Support Incident Routing

• US 20080056233A1
• Filed: 08/31/2006
• Published: 03/06/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 08/31/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Sarin, Ashwin K., O'Reilly, Eamon, Ijidakinro, Ayodele A., Burton, William G.
• Granted Patent: US 9,548,883 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/352
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/103 in the network
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/104 in the network
• 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: H04M 3/5191 interacting with the Internet

Abstract

Incident support routing is described. The Internet is utilized to distribute the received customer support calls among a plurality of customer support agents who may be remotely located and geographically distributed. Voice data to voice-over-IP (VOIP) data packet conversion and VOIP to voice conversion may be utilized to facilitate a customer support call between a customer'"'"'s telephone and a customer support agent'"'"'s computer system.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a communications server configured to;

receive voice data from a customer; and

convert the voice data to voice-over-IP (VOIP) data packets; and

an incident management and routing service configured to;

receive the voice-over-IP data packets from the communications server;

generate a customer support incident ticket based on the received voice-over-TP data packets; and

associate the customer support incident ticket with a customer support agent, wherein the customer support agent is located remote from the incident management and routing service and interacts with the incident management server via a network connection.

2. The system as recited in claim 1, wherein the communications server comprises:

a processor;

a memory; and

a voice/VOIP data converter stored in the memory and executed on the processor, the voice/VOIP data converter configured to convert the voice data to VOIP data packets.

3. The system as recited in claim 2, wherein the voice/VOIP data converter is further configured to convert VOIP data packets received from the incident management and routing service to voice data to be transmitted to the customer.

4. The system as recited in claim 1, wherein the incident management and routing service comprises:

a processor;

a memory; and

a customer support application stored in the memory and executed on the processor, the customer support application comprising;

a ticket creation module configured to generate the customer support incident ticket;

a ticketing store configured to maintain data associated with the customer support incident ticket;

a support queue configured to identify pending customer support incident tickets;

an agent data store configured to maintain a profile associated with a customer support agent, the profile identifying a technical area of expertise associated with the customer support agent;

an agent availability monitor configured to monitor an agent'"'"'s availability based on whether or not the agent is logged on to the customer support application; and

a call management module configured to;

maintain routing rules;

automatically route customer support incident tickets to customer support agents based at least in part on the routing rules; and

manage assignments of customer support agents to customer support incident tickets.

5. The system as recited in claim 4, wherein the support queue is associated with a technical area of expertise.

6. The system as recited in claim 4, wherein the agent availability monitor is further configured to monitor an agent'"'"'s availability based on whether or not the agent is currently assigned to a customer support incident ticket.

7. The system as recited in claim 4, wherein the call management module is further configured to coordinate data transmissions in support of communication between the customer and the customer support agent in association with the customer support incident ticket.

8. The system as recited in claim 4, wherein:

the profile associated with the customer support agent further identifies a language spoken by the customer support agent; and

the call management module is further configured to automatically associate a particular one of the pending customer support incident tickets with the customer support agent based, at least in part, on a comparison of the language spoken by the customer support agent and a preferred language associated with the particular one of the pending customer support incident tickets.

9. The system as recited in claim 1, further comprising an integrated voice response system configured to automatically gather data from the customer.

10. A method comprising:

receiving data from a customer via a communication network, the data indicating the nature of a customer support call;

creating a customer support incident ticket based on the data;

associating the customer support incident ticket with a customer support agent computer system; and

facilitating the customer support call by;

receiving via a network, agent voice-over-IP (VOIP) data packets from the customer support agent computer system;

converting the agent (VOIP) data packets into agent voice data;

transmitting the agent voice data to the customer via the communication network;

receiving customer voice data from the customer via the communication network;

converting the customer voice data into customer VOIP data packets; and

transmitting the customer VOIP data packets to the customer support agent computer system via the network.

11. The method as recited in claim 10, wherein the communication network comprises a telephone network.

12. The method as recited in claim 10, further comprising:

generating a recording of the customer support call; and

maintaining the recording in association with the customer support incident ticket.

13. The method as recited in claim 10, further comprising:

receiving via the Internet, a data request from the customer support agent computer system;

transmitting the data request via the Internet to a customer computing device associated with the customer;

receiving from the customer computing device via the Internet, data in response to the data request; and

transmitting the data in response to the data request via the Internet to the customer support agent computer system.

14. One or more computer-readable media comprising computer-executable instructions that, when executed, cause an incident management and routing service to:

maintain a customer support agent profile;

maintain a support queue;

detect when the customer support agent connects to the incident management and routing service with an agent computing system via the Internet; and

automatically associate the customer support agent with the support queue based at least in part on the customer support agent profile.

15. The one or more computer-readable media as recited in claim 14, wherein the customer support agent profile identifies at least one of a technical area of expertise associated with the customer support agent or a language spoken by the customer support agent.

16. The one or more computer-readable media as recited in claim 14, further comprising computer-executable instructions that, when executed, cause the incident management and routing service to:

identify a particular customer support incident ticket from one or more customer support incident tickets that are currently pending in the support queue;

associate the particular customer support incident ticket with the customer support agent; and

remove the particular customer support incident ticket from the support queue.

17. The one or more computer-readable media as recited in claim 16, further comprising computer-executable instructions that, when executed, cause the incident management and routing service to identify the particular customer support incident ticket by:

providing to the agent computing system, a list of customer support incident tickets that are currently pending in the support queue; and

receiving an indication that the customer support agent has selected the particular one of the customer support incident tickets.

18. The one or more computer-readable media as recited in claim 16, further comprising computer-executable instructions that, when executed, cause the incident management and routing service to identify the particular customer support incident ticket from one or more customer support incident tickets that are currently pending in the support queue based, at least in part, on a comparison between a preferred language associated with the particular customer support incident ticket and a language spoken by the customer support agent.

19. The one or more computer-readable media as recited in claim 16, further comprising computer-executable instructions that, when executed, cause the incident management and routing service to identify the particular customer support incident ticket from one or more customer support incident tickets that are currently pending in the support queue based, at least in part, on a duration of time for which the particular customer support incident ticket has been pending in the support queue.

20. The one or more computer-readable media as recited in claim 16, further comprising computer-executable instructions that, when executed, cause the incident management and routing service to route a customer support eal associated with the particular one of the customer support incident tickets to the customer support agent by:

receiving from a communications server, via a data network, customer VOIP data packets;

relaying the customer VOIP data packets to the agent computing system via the Internet;

receiving agent VOIP data packets from the agent computing system via the Internet; and

relaying the agent VOIP data packets to the communications server via the data network.