The scenario involves a major appliance company that offers one year warranties and extended warranties on major appliances such as dishwashers, refrigerators, washers, and dryers. The warranties are printed in English and Spanish to serve customers who speak both languages. 800 numbers are provided for calling both English-speaking agents and Spanish-speaking agents. Bilingual agents with Spanish-speaking skills are hired to back up the groups of English-speaking agents. Agents are first trained on all appliance models of a certain type and then on all appliance models for a room such as the kitchen, and the laundry room.

The skills shown in the following table are required for the warranty service call center.

The VDN skill preferences are set up as shown in the following table.

The agent skills are set up as shown in the following table.

Once skills are assigned to VDNs and to agents, calls are directed to the appropriate vector.

The goal of the warranty service call center is to answer 80 percent of the incoming calls within 20 seconds. Accordingly, if a call directed to a vector is not answered by the time the announcement finishes, a second group of agents is viewed, enlarging the agent pool. If the call is not answered within the following 10 seconds, a third group of agents is viewed.

Since the call center has only a few bilingual agents, the management wants to reserve the agents for Spanish-speaking callers only. This can be done by giving Spanish-speaking callers a higher priority in the vector or by assigning a higher skill level to Spanish skills. Also, if a Spanish-speaking caller waits more than 30 seconds for service, a supervisor of the Spanish-speaking skills takes the calls.

The figures depict the setup for the warranty service call service. Specifically, the figures show the vectors and call flows for callers with a broken washer or dryer who need service. Separate vectors are used to provide an announcement in Spanish and in English, see step 2. The same two vectors can be used for callers who need service for broken dishwashers and refrigerators.

The next figure depicts how the vector-processed call is directed to the appropriate call queue. The figure also shows how the call is directed to the appropriate agent or agents. The agent skills are indicated below the name of each agent. Dashed lines indicate backup or secondary skills.

A Spanish-speaking customer has a broken dryer. The caller dials the call center number. Communication Manager receives and directs the call to VDN 1203, which points to vector 2. The system administrator assigns the VDN skill preferences 42 for dryers and 40 for laundry appliances as the first and second skill preferences respectively.

Once vector processing starts, the queue-to skill command in step 1 of vector 2 queues the call to the skill group corresponding to the first VDN skill (42-Dryers Bilingual). If an agent with skill 42 is available, the agent answers the call. If the agent is not available, an appropriate delay announcement in step 2 plays. Next, the check skill command in step 3 attempts to queue the call to the skill group corresponding to the 2nd VDN skill (40-Laundry Appliances Bilingual). If an agent with skill 40 is available, the agent answers the call. Otherwise, a wait period is provided in step 4 and the check skill command in step 5 checks the specific skill (100-Supervisors Bilingual) for available agents.