SKILLS BASED ROUTING IN A STANDARDS BASED CONTACT CENTER USING A PRESENCE SERVER AND EXPERTISE SPECIFIC WATCHERS
First Claim
1. A presence management system for a contact center comprising:
- a presence server configured to accept, manage, and distribute presence information using Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) based messages and in conformance with an open standard;
a data store communicatively linked to the presence server, wherein the data store is configured to store the presence information, said stored presence information including presence information for a plurality of contact center agents, wherein for each agent the stored presence information includes an element for expertise of the associated agent; and
a plurality of watchers configured to subscribe to the presence information managed by the presence server, wherein each of the watchers corresponds to a unique expertise and wherein that watcher is associated with the presence information for all of the contact center agents having the unique expertise to which that watcher corresponds.
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Accused Products
Abstract
The present invention discloses a presence management system for a contact center including a presence server, a data store, and one or more watchers. The presence server can accept, manage, and distribute presence information using Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) based messages in conformance with an open standard, such as an Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) based standard. The data store can be communicatively linked to the presence server and can be configured to store the presence information. The stored presence information can include presence information for multiple contact center agents, wherein for each agent the stored presence information includes an element for expertise of the associated agent. The watchers can subscribe to the presence information managed by the presence server. Each of the watchers can correspond to a unique expertise. The watcher associated with an expertise can watch presence information for all of the contact center agents having that expertise.
127 Citations
20 Claims
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1. A presence management system for a contact center comprising:
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a presence server configured to accept, manage, and distribute presence information using Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) based messages and in conformance with an open standard; a data store communicatively linked to the presence server, wherein the data store is configured to store the presence information, said stored presence information including presence information for a plurality of contact center agents, wherein for each agent the stored presence information includes an element for expertise of the associated agent; and a plurality of watchers configured to subscribe to the presence information managed by the presence server, wherein each of the watchers corresponds to a unique expertise and wherein that watcher is associated with the presence information for all of the contact center agents having the unique expertise to which that watcher corresponds. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
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8. A contact center comprising:
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a plurality of contact center components conforming to open standards that intercommunicate utilizing open standards, said components together forming an open contact center, said open contact center providing automated interactive communications with callers, providing queue management for callers waiting to communicate with live agents, and providing skills based routing for assigning live agents to callers based upon an expertise possessed by the live agents and an expertise needed by the callers, wherein a plurality of defined expertise categories are defined for the skills based routing; a presence server configured to accept, manage, and distribute presence information related to the live agents; and a plurality of watchers configured to subscribe to the presence information managed by the presence server, wherein a one-to-one correspondence exists between the watchers and expertise category, and wherein the watchers and presence server are used in providing the skills based routing. - View Dependent Claims (9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15)
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16. A method for performing skills based routing for a contact center comprising:
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a call center interacting with a caller using an automated response mechanism; determining that the caller is to be transferred to a live agent; ascertaining an expertise needed based upon information acquired during the interacting step; determining one of a plurality of watchers that corresponds to the expertise, wherein each of the watchers corresponds to a particular expertise, wherein each watcher subscribes to presence information managed by a presence server; the watcher identifying an agent to handle the caller; and transferring the caller to the identified agent. - View Dependent Claims (17, 18, 19, 20)
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Specification