Contact center
First Claim
1. A method of operating a contact center using a service system to establish communication over a data network between customer endpoint systems and the endpoint systems of customer service representatives, CSRs, of the contact center;
- the service system establishing communication between endpoint systems by joining them to an appropriate communication session with an associated transport mechanism that allows the exchange of data across the network between the joined endpoint systems;
the service system, in setting up a communication session, creating a respective service-session functional entity that keeps a record of the endpoint entities currently joined to the communication session and comprises;
a session instance with generic behaviour for adding and removing endpoint systems to the communication session, and an associated service instance with service-specific behaviour determining when the session instance is to add and remove endpoint systems;
the method involving specifying different service-specific behaviours and offering a range of corresponding customer services with the use of a service by a customer involving a communication from the customer endpoint system over the network to the service system that identifies the service, and thus the service-specific behaviour, to be implemented.
3 Assignments
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Accused Products
Abstract
A contact center uses a service system to establish communication over a data network, such as the internet, between customer endpoint systems and the endpoint systems of customer service representatives, CSRs, of the contact center. The service system establishes communication between endpoint systems by joining them to an appropriate communication session with an associated transport mechanism that allows the exchange of data across the network between the joined endpoint systems. For each communication session, a respective service instance and session instance are created. The service instance provides service specific behaviour whilst the session instance provides generic operations for adding and removing endpoint systems to the communication session. By specifying different service-specific behaviors, a range of corresponding customer services can be offered.
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Citations
29 Claims
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1. A method of operating a contact center using a service system to establish communication over a data network between customer endpoint systems and the endpoint systems of customer service representatives, CSRs, of the contact center;
- the service system establishing communication between endpoint systems by joining them to an appropriate communication session with an associated transport mechanism that allows the exchange of data across the network between the joined endpoint systems;
the service system, in setting up a communication session, creating a respective service-session functional entity that keeps a record of the endpoint entities currently joined to the communication session and comprises;
a session instance with generic behaviour for adding and removing endpoint systems to the communication session, and an associated service instance with service-specific behaviour determining when the session instance is to add and remove endpoint systems;
the method involving specifying different service-specific behaviours and offering a range of corresponding customer services with the use of a service by a customer involving a communication from the customer endpoint system over the network to the service system that identifies the service, and thus the service-specific behaviour, to be implemented. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29)
- the service system establishing communication between endpoint systems by joining them to an appropriate communication session with an associated transport mechanism that allows the exchange of data across the network between the joined endpoint systems;
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19. A contact-center service system for enabling communication over a data network between customer endpoint systems and the endpoint systems of customer service representatives, the system comprising:
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an initiation arrangement responsive to customer input over the data network to initiate creation of a service-specific communication session;
a service-session subsystem responsive to the initiation means to generate a service session functional entity for establishing and managing a communication session between endpoint systems joined to the session, the service-session functional entity being operative to keep a record of the endpoint entities currently joined to the communication session and comprising;
a session instance with generic behaviour for adding and removing endpoint systems to the communication session, and an associated service instance with service-specific behaviour determining when the session instance is to add and remove endpoint systems;
the service behaviour of the service being dependent on the customer input to the initiation arrangement and being one of multiple possible behaviours for which the service-session subsystem can provide service instances; and
a transport subsystem for providing a respective transport mechanism for each communication session established by the service-session subsystem, the transport mechanism being operative to enable the exchange of data across the network between the endpoint systems joined to the corresponding communication session.
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Specification