Method and Apparatus for Distributed Interactive Voice Processing
First Claim
1. A distributed interactive voice processing system, comprising:
- a plurality of agent terminals each employed by a corresponding human agent associated with a call center, wherein at least one of said agent terminals provides at least one automated interactive voice response (IVR) channel; and
a call management system to distribute communications from a centralized IVR queue to said at least one automated IVR channel, wherein said call management system maintains an availability status of said at least one automated IVR channel and routes one or more calls from said centralized IVR queue to said at least one automated IVR channel.
15 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A distributed interactive voice processing system is disclosed that distributes IVR capabilities to one or more agent terminals associated with a call center. One or more agent terminals support the traditional functions of a live agent, as well as additional IVR capabilities to support the functions of a virtual or automated agent A call management system manages the distributed IVR resources by monitoring the availability status of the live and automated IVR agents in the distributed interactive voice processing system and distributing telephone calls and other types of communications to the appropriate agents. The availability status of the automated IVR agents is based on estimated available CPU cycles on the agent terminal A received call is routed to the extension on the agent terminal associated with the selected IVR channel. A VXML process associated with the selected IVR channel obtains the appropriate application software from a central voiceXML application server and executes the VXML page(s) to play the appropriate prompts from the IVR script to the caller and to collect DTMF or speech recognized inputs from the caller The distributed design allows centralized application management while using distributed resources to provide improved IVR availability
-
Citations
20 Claims
-
1. A distributed interactive voice processing system, comprising:
-
a plurality of agent terminals each employed by a corresponding human agent associated with a call center, wherein at least one of said agent terminals provides at least one automated interactive voice response (IVR) channel; and
a call management system to distribute communications from a centralized IVR queue to said at least one automated IVR channel, wherein said call management system maintains an availability status of said at least one automated IVR channel and routes one or more calls from said centralized IVR queue to said at least one automated IVR channel. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)
-
-
9. A centralized method for assigning a telephone call to an automated agent of a call center, said automated agent executing on an agent terminal employed by a corresponding human agent, said method comprising:
-
receiving a telephone call from a caller;
assigning said telephone call to an IVR queue monitoring an availability status of said automated agent executing on an agent terminal; and
routing said telephone call from said IVR queue to an available automated agent - View Dependent Claims (10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 18, 19, 20)
-
-
16. An interactive voice response (IVR) system for assigning a telephone call to an automated agent of a call center, said automated agent executing on an agent terminal employed by a corresponding human agent, said IVR system comprising:
-
a memory; and
at least one processor, coupled to the memory, operative to;
receive a telephone call from a caller;
assign said telephone call to an IVR queue monitor an availability status of said automated agent executing on an agent terminal; and
route said telephone call from said IVR queue to an available automated agent - View Dependent Claims (17)
-
Specification