Intelligent call routing: Improve your customer experience in 5 steps

When a customer calls your business, can your phone system quickly get them to the right person? Or are they stuck in a confusing phone menu?

The best call experience routes your customers quickly and correctly. But often, business phone systems are too basic. They can’t handle different call routing scenarios or, worse, they frustrate customers. 

Intelligent call routing makes sure your calls are handled based on your business hours, phone menu options, or other settings. You don’t leave your customers hanging — or hung up on.

What is intelligent call routing?

Intelligent call routing is a technology that directs calls using customer data, team availability, and team skills. With intelligent call routing, call handling is more efficient and helpful.

How does intelligent call routing work?

With intelligent call routing, you can set up advanced call routing scenarios based on business rules.

In your business phone system, you set up a call flow, which is a set of instructions your phone system uses to route calls. You can set up different call flows for calls received during business hours versus after business hours. 

During business hours, customers can reach an interactive voice response, or IVR phone menu. You can also have a live rep answer calls, but a phone menu offers a self-service option and filters out spam callers.

For example, you might have the call ring your entire customer service team or a specific person. You might also direct the customer to a nested menu option with additional options, such as “pricing questions” or “scheduling.”

After business hours, you might play an audio recording and send the customer to voicemail. Or you might use an AI answering service to answer customers’ questions and take messages. These services use natural language processing, or NLP, and advanced AI to have a conversation with customers. Rather than going to voicemail or being put on hold, they respond to customer interactions in real time.

In Quo, formerly OpenPhone, you can easily set up automated call routing by dragging and dropping steps in the visual call flow builder. 

Why intelligent call routing matters for your business

You don’t want your customers to be frustrated before they ever talk to someone. The right intelligent call routing or ICR strategies can help. Customers can reach employees quickly, access self-help options when no one is available, and more.

Turn more leads into customers

Don’t miss out on “speed to lead.” You can design a call flow that connects inbound calls to your sales team quickly through your phone menu. You can also connect repeat customers to the same salesperson they worked with before to maintain the relationship. This is also known as intelligent contact routing.

If you’d prefer to qualify leads first, you can route phone calls to a business development representative. Or you can use an AI assistant to ask pre-qualifying questions before transferring the call to a sales rep. 

Improves the customer experience

Too many internal transfers between people or departments waste time, both for you and your customers. You can use ICR to get existing customers to the right rep. By doing this, you can increase first contact resolution rates and decrease reply times. Your team should review the call history and any internal notes while on the call. That way, they have the context they need to help the customer efficiently. 

With a more streamlined call flow and reduced call handle time, you’ll also decrease your operational costs. 

Make better use of your team’s expertise

While you can route calls to your entire pool of customer support reps, you can resolve customers’ issues faster by routing phone calls to an expert.

For example, you might send technical questions to the most knowledgeable team member first.

ICR can match call types to various members of your team based on their strengths and availability. This streamlines customer service and can improve productivity, since they’re focused on calls they’re equipped to handle. 

5-step framework to create an intelligent call routing strategy

Not sure how to get started with call routing? Here are the steps you can follow to set up a successful strategy for your team: 

Step 1: Audit your current call patterns

Look at your call logs to identify the types of phone calls you get. You should dig into which reps handle specific types of calls best, why customers become frustrated, and why transfers occur.

Ask yourself questions like:

• Do we have a higher volume of sales or support calls at specific times of day?
• Who converts leads the best?
• What topics lead to frustrated callers?

Make a list of any other questions relevant to your business needs, and then review your phone system’s reporting tools to find answers.

💡 Pro tip: You need enough data to see patterns, so review a month’s worth of call logs. Don’t make changes until you have the data to support them. 

Step 2: Set up a smart call flow with context 

A visual call flow builder helps you create an efficient routing path. The way you set it up should help solve the patterns and problems you found in your audit. 

Here’s an example of a sales call with a phone menu that offers callers four options.

What the customer hears	Call routing action
Press 1 to learn more about our services	Route the call to a ring group or Quo’s AI agent, Sona
Press 2 to request a quote or speak with a sales representative	Ring a group of up to 10 different sales reps, any of whom can answer the caller’s questions
Press 3 to follow up on an upcoming service or quote	Ring a specific group or account manager who's better equipped to handle this stage of the customer journey
Press 4 for partnership or vendor inquiries	Direct calls to team members with the right skill sets

You can also set a ring order for backup coverage. If the first person or group isn’t available, the call automatically rings to the next group in line. This helps your business manage call queues and call distribution within a team.

Want to make sure after-hours calls are handled? Here’s an after-hours call flow:

In this example, the caller first hears an audio greeting that lets them know the business is closed and when it’ll reopen. Then the customer reaches the IVR system.

What the customer hears	Call routing action
Press 1 if you have an urgent issue and need immediate assistance	Forward the call to an on-call team member who can address the caller’s needs
Press 2 for non-urgent inquiries or to request a call back	Route the call to Sona

💡 Pro tip: You can integrate Sona into your call flow as a backup when you don’t have an available rep. Sona can answer incoming calls, transfer to a teammate, answer common questions, and complete tasks like lead qualification.

Need more inspiration? Check out these phone tree templates.

Step 3: Leverage customer data during calls

By syncing your phone system with your CRM, your team can get information about the caller before connecting. They can personalize the call, transfer it to a different representative, or route VIP calls to more senior reps. 

Step 4: Design temporary call flows for seasonality spikes

Do you get a lot of additional calls around the holidays or other times of the year? You can set up temporary call flows to turn on during holidays, seasonal campaigns, or when you’re temporarily unavailable.

By setting up alternative call flows in advance, you can quickly switch them on when needed. When the situation is over, you can easily switch back to your standard call flow.

Need help handling call overflow? Check out our list of the best AI answering services.

Step 5: Monitor performance metrics and optimize 

Once you’ve got your call flows in place, you’ll want to track the impact on your incoming calls. Review your call logs, call transcripts, or AI call summaries to see which call flows are working well. Then adjust your call flows based on the data.

Ask yourself: Have you increased first call resolution? Do you increase conversions by routing calls to the most appropriate rep? These are key performance indicators, or KPIs, that tell you if your strategy is working. You can also collect customer feedback about their experience via customer engagement surveys.

In Quo, you can use AI call tags to quickly locate calls about certain topics and call views to spot patterns. Both of these help you understand call drivers and customer sentiment during calls.

Key features to look for in intelligent call routing software

If you need to upgrade your call routing solution, here’s the functionality you should focus on in intelligent call routing systems:

• Integrations with systems you already use, like your CRM or workflow automation tools
• Smart call flow builders that use a visual interface to create routing logic
• AI capabilities, like an AI agent that can automate your lead qualification and take messages
• Performance tracking through reporting on key metrics and individual team members
• Scalability with more routing paths, users, and phone numbers as your business grows

You’ll also want to make sure that your provider has reliable uptime so you’re not caught in a situation where your customers can’t reach you. The company should have a transparent status page and proven reliability.

Make intelligent call routing simple with Quo

Intelligent call routing helps you handle customer calls more quickly. You’ll increase customer satisfaction, decrease wait times, and optimize your operational efficiency.

Quo’s visual call flow builder lets you create call routes quickly, whether you route calls to your team or rely on Sona as an answering service. You can review AI-powered call summaries and transcripts to understand call drivers and rely on performance reporting to measure results. You can also connect with the tools you already use, like Salesforce, HubSpot, Zapier, Make, and Jobber.

You don’t need enterprise-level complexity to set up intelligent call routing. Sign up for a seven-day free trial of Quo, including your first 10 calls free with Sona. 

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