# Understand skill-based routing

> Skill routing allows you to send conversations to agents who are best qualified to work with a customer.

Source: https://help.kustomer.com/en_us/understand-skill-routing-ByTKNVPFR

Last updated: 2026-10-12T23:45:42.071Z

Skill-based routing allows you to send conversations to agents who are best qualified to work with a customer. A skill can be defined as specialized knowledge of an area of your product, language fluency, or working with a particular customer profile, such as customers in a preferred program. 

With skills-based routing, you can:

*   Reduce handling time by ensuring that agents with the right skills address inquiries.
*   Enhance agent productivity by ensuring they focus on their areas of expertise.
*   Increase customer satisfaction by reducing wait times and offering a more personalized experience.
*   Help optimize agent workload by leveraging skills appropriately across teams.

**Who can access this feature?**

**User types**

Admins can access the Routing page.

  

### In this article

*   [What is a skill?](#what-is)
*   [Key terms](#terms)
*   [How does skill-based routing work?](#how)
*   [Set up skills-based routing](#set-up)
*   [Reporting on skills](#reporting)

### What is a skill?

A skill is an area of expertise an agent has that makes them the best qualified to assist a customer. Skills can include an agent's expertise in a specific product area, language fluency, or a certain type of interaction, such as billing questions.

### Key terms

Here are some important terms to know before you get started with skills-based routing:

*   **Skills**  
    Unique attributes or competencies assigned to agents, such as language fluency, technical expertise, or familiarity with a product area.  
      
    
*   **Skill rules**
    
    Skill Rules assign skills to conversations before routing occurs. They run before Queue Assignment Rules and are evaluated whenever a conversation is updated.  
      
    
*   **Queue rules**  
    Criteria that initially sort conversations into queues based on factors like language, channel, or company information.  
      
    
*   **Standard skill**  
    Conversations with standard skills are assigned to agents with the specified skill whenever possible. If no agent with the skill is available, the conversation may be routed to another available agent.  
      
    
*   **Required skill**  
    Conversations with required skills are only assigned to agents with that skill unless a timeout period passes, allowing assignment to other agents if needed. Timeout periods are optional. If a timeout period is not set, the conversation will only be routed to an agent with that skill.

### How does skill-based routing work?

When a conversation comes into Kustomer, it first goes through queue rules and is assigned to a queue. Once in a queue, the conversation is matched to an agent with the relevant skill using the skill rule. 

*   Skill Rules are evaluated from top to bottom.
*   Skills can be applied to a conversation even if it is already assigned.
*   Skills that are removed manually or by another rule are not automatically re-added.

Skill Rules apply skills before Queue Assignment Rules run. Skills can affect which agents or queues are eligible during routing. However, applying or changing a skill does not automatically unassign, reassign, or move a conversation that is already assigned.

To force routing to re-evaluate after a skill change, the conversation must be unassigned or updated by an automation that causes Queue Assignment Rules to run again.

**Note:** If you created a **Required** skill, the conversation will only be routed to an agent with that skill unless you set a timeout period.

### Set up skills-based routing

You can set up skills-based routing by going to **Settings > Platform > Routing** and selecting the Skills tab. See this tutorial to learn how to [Assign a conversation to an agent based on skill](https://help.kustomer.com/assign-conversation-based-on-skill-S1QJ_UykA).

### Reporting on skils

Kustomer offers two reports that allow you to get more insight into how skills are performing:

*   The [Team Pulse dashboard](https://help.kustomer.com/team-pulse-BkanzDa4G) provides a real-time view of how conversations routed by skills are assigned.
*   The [Routing report](https://help.kustomer.com/routing-reporting-rkYo9LaPX) shows historical information on how skills have performed over time.