Method and Apparatus for Multimedia Interaction Routing According to Agent Capacity Sets

• US 20080285739A1
• Filed: 07/18/2008
• Published: 11/20/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 01/06/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories Incorporated (Genesys Cloud Services Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories Incorporated (Genesys Cloud Services Incorporated)
• Inventors: Barinov, Vitaly Y., Golitsin, Vladimir G.
• Granted Patent: US 8,275,111 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 379/265.09
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5191 interacting with the Internet
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5232 Call distribution algorithms
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5233 Operator skill based call distribution

Abstract

A routing software application for predicting a best routing destination from a pool of considered routing destinations for an incoming event into a communications routing system has a detection module for detecting the arrival of the event for routing;

• • at least one instance of an information gathering routine for gathering and compiling information about the considered destinations; at least one reporting module for organizing and reporting the gathered information; and a processing module for computing values from the gathered information and selecting the best routing destination based on isolation of the best computed value. In a preferred embodiment scalar load information per media type and per destination and agent skill information related to at least media skills per type of media per destination is processed by the processing module, which isolates, identifies, and selects at least the best destination for routing.

Claims

1. A routing software application for predicting a best routing destination from a pool of considered routing destinations for an incoming event into a communications routing system comprising:

a detection module for detecting the arrival of the event for routing;

at least one instance of an information gathering routine for gathering and compiling information about the considered destinations;

at least one reporting module for organizing and reporting the gathered information; and

a processing module for computing values from the gathered information and selecting the best routing destination based on isolation of the best computed value;

characterized in that scalar load information per media type and per destination and agent skill information related to at least media skills per type of media per destination is processed by the processing module, which isolates, identifies, and selects at least the best destination for routing the event.

2. The software application of claim 1 wherein the destinations are associated with a pool of agents in a communications center, the agents assigned to and operating more than one type of multimedia application for serving incoming events.

3. The software application of claim 1 wherein the destinations are agent-operated multimedia workstations.

4. The software application of claim 1 wherein the incoming events for routing include telephone calls, e-mails, voice mails, file share requests, IP telephony calls, video conference calls, instant message sessions, and chat sessions.

5. The software application of claim 1 wherein the processing module is part of a CTI processor hosting the software application.

6. The software application of claim 5 wherein the CTI-processor has connection to one or a combination of a telephony switch, a second CTI processor, and an IP router.

7. The software application of claim 1 wherein the processing module uses an algorithm to determine a best match destination for an incoming event for routing, the algorithm producing a predictive result based on scalar load values per media type utilized simultaneously at a destination at a given period of time of the executed routing routine request and agent skill values per media type assigned.

8. The software application of claim 1 wherein the at least one instance of information gathering routine is executed from at least one instance of reporting module, the reporting module a distributed client of the application.

9. The application of claim 8 where the number of the at least one reporting module is equal to the number of considered destinations for routing, the modules distributed to the destinations and permanently resident therein.

10. The application of claim 1 wherein scalar load information includes queue load per media type per agent, server loads related to multimedia servers, port loads related to agent-operated communication ports, line loads related to network routing paths leading to agents, and system loads relating to number of applications running and memory-use of those applications on agent-operated systems.

11. The application of claim 10 wherein the agent-operated systems include desktop computers.

12. A method for routing specific incoming interaction events of varying multi-media types to specific agents operating in a pool of agents in a contact center, the agents in the pool of agents operating more than one application for handling the interactions of the multi-media types comprising steps of:

(a) detecting an incoming interaction event and identifying at least the media type of the event, and purpose of the event;

(b) constructing an agent capacity set of all of the considered agents in the pool of agents;

(c) isolating at least one available agent from the considered agents based on determination of least relative load in comparison with all of the agents relative load values defined in step (b); and

(d) routing the interaction to the agent having the lowest value of relative load.

14. The method of claim 12 wherein in step (b) the agents are operating computerized agent workstations, the agent capacity set comprising a list of all of the agent'"'"'s individual capacities identified for each agent.

15. The method of claim 12 wherein in step (b) the agent capacity set includes load values per media type currently running, system load values, and agent skill-level values related to individual media type.

16. The method of claim 12 wherein in step (c) the least relative load value is derived from scalar load values and skill-level values.

17. The method of claim 12 wherein in step (c) one available agent is selected and one backup agent is selected.

18. The method of claim 12 wherein in step (c) all agents in the pool of considered agents are automatically considered available agents.

13. The method of step 12 wherein in step (a) the incoming interaction events for routing include telephone calls, e-mails, voice mails, file share requests, IP telephony calls, video conference calls, instant message sessions, and chat sessions.