Should I choose Serial or Balanced routing for my incoming calls?

Should I choose Serial or Balanced routing for my incoming calls?

This article helps you decide and guides you through setup in less than 10 minutes.

When to Use Each Strategy

Scenario

Recommended Routing

Why

Fewer than 20 daily calls, named account owners

Serial

Ensures high‑touch agents answer first.

20‑100 calls per hour, pool of agents

Balanced

Shares load evenly, reducing wait time.

Decision Checklist

  • Need strict priority order? → Serial
  • Need fastest possible answer rate? → Balanced
  • Agents have differing skill sets? → Serial, paired with skills routing.

Prerequisites & Setup Checklist

  • You are an Administrator or Team Owner.
  • All destination users are in “Available” or “Wrap‑Up” presence state.
  • Ring‑timeout is at least 20 s.
  • For Balanced routing: Queue size ≥ number of concurrent calls.

Configure Serial Routing (Web)

  1. Open Admin Console → Call Routing.
  2. Click New Flow → Serial.
  3. Add agents in exact answer order (drag‑drop to reorder).
  4. Set Ring time per agent (default 20 s).
  5. Click Save & Activate.

What Happens

  • System rings agent 1 for 20 s.
  • If unanswered, call hops to agent 2, etc.
  • Caller hears hold music between hops.

Configure Balanced Routing (Web)

  1. Open Admin Console → Call Routing.
  2. Click New Flow → Balanced.
  3. Select agent pool or Add All Available.
  4. Choose Distribution Algorithm = Round‑Robin (default) or Least‑Calls.
  5. Click Save & Activate.

What Happens

  • System offers the call to all idle agents simultaneously.
  • Next call goes to the agent with the fewest answered calls since midnight.

API Examples

Use the /v2/routing/flows endpoint.
# Create a Serial flowcurl -X POST https://api.xyz.com/v2/routing/flows \  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" \  -d '{    "type":"serial",    "agents":["u_123","u_456"],    "ring_timeout":20  }'
# Create a Balanced flowcurl -X POST https://api.xyz.com/v2/routing/flows \  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" \  -d '{    "type":"balanced",    "pool_id":"sales_team",    "algorithm":"round_robin"  }'

Expected Outcomes & Monitoring

Metric

Serial Target

Balanced Target

Average Speed of Answer

≤ 30 s

≤ 15 s

Agent Utilization

Varies by order

Within ±10 % of team mean

Verify results in Analytics → Voice KPIs.

Edge Cases & Known Limitations

  • Voicemail fallback triggers only after final agent declines.
  • Max 20 agents per Serial flow.
  • Balanced routing ignores agents in Do Not Disturb or Offline states.
  • Mobile app push delay may add 2‑3 s before a call appears.

Troubleshooting

Symptom

Likely Cause

Fix

Calls skip first agent

Agent status not Available

Ask agent to change status

Uneven Balanced load

Wrong algorithm (e.g., Round‑Robin)

Switch to Least‑Calls

408 Timeout errors via API

Token expired

Refresh OAuth token

Related Articles