People Match has a symbiotic relationship with Skills (exclusively used with People Match) and Rules. While People Match has specific Conditions you can use, employing Rules and Skills as a People Match boost can further fine-tune the criteria to decide how and to whom Customers are routed at any given time.
It’s essential to recognize that you are not required to use Rules or Skills with People Match, but some scenarios may require you to use them to understand what your Customer needs, so they are routed to an Agent best equipped (or skilled) to help the Customer.
How Skills and Rules work with People Match #
Using the diagram below, let’s see how People Match, Rules, and Skills could work together to detect the best Agent to route the Customer to.
- The Customer (Julie) reaches out via chat to request a refund for a recent purchase.
- A Rule configured to detect the word “refund” in the Message Body applies the “Refund” Topic.
- A People Match boost configured to detect the Conversation Topic of “Refund” applies a Medium boost.
- A People Match boost detects the Topic “Refund” in a Conversation and applies a Small boost to Agents with the “Payment Refunds” skill.
- A People Match boost detects via a custom attribute that Julie is also a VIP Customer based with a 10k a year spend and a Large boost to Agents with the “VIP Support” skill.
- Based on Julie’s collective score, Julie is routed to an Agent best equipped to handle refund requests for VIP Customers after applicable boosts are applied.
People Match without Skills and Rules #
People Match can enhance how Customers are routed, but you must understand how Rules and Skills complement and enrich People Match.
The diagram below shows the Customer (Julie) reaching out. People Match can then apply Conditions (e.g., which Inbox they’re in, the Messaging Channel they used, etc.) without using Skills as a Condition or Topic (applied via a Rule) to boost the Customer.
You’re not required to use People, Match Rules, and/or Skills #
The routing engine will always handle getting Customers to an Agent. People Match is a pliable layer above the Routing Engine that allows you to control how and to whom Customers are routed based on unique Customer scenarios. Skills and Rules further elevate the routing smarts of People Match beyond the standard Routing Engine logic. This means you can keep routing basic, like simply routing a chat Customer to a chat Inbox, and the next most available Agent will help them. Or, you can understand that a chat Customer has a specific want (i.e., request a refund), know that they are a VIP Customer, and prefer that your best Agents help your VIP Customers before the chat Customer is routed to the Agent that can best serve their needs.
