Systems and Methods to Redirect Incoming Contacts

• US 20110051918A1
• Filed: 08/31/2009
• Published: 03/03/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 08/31/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: SHARMA, Deva-Datta, LAM, Jennifer K., FAN, James, TOWELL, Eric
• Granted Patent: US 8,422,644 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 379/211.02
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2203/4536 Voicemail combined with text-based messaging
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5166 in combination with interactive voice response systems or voice portals, e.g. as front-ends
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5191 interacting with the Internet
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/523 with call distribution or queueing
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/58 Arrangements for transferring received calls from one subscriber to another; Arrangements affording interim conversations between either the calling or the called party and a third party substation line holding circuits H04M1/80

Abstract

Systems and methods are provided for contact channel redirection to improve agent routing/assignment efficiency and customer experience. For example, the system may redirect a customer, waiting in a queue for an agent for telephonic communications, to a chat agent for online chat.

Claims

1. A system, comprising:

an interactive voice response (IVR) module to receive a telephone call from a user;

at least one memory to host a subscriber profile database and a contact log session data store, the IVR module to use the subscriber profile database to identify the user and use the data store to store data related to a communication session initiated by the telephone call;

a telephone call router coupled to the IVR module to route the telephone call to one of a plurality of telephones;

a resource optimizer coupled with the telephone call router to offer the user an online chat connection if a waiting time for routing the telephone call through to one of the plurality of telephones is determined to be longer than a predetermined threshold; and

an online chat router to route the online chat connection to a first terminal of one of a plurality of computer user terminals and to allow the first terminal to access the data related to the communication session initiated by the telephone call during an online chat session initiated by the online chat connection.

2. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a notification gateway to transmit a uniform resource locator (URL) to the user to initiate the online chat connection.

3. The system of claim 2, further comprising:

a computer hosting a web server coupled to the resource optimizer, the web server to download an online chat software program to a computer of the user when the user uses the computer to visit the URL, wherein the online chat connection is established via the online chat software program downloaded from the web server.

4. The system of claim 2, wherein the notification gateway transmits the URL via one of:

email and text message.

5. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a computer hosting a web server coupled to the resource optimizer, wherein the web server is configured to identify the user, facilitate initiation of the online chat connection, and correlate the online chat connection with the telephone call.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the web server correlates the online chat connection with the telephone call via receiving a telephone number from the user.

7. A method, comprising:

receiving, in a computer at a call center, a request of a user for a first connection for a first type of real time communications;

providing, using the computer, an offer of a second connection for a second type of real time communications, based on availability of connections for the first type of real time communications and availability of connections for the second type of real time communications; and

providing a reference using the computer to relate the request with the second connection for the second type of real time communications, if the user accepts the offer.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

initiating a log session based on the request received via the first type of real time communications; and

continuing the log session after the second connection is established for the second type of real time communications.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

identifying an identity of the user based on the first type of real time communications, using a subscriber profile database.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the identifying of the identity of the user is based on communications received in an interactive voice response (IVR) system.

11. The method of claim 7, wherein real time communications of the first type comprise telephonic communications;

and real time communications of the second type comprise instant messaging.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the instant messaging comprises text based chat.

13. The method of claim 7, wherein the first type of real time communications are connected to telephones;

and the second type of real time communications are connected to applications running on computers.

14. The method of claim 7, wherein the offer is provided when no agent is currently available for communicating with the user using the first type of real time communications and there is at least one agent who is currently available for communicating with the user using the second type of real time communications.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the offer is provided when a waiting time for an agent for the first type of real time communications is above a predetermined threshold.

16. The method of claim 7, wherein the reference comprises a uniform resource locator (URL), which when visited by a computer of the user, causes the computer of the user to download a software module for communicating via the second type of real time communications.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the URL is provided via at least one of:

an interactive voice response (IVR) system, an email gateway, and a text message gateway.

18. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

providing the second connection with a priority according to a time at which the request is received via communications of the first type.

19. The method of claim 7, wherein the reference comprises a priority code;

and the second connection is provided with priority in accordance with the priority code in a queue for requests for connections for the second type of real time communications.

20. A computer readable medium storing instructions, the instructions causing a computer to perform a method, the method comprising:

receiving, in a computer at a call center, a request of a user for a first connection for a first type of real time communications;

providing, using the computer, an offer of a second connection for a second type of real time communications, based on availability of connections for the first type of real time communications and availability of connections for the second type of real time communications; and

providing a reference using the computer to relate the request with the second connection for the second type of real time communications, if the user accepts the offer.