process email interactions, knowing they will not receive a voice interaction whilst doing so). Supervisor governance of this is going to be considerable – both monitoring / investigating within the platform and engaging agents to discuss discrepancies with email interaction resolution time / processing.

Administrative Overhead

If, though highly unlikely, a concession is made and we are allowed to exempt outbound campaign agents and agents that deal with 'Multiple Actions Email / 15 Concurrent Email Queues', we are going to be introducing additional significant platform complexity / administrational overhead where the agent utilisation configuration settings pertaining to the agents that are members of these queues / campaigns are concerned. Utilisation settings will need to be managed at the agent level and not globally.

Increased Customer Call Waiting Time / Call Handling Time

Within periods of high call volume, despite any prioritisation measures / mechanisms favouring voice interactions over email, we are going to experience increased customer call waiting time – potentially a significant increase. The resulting effect being customers spend more time complaining to agents about call waiting times, thus affecting call handling time.

Self-Generated Email Interactions / Outbound Digital Campaigns

Currently, the Call Centre team heavily employ digital (email) campaigns to send emails to Genesys queues, to 'serve' actionable items / work to agents and to minimise idle time. If emails can no longer be interrupted, use of this mechanism needs to be very closely managed / supervised and 'balanced'. Failure to do so could create an overload of emails resulting in impacted outbound campaigns (dialler paused), increased customer call waiting time and thus increased call handling time (as detailed above). Conversely, under-utilisation of this mechanism will lead to increased agent idle time.

The above are the issues that immediately 'spring-to-mind'. I'm sure that there are others that I have not considered? Perhaps there is a solution I've not considered, although to be honest, it feels to me like we are putting a 'wrecking-ball' through a stable environment to resolve an issue we aren't even sure exists. I'm interested to hear the opinions of others that have heroically read through this whole post! 😊 This mandate is coming from the top and there is no room for negotiation.

Thank you, Jason. Apologies that it is a little 'long-winded'... 

I've thought of another big issue. Quite a number of voice interactions are 'transferred' within our Org. These transferred calls are stripped of their priority and would likely become 'stuck' due to being out-trumped by email / voice interactions with defined priority. I believe there might be a solution relating to voice transfers - transferring to an Architect flow so that the priority can be defined / attached. Although, this might be asking a lot of our call centre agents as some struggle just transferring to queues.

Hello Matthew,

Thank you for that excellent write up. Hopefully someone from the Community will be able to share their idea for best practices in the comments below.

Hey guys,

As the Genesys administrator at my organisation, I've a (big) conundrum that I'd like to run-by the community to get opinions or / and possible solutions. 

Within our Genesys Org we have multiple queues, both voice and email. We do not have queues assigned to specific teams or sets of individuals. The direction from our Exec team is that all agents should be able to handle all incoming queries / interactions, and as such, for the most part agents are assigned to numerous voice and email queues (having dedicated email or voice only teams is an absolute 'no' – mandated by our Exec). As well as inbound queues, we also have queues associated with outbound voice campaigns for sales call purposes for instance. We also leverage outbound digital (email) campaigns to send email interactions to other Genesys email queues, as a means to serving work to agents when idle time is high – an example of one of these self-generated email interactions might be, 'contact customer X and request they provide updated contact details'. 

Furthermore, quite a number of our email queues require 'Enable Multiple Actions' enabled, ensuring that email interaction correspondence between the agent and the customer remains 'open' and assigned to the agent until the query is dealt with, as the query might be complex and require multiple email interactions between the agent and the customer. This only applies to a number of queues due to the nature of the interactions. The agents that serve these queues are configured to have up to 15 concurrent email interactions, as due to the nature of the emails, they may remain open for some time and therefore we need to ensure additional interactions reach the agent. Hopefully that makes sense.

Through 'Utilisation' settings, email interactions cannot interrupt voice interactions. That's globally configured. Our Call Centre, after around 18 months of fine-tuning, is running quite efficiently! 

Enter the problem… 

Our Exec are concerned that as voice interactions are able to interrupt email interactions, they believe that this results in agents having to re-read emails that have been interrupted by a voice interaction and that this is costing us time and efficiency. Therefore, the mandate is (absolutely not up for discussion) that email interactions can no longer be interrupted by voice interactions. I can set priority for voice interactions to heavily 'trump' email interactions, but still, in my view, this resolves one (suspected) issue and creates a multitude of issues elsewhere. The below are the issues that I believe this will create:

Multiple Actions Email / 15 Concurrent Email Queues

If email interactions can no longer be interrupted by voice interactions, the agents that are members of these queues will rarely (if ever) receive a voice interaction, as 99% of the time, they will have active email interactions. If we disabled multiple actions and configure concurrent emails to '1' for these email queues / agents – each time an agent responds to one of these complex customer interactions, once the customer responds it will likely route to a different agent within the queue, who would then need to read through the whole interaction and potentially discuss with other agent (or agents – a single interaction could be potentially handled by numerous agents). This creates a whole new (chaotic) problem in my opinion. The only solution being to exempt the agents dealing with these queues from the 'emails not interrupted' utilisation configuration?

Outbound Voice Campaigns (Sales etc)

If emails are not interruptible, and outbound agents have open email interactions, the dialler will not 'kick-in' until all emails are dealt with. In times of heavy email interactions, this will seriously affect our outbound campaigns as agents are dealing with emails as you can't set priority on outbound voice interactions. The only solution being to exempt the outbound agents dealing with these queues from the 'emails not interrupted' utilisation configuration?

Agent Behaviour / Supervisor Governance Overhead

Having gone to huge efforts to maximise agent productivity through GCCX configurational fine-tuning, in preventing voice interactions interrupting email interactions, we are introducing a considerable mechanism / operational feature into the platform that enables agents to take advantage / 'slack off' (as they potentially casually process email interactions, knowing they will not receive a voice interaction whilst doing so). Supervisor governance of this is going to be considerable – both monitoring / investigating within the platform and engaging agents to discuss discrepancies with email interaction resolution time / processing.

Administrative Overhead

If, though highly unlikely, a concession is made and we are allowed to exempt outbound campaign agents and agents that deal with 'Multiple Actions Email / 15 Concurrent Email Queues', we are going to be introducing additional significant platform complexity / administrational overhead where the agent utilisation configuration settings pertaining to the agents that are members of these queues / campaigns are concerned. Utilisation settings will need to be managed at the agent level and not globally.

Increased Customer Call Waiting Time / Call Handling Time

Within periods of high call volume, despite any prioritisation measures / mechanisms favouring voice interactions over email, we are going to experience increased customer call waiting time – potentially a significant increase. The resulting effect being customers spend more time complaining to agents about call waiting times, thus affecting call handling time.

Self-Generated Email Interactions / Outbound Digital Campaigns

Currently, the Call Centre team heavily employ digital (email) campaigns to send emails to Genesys queues, to 'serve' actionable items / work to agents and to minimise idle time. If emails can no longer be interrupted, use of this mechanism needs to be very closely managed / supervised and 'balanced'. Failure to do so could create an overload of emails resulting in impacted outbound campaigns (dialler paused), increased customer call waiting time and thus increased call handling time (as detailed above). Conversely, under-utilisation of this mechanism will lead to increased agent idle time.

The above are the issues that immediately 'spring-to-mind'. I'm sure that there are others that I have not considered? Perhaps there is a solution I've not considered, although to be honest, it feels to me like we are putting a 'wrecking-ball' through a stable environment to resolve an issue we aren't even sure exists. I'm interested to hear the opinions of others that have heroically read through this whole post! 😊 This mandate is coming from the top and there is no room for negotiation.

Hey Matthew,

You may want to take a look at this Resource Center article then. You can disable the Strip Skills on Blind Transfer option.

Thank you, Jason. Apologies that it is a little 'long-winded'... 

I've thought of another big issue. Quite a number of voice interactions are 'transferred' within our Org. These transferred calls are stripped of their priority and would likely become 'stuck' due to being out-trumped by email / voice interactions with defined priority. I believe there might be a solution relating to voice transfers - transferring to an Architect flow so that the priority can be defined / attached. Although, this might be asking a lot of our call centre agents as some struggle just transferring to queues.

Hello Matthew,

Thank you for that excellent write up. Hopefully someone from the Community will be able to share their idea for best practices in the comments below.

Hey guys,

As the Genesys administrator at my organisation, I've a (big) conundrum that I'd like to run-by the community to get opinions or / and possible solutions. 

Within our Genesys Org we have multiple queues, both voice and email. We do not have queues assigned to specific teams or sets of individuals. The direction from our Exec team is that all agents should be able to handle all incoming queries / interactions, and as such, for the most part agents are assigned to numerous voice and email queues (having dedicated email or voice only teams is an absolute 'no' – mandated by our Exec). As well as inbound queues, we also have queues associated with outbound voice campaigns for sales call purposes for instance. We also leverage outbound digital (email) campaigns to send email interactions to other Genesys email queues, as a means to serving work to agents when idle time is high – an example of one of these self-generated email interactions might be, 'contact customer X and request they provide updated contact details'. 

Furthermore, quite a number of our email queues require 'Enable Multiple Actions' enabled, ensuring that email interaction correspondence between the agent and the customer remains 'open' and assigned to the agent until the query is dealt with, as the query might be complex and require multiple email interactions between the agent and the customer. This only applies to a number of queues due to the nature of the interactions. The agents that serve these queues are configured to have up to 15 concurrent email interactions, as due to the nature of the emails, they may remain open for some time and therefore we need to ensure additional interactions reach the agent. Hopefully that makes sense.

Through 'Utilisation' settings, email interactions cannot interrupt voice interactions. That's globally configured. Our Call Centre, after around 18 months of fine-tuning, is running quite efficiently! 

Enter the problem… 

Our Exec are concerned that as voice interactions are able to interrupt email interactions, they believe that this results in agents having to re-read emails that have been interrupted by a voice interaction and that this is costing us time and efficiency. Therefore, the mandate is (absolutely not up for discussion) that email interactions can no longer be interrupted by voice interactions. I can set priority for voice interactions to heavily 'trump' email interactions, but still, in my view, this resolves one (suspected) issue and creates a multitude of issues elsewhere. The below are the issues that I believe this will create:

Multiple Actions Email / 15 Concurrent Email Queues

If email interactions can no longer be interrupted by voice interactions, the agents that are members of these queues will rarely (if ever) receive a voice interaction, as 99% of the time, they will have active email interactions. If we disabled multiple actions and configure concurrent emails to '1' for these email queues / agents – each time an agent responds to one of these complex customer interactions, once the customer responds it will likely route to a different agent within the queue, who would then need to read through the whole interaction and potentially discuss with other agent (or agents – a single interaction could be potentially handled by numerous agents). This creates a whole new (chaotic) problem in my opinion. The only solution being to exempt the agents dealing with these queues from the 'emails not interrupted' utilisation configuration?

Outbound Voice Campaigns (Sales etc)

If emails are not interruptible, and outbound agents have open email interactions, the dialler will not 'kick-in' until all emails are dealt with. In times of heavy email interactions, this will seriously affect our outbound campaigns as agents are dealing with emails as you can't set priority on outbound voice interactions. The only solution being to exempt the outbound agents dealing with these queues from the 'emails not interrupted' utilisation configuration?

Agent Behaviour / Supervisor Governance Overhead

Having gone to huge efforts to maximise agent productivity through GCCX configurational fine-tuning, in preventing voice interactions interrupting email interactions, we are introducing a considerable mechanism / operational feature into the platform that enables agents to take advantage / 'slack off' (as they potentially casually process email interactions, knowing they will not receive a voice interaction whilst doing so). Supervisor governance of this is going to be considerable – both monitoring / investigating within the platform and engaging agents to discuss discrepancies with email interaction resolution time / processing.

Administrative Overhead

If, though highly unlikely, a concession is made and we are allowed to exempt outbound campaign agents and agents that deal with 'Multiple Actions Email / 15 Concurrent Email Queues', we are going to be introducing additional significant platform complexity / administrational overhead where the agent utilisation configuration settings pertaining to the agents that are members of these queues / campaigns are concerned. Utilisation settings will need to be managed at the agent level and not globally.

Increased Customer Call Waiting Time / Call Handling Time

Within periods of high call volume, despite any prioritisation measures / mechanisms favouring voice interactions over email, we are going to experience increased customer call waiting time – potentially a significant increase. The resulting effect being customers spend more time complaining to agents about call waiting times, thus affecting call handling time.

Self-Generated Email Interactions / Outbound Digital Campaigns

Currently, the Call Centre team heavily employ digital (email) campaigns to send emails to Genesys queues, to 'serve' actionable items / work to agents and to minimise idle time. If emails can no longer be interrupted, use of this mechanism needs to be very closely managed / supervised and 'balanced'. Failure to do so could create an overload of emails resulting in impacted outbound campaigns (dialler paused), increased customer call waiting time and thus increased call handling time (as detailed above). Conversely, under-utilisation of this mechanism will lead to increased agent idle time.

The above are the issues that immediately 'spring-to-mind'. I'm sure that there are others that I have not considered? Perhaps there is a solution I've not considered, although to be honest, it feels to me like we are putting a 'wrecking-ball' through a stable environment to resolve an issue we aren't even sure exists. I'm interested to hear the opinions of others that have heroically read through this whole post! 😊 This mandate is coming from the top and there is no room for negotiation.