Method and system for monitoring and managing multi-sourced call centers

• US 20060109976A1
• Filed: 11/22/2005
• Published: 05/25/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 11/23/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Broadsoft Incorporated (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Transera Communications Incorporated (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Inventors: Uppaluru, Prem, Sundaram, Mukesh
• Granted Patent: US 7,738,646 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 379/265.20
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/2254 in 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 3/5175 Call or contact centers supervision arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/523 with call distribution or queueing
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5234 Uniform load distribution
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5237 Interconnection arrangements between ACD systems

Abstract

A mid-point call management node subject to monitoring through a workstation communicatively coupled thereto, provides call services (e.g., through extensible markup language (XML), and in particular call control extensible markup language (CCXML) and/or voice extensible markup language (VXML), instructions) for an inbound call received from an originating network at an originating point-of-presence (POP) associated with multiple, disparate call centers, the call services being provided in response to call management application instructions issued according to enterprise-specific strategies for optimizing call handling between the originating POP and domestic and/or international ones of the disparate call centers communicatively coupled thereto. Call center information (e.g., call load information) received at the management node from the multiple call centers may be used in connection with providing the call services. The enterprise-specific strategies may be instantiated as processes for: call routing, load balancing, work force management, and/or customer relationship management.

Claims

1. A method, comprising, at a mid-point call management node subject to monitoring through a workstation communicatively coupled thereto, providing call services for an inbound call received from an originating network at an originating point-of-presence (POP) associated with multiple, disparate call centers, the call services being provided in response to call management application instructions issued according to enterprise-specific strategies for optimizing call handling between the originating POP and domestic and international ones of the disparate call centers communicatively coupled thereto.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving, at the mid-point call management node, call center information from the multiple call centers, which call center information is used in connection with providing the call services.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the call center information includes call load information.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising monitoring the inbound call via the workstation communicatively coupled to the mid-point call management node.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein monitoring comprises one or more of:

transferring the inbound call between two of the disparate call centers, listening in on the inbound call, recording the inbound call, queuing the inbound call, and reporting the inbound call.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the inbound call is directed, in accordance with the call management application instructions, from the originating POP to a remote POP associated with a selected one of the call centers at which the inbound call is to be serviced.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the inbound call is directed to the remote POP via a mesh network established between trunking gateways resident at each of the originating POP and the remote POP.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the inbound call is directed to the remote POP as a voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) communication.

9. The method of claim 6, wherein the remote POP terminates the inbound call into an automatic call distributor associated with the selected one of the call centers.

10. The method of claim 6, wherein the remote POP terminates the inbound call into a private branch exchange associated with the selected one of the call centers.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the inbound call is directed to a domestic one of the call centers in response to a communication failure in a transit network communicatively coupling the originating POP with an international one of the call centers.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the inbound call is received at a media gateway of the originating POP.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the call services are provided, at least in part, through a call control gate way in the originating POP.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the call services include one or more of:

call routing, call transfer, call queuing, call recording, and call monitoring.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein at least one of the call services is provided through a media gateway of the originating POP.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one of the call services is provided through extensible markup language (XML) instructions.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the XML instructions comprise call control extensible markup language (CCXML) instructions.

18. The method of claim 16, wherein the XML instructions comprise voice extensible markup language (VXML) instructions.

19. The method of claim 1, wherein the enterprise-specific strategies are instantiated as processes for one or more of:

call routing, load balancing, work force management, and customer relationship management.

20. A call control gateway, comprising:

a call controller coupled to a call manager configured to (i) receive information concerning inbound calls received at an originating point-of-presence (POP) communicatively coupled with multiple, disparate call centers, (ii) expose call, network and agent object models representing embodiments of a call handling system including the call centers to a session manager of the call control gateway for manipulation by said session manager, and (iii) provide the session manager with call-, network- and agent-related events from the call handling system; and

the session manager being configured to retrieve instructions for manipulating the call, network and agent objects and reacting to the call-, network- and agent-related events so as to optimize handling of the inbound calls according to enterprise-specific strategies for the call handling system.

21. The call control gateway of claim 20, wherein the call controller comprises a session initiation protocol (SIP) call controller.

22. The call control gateway of claim 20, wherein the session manager comprises a call control extensible markup language (CCXML) session manager.

23. The call control gateway of claim 20, wherein the instructions are instantiated in extensible markup language (XML) documents.

24. The call control gateway of claim 23, wherein the session manager is configured to retrieve the XML documents from a document manager of the call control gateway using hyper text transfer protocol (HTTP) requests.

25. The call control gateway of claim 20, wherein the call-, network-, and agent-related events include one ore more of:

call received indicators, call connected indicators, agent busy indicators, network element down indicators, and agent logged inlout indicators.

26. The call control gateway of claim 20, wherein an instance of the call model is instantiated for each of the inbound calls.

27. The call control gateway of claim 20, wherein the network model maintains state information regarding the call handling system.

28. The call control gateway of claim 20, wherein an instance of the agent model is instantiated for each call center agent assigned to each of the inbound calls.

29. The call control gateway of claim 20, further comprising a network events manager configured to receive events indicative of whether or not particular network elements and links within the call handling system are either in service or out of service, the network event manager being communicatively coupled to the session manager through the call manager.

30. The call control gateway of claim 20, further comprising an agent event manager communicatively coupled to receive events indicative of current states of identified call agents using the call handling system and to notify the call manager of said states of the identified agents.

31. The call control gateway of claim 30, wherein the agent event manager receives events over SIP via Presence extensions and SIMPLE (SIP for Instant Messaging and Presence Leveraging Extensions).

32. The call control gateway of claim 30, wherein said states of the identified agents comprise one ore more of:

available to handle calls, busy handling a call, and unavailable between calls.

33. A call management server, comprising a management framework configured as a common layer for handling requests from call control gateways and media servers deployed within originating points-of-presence (POPs) in a call handling system, the POPs configured to handle inbound calls to call centers of the call handling system, and responding to said requests with instructions for manipulating call, network and agent objects and reacting to call-, network- and agent-related events so as to optimize handling of the inbound calls according to enterprise-specific strategies for the call handling system

34. The call management server of claim 33, wherein the instructions are included in extensible markup language (XML) documents.

35. The call management server of claim 33, wherein the instructions are included in voice extensible markup language (VoiceXML) documents.

36. The call management server of claim 33, wherein the instructions are included in call control extensible markup language (CCXML) documents.

37. The call management server of claim 33, wherein the call management server is configured to execute media and call management applications, which are instantiations of the enterprise-specific strategies for the call handling system.

38. The call management server of claim 33, further comprising a call queue for queuing the inbound calls until an agent at one of the call centers becomes available,

39. The call management server of claim 33, further comprising a call recorder configured to record selected ones of the inbound calls.

40. The call management server of claim 33, further comprising a call monitor configured to permit monitoring of selected ones of the inbound calls at a mid-point call management node communicatively coupled to the call management server.

41. A call management node comprising a computer processor responsive to computer-readable instructions and communicatively coupled to a computer-readable medium storing said computer-readable instructions, which when executed by said computer processor cause said computer processor to provide call services for one or more inbound calls received at the call management node from one or more originating networks through one or more originating points-of-presence (POP) and bound for various ones of disparate call centers, the call services being provided in response to call management application instructions issued according to enterprise-specific strategies for optimizing call handling between the originating POPs and domestic and international ones of the disparate call centers communicatively coupled thereto.

42. The call management node of claim 41, wherein the computer-readable instructions further cause the computer processor to direct, in accordance with the call management application instructions, from the originating POP to remote POPs associated with selected ones of the call centers at which individual ones of the inbound calls are to be serviced.

43. The call management node of claim 42, wherein the call services include one or more of:

call routing, call transfer, call queuing, call recording, and call monitoring.

44. The call management node of claim 42, wherein the call services are provided through one or more of:

extensible markup language (XML) instructions, call control extensible markup language (CCXML) instructions or voice extensible markup language (VXML) instructions.

45. The call management node of claim 41, wherein the enterprise-specific strategies are instantiated as processes executing on the computer processor for one or more of:

call routing, load balancing, work force management, and customer relationship management.