Method and system for automatic assignment of sales opportunities to human agents

• US 20060212337A1
• Filed: 03/16/2005
• Published: 09/21/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 03/16/2005
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Yu, Philip Shilung, Vayghan, Jamshid Abdollahi
• Application Number:
  US11/080,484
• Publication Number:
  US 20060212337A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/10
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/063112 Skill-based matching of a person or a group to a task
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/00 Commerce
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0201 Market modelling; Market analysis; Collecting market data
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0204 Market segmentation

Abstract

A method (and system) of assigning a sales opportunity, includes creating an assignment model based on clustering historical sales opportunities, and providing a scoring mechanism on a plurality of sales agents for automatically optimizing an assignment of at least one sales opportunity to at least one of the plurality of sales agents.

Claims

1. A method of assigning a sales opportunity, comprising:

creating an assignment model based on clustering historical sales opportunities; and

providing a scoring mechanism on a plurality of sales agents for automatically optimizing an assignment of at least one sales opportunity to at least one of said plurality of sales agents.

2. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

partitioning historical sales opportunity data into clusters;

matching a new sales opportunity with one of said clusters;

predicting a success score of a plurality of sales agents for said new sales opportunity; and

assigning a sales agent to said new sales opportunity based on said score.

3. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

applying said assignment model to the at least one sales opportunity and the at least one sales agent to obtain a sales agent success probability.

4. The method according to claim 3, further comprising:

inputting said sales agent success probability, an agent availability parameter and an opportunity importance measure into an optimization algorithm to determine a most appropriate sales agent for each said at least one sales opportunity.

5. The method according to claim 4, wherein a most important sales opportunity of said at least one sales opportunity is assigned to a most qualified sales agent of said at least one sales agent.

6. The method according to claim 1, wherein said creating an assignment model comprises:

extracting features from a set of historical opportunity data.

7. The method according to claim 6, wherein said creating an assignment model further comprises:

creating homogeneous data segments by clustering said historical opportunity data, wherein data in each of said homogeneous data segments shares a predetermined characteristic.

8. The method according to claim 7, wherein said creating an assignment model further comprises:

building a classifier for each of said homogeneous data segments.

9. The method according to claim 8, wherein said creating an assignment model further comprises:

dividing said historical data into a training data set and a testing data set,

wherein said training data set is used to train said classifier to create an initial assignment model, and

wherein said testing data set is used to test said initial assignment model to create said assignment model.

15. A signal-bearing medium tangibly embodying a program of machine readable instructions executable by a digital processing apparatus to perform a method of assigning a sales opportunity according to claim 1.

16. A method of deploying computing infrastructure, comprising integrating computer-readable code into a computing system, wherein the computer readable code in combination with the computing system is capable of performing a method of assigning a sales opportunity, according to claim 1.

10. A computer system for assigning a sales opportunity, comprising:

means for creating an assignment model; and

means for applying the assignment model to a data set for automatically optimizing an assignment of at least one sales opportunity to at least one sales agent.

11. A computer system for assigning a sales opportunity, comprising:

a creating unit that creates an assignment model based on clustering historical sales opportunities; and

a unit that provides a scoring mechanism on a plurality of sales agents for automatically optimizing an assignment of at least one sales opportunity to at least one of said plurality of sales agents.

12. The computer system according to claim 11, further comprising:

an assignment model application unit that applies said assignment model to a data set to obtain a success probability for each of said at least one sales agent.

13. The computer system according to claim 12, further comprising:

an assignment optimization unit that optimizes the assignment of said at least one sales opportunity to said at least one sales agent based on said success probability obtained for each said at least one sales agent.

14. The computer system according to claim 11, wherein said creating unit comprises:

a clustering unit that clusters historical sales opportunity data into at least one homogeneous segment;

a training unit that trains a classifier using a training set of data to generate an initial assignment model; and

a testing unit that tests said initial assignment model using a testing set of data to generate said assignment model.

17. A method of creating an assignment model for assigning an opportunity to an agent, comprising:

creating at least one opportunity class by clustering historical opportunity data; and

training a model for each of the at least one opportunity class.

19. A signal-bearing medium tangibly embodying a program of machine readable instructions executable by a digital processing apparatus to perform a method of assigning a sales opportunity according to claim 17.

18. A method of assigning an opportunity to an agent, comprising:

creating an assignment model including at least one opportunity class;

comparing a characteristic of the opportunity with a characteristic of each of the at least one opportunity class to match the opportunity to a opportunity class having a similar characteristic;

determining a success probability of at least one agent using the assignment model; and

assigning the at least one opportunity to one of the at least one agent.

20. A signal-bearing medium tangibly embodying a program of machine readable instructions executable by a digital processing apparatus to perform a method of assigning a sales opportunity according to claim 18.