When an agent misses a call in Amazon Connect, the system's behavior regarding proficiency-based routing depends on how the routing criteria are configured.

In your setup, you have a single routing criteria step that targets agents with a skill level of 5 or higher for 2 seconds. When this time expires, the routing criteria is no longer enforced, and the contact becomes available to any agent in the queue, regardless of their proficiency level.

This explains why Agent 3 (with skill level 1) receives the call after Agent 1 misses it. Once the 2-second timer expires, the system is simply looking for the next available agent in the queue without considering proficiency levels.

To ensure that Agent 2 (skill level 5) always gets priority over Agent 3 (skill level 1), even after a missed call, you could implement a multi-step routing criteria approach:

1. First step: Target agents with skill level 5 for a short duration (e.g., 2 seconds)
2. Second step: Target agents with skill level 5 again, but with a longer duration to account for potential missed calls
3. Final step: Target agents with skill level 1 or higher (which would include all agents)

This tiered approach would ensure that the system continues to respect proficiency levels even after missed calls, while not unnecessarily delaying customer connections.

Alternatively, you could use the UpdateContactRoutingData API to dynamically update the routing criteria after a missed call to ensure the contact continues targeting agents with skill level 5.

Queue priority and delay settings still operate as usual in conjunction with agent proficiencies, so these could also be leveraged as part of your solution.
Sources
Set up routing in Amazon Connect based on agent proficiencies - Amazon Connect
Optimize routing using queues and proficiencies in Amazon Connect | AWS Contact Center
UpdateContactRoutingData - Amazon Connect

Hello,

As current implementation of the "Set routing criteria" block with a 2-second expiration is not effectively maintaining the intended agent skill-based routing hierarchy when an agent misses a call. This is a known issue with the Amazon Connect routing engine.

The best solution to ensure proper call routing in this case would be to use the "Preferred Solution" that I outlined earlier, which leverages a two-step routing approach:

Step 1: Set routing criteria (Skill >= 5) for 2 seconds Step 2: If no answer, use a "Transfer to Queue" block that repeats Step 1

Here's how this would work in more detail:

1. When a call comes in, it will first try to route to agents with a skill level of 5 (Agents 1 and 2) for 2 seconds.
2. If neither Agent 1 nor Agent 2 answers the call within 2 seconds, the call will be transferred back to the queue.
3. The routing will then re-evaluate and try to route the call again to agents with a skill level of 5 (Agents 1 and 2) for another 2 seconds.
4. If the call is still missed after the second attempt, the call will then be routed to the agent with a skill level of 1 (Agent 3), as the higher-skilled agents were unavailable.

This approach ensures that the routing hierarchy is maintained, with higher-skilled agents always being tried first before falling back to the lower-skilled agent. By repeating the initial routing step, you avoid the issue of the routing engine ignoring the skill-based criteria when an agent misses a call.

Monitor the queue metrics closely to fine-tune the expiration time for the "Set routing criteria" block. You may be able to reduce the 2-second expiration if the agents are consistently available and answering calls quickly.

By implementing this two-step routing approach, you should be able to effectively maintain the intended skill-based routing hierarchy, even when an agent misses a call, without requiring customers to wait excessively long.

References:

[1]. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/connect/latest/adminguide/proficiency-routing.html [2]. https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/contact-center/optimize-routing-using-queues-and-proficiencies-in-amazon-connect/ [3]. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/connect/latest/APIReference/API_UpdateContactRoutingData.html [4]. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/connect/latest/adminguide/set-routing-criteria.html [5]. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/connect/latest/adminguide/set-routing-criteria.html#set-routing-criteria-sample-lambda-function