A sponsoring organization for customer management system 100 is an insurance company or other financial services company, and the agents may include insurance agents. In some cases, an insurance agent may be associated with only a single insurance provider (sometimes referred to as a “captive” insurance agent). In other cases, an “independent” insurance agent may be associated with several different insurance providers. In an embodiment, the agents in the first pool 160 are licensed to sell insurance. In some cases, the producers may be licensed to sell different types of insurance products, might have different areas of expertise, needs, etc. In some embodiments, agents in the first pool 160 are selected for performance metrics related to sales. Agent sales performance may be measured by aggregate sales productivity metrics, as well as distributed performance metrics such as sales metrics by product types, etc.
While the agents in second pool 170 are not authorized to offer the product(s) to the inbound caller (prospective customer or lead), these agents perform an important role in lead nurturing. Forwarding an inbound inquiry to a live agent with little or no wait time, sometimes referred to herein as a “warm transfer,” has been observed to significantly increase probability of a successful sale to that customer in a later interaction. In some embodiments, agents in the second pool 170 are selected for skills related to agent-customer communications, which can be measured in indicators of customer satisfaction such as feedback on customer experiences.