Method and apparatus enabling voice-based management of state and interaction of a remote knowledge worker in a contact center environment

• US 20060095568A1
• Filed: 11/29/2005
• Published: 05/04/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 09/11/1998
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Andriy Ryabchun, Nikolay Anisimov, Petr Makagon
• Original Assignee: Andriy Ryabchun, Nikolay Anisimov, Petr Makagon
• Inventors: Anisimov, Nikolay, Makagon, Petr, Ryabchun, Andriy
• Application Number:
  US11/290,925
• Publication Number:
  US 20060095568A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1043 Gateway controllers, e.g. media gateway control protocol [MGCP] controllers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1069 Session establishment or de-establishment
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1101 Session protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/401 wherein the services involve a main real-time session and one or more additional parallel real-time or time sensitive sessions, e.g. white board sharing or spawning of a subconference
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/04 specially adapted for terminals or networks with limited capabilities; specially adapted for terminal portability
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/08 Protocols for interworking; Protocol conversion
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/085 specially adapted for interworking of IP-based networks with other networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2201/40 using speech recognition speech recognition per se G10L15/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2201/60 Medium conversion
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2203/6018 Subscriber or terminal logon/logoff
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2207/18 wireless networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/36 Statistical metering, e.g. recording occasions when traffic exceeds capacity of trunks
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42221 Conversation recording systems at the subscriber's set H04M1/656
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42323 PBX's with CTI arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/4938 comprising a voice browser which renders and interprets, e.g. VoiceXML
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5125 with remote located operators
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5166 : in combination with interactive voice response systems or voice portals, e.g. as front-ends
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5175 : Call or contact centers supervision arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5191 : interacting with the Internet
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/523 : with call distribution or queueing
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5237 : Interconnection arrangements between ACD systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/58 : Arrangements for transferring received calls from one subscriber to another; Arrangements affording interim conversations between either the calling or the called party and a third party substation line holding circuits H04M1/80

Abstract

A network system for enabling voice interaction between communications-center applications and human agents remote from the center has a primary server connected to the network the server controlling at least one routing point used by the center, a secondary server connected to the network the secondary server for generating and serving voice extensible markup language, a voice gateway associated with the secondary server, the gateway for executing voice extensible markup language and recognizing speech input, and a software platform based in the primary server and distributed in part as a server application to the secondary server, the software suite functioning as a data transformation interface between the center applications and the gateway. In a preferred use agents and applications communicate bi-directionally using VXML.

Claims

1-32. -32. (canceled)

33. In a VXML-based telephone communication system, a method for alerting a remote service agent to activate a networked workstation that is currently offline to receive an automated data update or service configuration comprising steps of:

(a) providing a text rendering comprising the alert to a VXML-enabled server;

(b) transforming the text rendering to a form useable in a VXML script; and

(c) establishing a telephone connection with the agent and executing the script once connected.

34. The method of claim 33 wherein in step (a) the text alert is a request from a communications application, the request tied to an activity threshold detected by the application.

35. The method of claim 34 wherein in step (a) the application is a load balancing application and the activity threshold quantifies a current call load.

36. The method of claim 33 wherein in step (a) the server is a Web server the alert uploaded thereto from a contact center.

37. The method of claim 33 wherein in step (a) the alert is rendered in the form of XML.

38. The method of claim 33 wherein in step (b) transformation includes use of XSLT and is performed by a Web server application.

39. The method of claim 33 wherein in step (b) a VXML script is generated containing the alert.

40. The method of claim 33 wherein in step (c) wherein the connection is established by a VXML-enabled gateway associated with the server.

41. The method of claim 33 wherein in step (c) the connection is established to a cellular telephone through a wireless network.

42. The method of claim 33 wherein in step (c) the connection is established to a plain old telephony service (POTS) telephone and the connection is made through normal public-switched-telephone channels.

43. The method of claim 33 wherein in step (c) the telephone connection is established and script execution is performed by a VXML-enabled gateway.

44. The method of claim 43 wherein in step (c) executing the script results in voice synthesis of the populated dialogue fields of the script played over the telephone connection.

45. The method of claim 43 wherein in step (c) script execution involves text-to-speech technology.