Round-Robin
Round-robin is a distribution strategy that assigns incoming requests to available team members in a rotating order. Each agent gets the next free request — like counting around a circle. Simple, fair, even.
What is round-robin?
Round-robin is one of the oldest and simplest distribution strategies: agents are kept in a fixed order, and each new request goes to the next person in line. When the end of the list is reached, the cycle restarts at the beginning.
In messaging, round-robin is a concrete routing strategy for service teams: instead of assigning a request randomly or by "who looks first," it goes systematically to the next available agent.
How round-robin works in detail
- The system maintains a list of currently available agents (online, not overloaded).
- On every new conversation, the system remembers a cursor ("last assigned to agent X").
- The new conversation goes to the next agent in the list after X.
- When an agent goes offline or the shift ends, they drop out of the rotation — no pile-up on absent staff.
- When they come back online, they re-enter at the end of the list.
Round-robin variants
| Variant | How it works | When to use |
|---|---|---|
| Pure round-robin | Strict rotation, no load awareness. | Short, comparable requests (e.g., first-contact routing). |
| Load-aware round-robin | Rotation, but skips agents with too many open tickets. | Longer cases with uneven handle times. |
| Weighted round-robin | Senior agents get 2× as many requests as juniors. | When experience differs a lot. |
| Skill-based round-robin | Rotation, but only among agents with the matching skill. | Specialized teams (DE/FR/EN, billing/tech). |
Benefits
- Fairness: No one is systematically favored or penalized.
- Transparency: Agents understand why a request lands with them.
- Predictability: With N agents, each gets roughly 1/N of requests.
- Simplicity: No complex rules, easy to explain.
Where round-robin hits limits
- Different handle times: Some cases take 30 seconds, others 30 minutes — 1/N is not the same as fair load.
- Different skills: A SQL question lands at the bookkeeping colleague — both wait for someone who can help.
- Context loss: Repeat customer Anna comes back for the third time — round-robin assigns her to a fresh agent who doesn't know her history.
Fix: combine round-robin with a skill filter and a "last handler keeps the contact" rule.
Round-robin vs. smart routing
| Aspect | Round-robin | Smart routing |
|---|---|---|
| Logic | Order | AI/rule-based on content |
| Explainability | Very simple | More complex |
| Optimization target | Load equality | Match quality |
| Setup effort | Minimal | High |
Round-robin at SendSeven
SendSeven supports classic round-robin and load-aware round-robin at the team level. Conversations rotate among available team members, with optional load awareness (skip-if-over-capacity). Skill-based and language-based filters apply before the round-robin layer, narrowing the eligible agent pool.