Methods and apparatus for providing live agent assistance

• US 20050002514A1
• Filed: 07/30/2004
• Published: 01/06/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 08/31/1999
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Rakuten Group, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Verizon Services Corporation (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Inventors: Subramanian, Sankar, Shafiee, Mohammad Reza
• Granted Patent: US 8,135,126 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 379/265.90
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5191 interacting with the Internet
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/0036 where the data service is an information service
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/0039 where the data service is provided by a stream of packets which are rendered in real time by the receiving terminal network streaming of media packets H04L65/60

Abstract

Establishing a conference between a customer at a customer terminal and a live agent at an agent station, by (a) accepting a call request from the customer terminal, (b) requesting that an available live agent take the call request, (c) when a live agent becomes available to take the call request, passing customer information to the agent station associated with the available live agent, and (d) establishing a conference from the agent station associated with the available live agent to the customer terminal. The conference may be an audio-video conference. The audio-video conference may be compliant with the H.323 standard. The call request may generated in response to an event sensed by an API which was previously downloaded to the customer terminal from a web server. The call request may be generated in response to a trigger event. The trigger event may be a customer request for a live agent, adding an item to a virtual shopping cart, adding items having a total purchase prices of more than a predetermined threshold to a virtual shopping cart, removing an item from a virtual shopping cart, dwelling at a certain web page for more than a predetermined length of time, rendering certain content, rendering a certain sequence of content, filling out a form, or issuing a particular command. The customer information may include an Internet protocol address of the customer terminal, a video capability of the customer terminal, and/or a browser type used by the customer terminal.

Claims

1. A method for establishing a conference between a customer at a customer terminal and a live agent at an agent station, the method comprising steps of:

a) accepting a call request from the customer terminal;

b) requesting that an available live agent take the call request;

c) when a live agent becomes available to take the call request, passing customer information to the agent station associated with the available live agent; and

d) establishing a conference from the agent station associated with the available live agent to the customer terminal.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the conference includes at least one of audio, video, and text communications.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the conference includes at least two of audio, video, and text communications.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the conference is an audio-video conference.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein the audio-video conference is compliant with the H.323 standard.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the call request is generated in response to an event sensed by an API, and

wherein the API was previously downloaded to the customer terminal from a web server.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the customer information includes at least one of (a) an Internet protocol address of the customer terminal;

(b) a video capability of the customer terminal; and

(c) a browser type used by the customer terminal.

7. (canceled)

9-12. -12. (canceled)

13. In a system having a customer terminal, a web site server, and at least one agent station, a method of establishing a conference between the customer terminal and an agent station, the method comprising steps of:

a) accepting a conference request from the customer terminal;

b) in response to the accepted conference request, transmitting a page load script to the customer terminal;

c) accepting a web conference request from the customer terminal;

d) queuing the web conference request until an a live agent at an agent station becomes available; and

e) when it is determined that a live agent at an agent station becomes available, forwarding a web call request to the agent station.

14. The method of claim 13 wherein the web call request forwarded to the agent station contains information about the customer terminal, and

wherein the agent station can establish a conference with the customer terminal based solely on the information about the customer terminal.

15. The method of claim 13 wherein each of the web conference request and the web call request includes at least one of (a) an Internet protocol address of the customer terminal;

(b) a video capability of the customer terminal; and

(c) a browser type used by the customer terminal.

16. A system for establishing a conference between a customer at a customer terminal and a live agent at an agent station, the system comprising:

a) a web request processor for

i) submitting a page load script to the customer terminal in response to a call request from the customer terminal, and

ii) requesting an agent in response to a web conference request received from the customer terminal; and

b) a multimedia session manager for

i) accepting a request for an agent from the web request processor, and

ii) queuing the accepted request until a live agent becomes available.

17. The system of claim 16 wherein the multimedia session manager informs the web request processor when an available live agent accepts the queued call.

18. The system of claim 16 further comprising:

c) a site server for

i) serving web pages to the customer terminal, and

ii) for providing a “

call agent”

application program interface to the customer terminal.

19. The system of claim 18 wherein the customer terminal is coupled with the Internet, the system further comprising:

d) a semi-secure LAN including the agent station and the site server;

e) a first firewall arranged between the Internet and the semi-secure LAN;

f) a secure LAN including the web request processor and the multimedia session manager; and

g) a second firewall arranged between the semi-secure LAN and the secure LAN.

20. The system of claim 19 wherein the conference between the agent station and the customer terminal takes place via the semi-secure LAN, the first firewall, and the Internet.

21. The system of claim 19 wherein the conference between the agent station and the customer terminal takes place via the Internet.

22. In a system having a customer terminal and a web conference request processor for establishing a conference between a customer at the customer terminal and a live agent at an agent station, a method for controlling a site server, the method comprising steps of:

a) if a request for content has been received from the customer terminal, forwarding the requested content to the customer terminal;

b) if a trigger event occurs, providing an “

invoke call”

API to the customer terminal.

23-25. -25. (canceled)