Estimated Wait Time (EWT) is a projection of how long a person can expect to wait before connecting with a live agent. The estimated wait time gives people transparency and helps them make educated decisions.
From the consumer standpoint, if someone knows that they will have to wait an hour in a queue, they can make alternative plans such as:
- Using self-service
- Accepting a callback
- Using a different channel such as SMS or Webchat.
From a business perspective, it helps deflect voice interactions that are usually time-consuming and costly.
Prerequisites for understanding Estimated Wait Time
How Estimated Wait Time is calculated
To determine the Estimated Wait Time, Zoom Contact Center must have:
- Sufficient availability of agents: The system requires a sufficient number of agents to be present and ready to handle incoming engagements.
- Historical Data: Adequate historical data is essential for constructing an accurate projection of wait times.
If the engagement requires a live agent, Zoom Contact Center will first select a pool of agents susceptible to taking that engagement. This can be accomplished using one of two ways:
- The engagement is routed straight to a queue. The pool is the complete list of agents available in that queue.
- If specific skills are required, the system will use a routing profile to determine the pool of agents with the mandatory skills. That pool of agents with the right skills is denoted as NumberOfAgents.
The AI strategy for EWT ensures precise outcomes by consistently updating after each engagement, addressing cold start scenarios, and accounting for fluctuations in daily, weekly, or seasonal patterns.
- The default value is set to 1 minute when no historical data is available.
- It is calculated after each engagement until the number of engagements reaches a certain threshold.
- After reaching the threshold, historical data is utilized for AI trending/predicting value.