Queue priority and delay examples to help you load balance Amazon Connect contacts

This topic provides a several example priority and delay settings for queues, and explains how contacts are routed in each scenario. Use these examples to load balance contacts using the priority and delay features.

Example 1: Different priority but same delay

For example, one group of agents is assigned to a Sales routing profile. Since their primary job is sales, the Sales queue is Priority 1 and Delay is 0. But they can help with Support too, so that queue is Priority 2 and Delay is 0. This shown in the following table:

Queue	Priority	Delay (in seconds)
Sales	1	0
Support	2	0

If there are no contacts in the Sales queue, then the agents will be presented with contacts from the Support queue.

Example 2: Same priority but different delay

Say you set the Support queue to Priority 1 and Delay of 30 seconds, as shown in the following table:

Queue	Priority	Delay (in seconds)
Sales	1	0
Support	1	30

These agents will always get contacts from the Sales queue first because the delay is 0. However, when a contact in the Support queue ages past 30 seconds, it will also be treated as priority 1. The agents will then be presented with the contact from the Support queue.

Example 3: Different Priorities and Delays

Here's a more complicated example for a Support routing profile:

Queue	Priority	Delay (in seconds)
Tier 1 Support	1	0
Tier 2 Support	1	0
Tier 3 Support	2	20
Tier 4 Support	3	80

This routing profile prioritizes the Tier 1 Support and Tier 2 Support queues equally because each is priority 1.

• Agents may take contacts from the Tier 3 Support queue when:

  • Customers for Tier 3 Support are waiting for 20 seconds or longer.

  • And no contacts are in the Tier 1 Support or Tier 2 Support queues.

• Agents may take contacts from the Tier 4 Support queue when:

  • Customers in the Tier 4 Support queue have been waiting 80 seconds or longer.

  • And no contacts are in the Tier 1 Support, Tier 2 Support or Tier 3 Support queues.

  Priority takes precedence. (You might think that agents take contacts from Tier 4 Support when contacts are in Tier 1 Support, Tier 2 Support, or Tier 3 Support and waiting 20 seconds or longer, but that's not right.)

Example 4: Same Priority and Delay

In this example a routing profile has only two queues, and they have the same priority and delay:

Queue	Priority	Delay (in seconds)
Sales	1	0
Support	1	0

For this routing profile, the oldest contact is routed first. It goes to the agent who has been idle for the longest time.

Example 5: Agent is idle and Contact is in 30 second delay queue

Let's say the agent is idle and the contact is in delay (for a 30 second delay queue, the contact is 15 seconds old). What happens?

The Delay setting in the routing profile means that X seconds must pass before this contact can be offered to agents with this routing profile. Whether the agents are idle or not isn't taken into account. So in this case, this agent isn't offered the contact until the contact is at least 30 seconds old.

Example 6: Different routing profiles, same queues, different priorities

For example:

Agent	Priority	Queue
Agent A	1	1
Agent B	5	1

• Both agents are available. Who will get the call? It depends ...

  • Routing always attempts to route to the longest available agent first.

    Agent A has a profile with Priority 1 for Queue 1, and Agent B has a profile with Priority 5 for Queue 1. Contact Z is added to Queue 1 while both agents are available. In this case, Contact Z will always be routed to whichever agent has been available for longer. If Agent B has been available longer, Contact Z will be routed to Agent B.

  • Priority for queues is relevant to searching for queues for an individual agent. It does not determine which agent out of multiple available agent will be routed contacts.

    Let's say Contact Y is in Queue 2 and has been there longer than Contact Z in Queue 1. Agent A will be routed Contact Z even though it is newer. This is because Queue 1 has a higher priority in the agent's profile.

• Do Priority 5 agents get calls only when agents with higher priorities are not available?

  No. Priority 5 agents receive calls from that queue only if their other priority queues are empty. One agent's priority setting for a queue does not impact when the queue is routed a contact relative to other agents, but relative to other queues in the agent's profile.

For instructions on how to set priority and delay for a routing profile, see Create a routing profile in Amazon Connect to link queues to agents.