METHODS TO ROUTE, TO ADDRESS AND TO RECEIVE A COMMUNICATION IN A CONTACT CENTER, CALLER ENDPOINT, COMMUNICATION SERVER, DOCUMENT SERVER FOR THESE METHODS

• US 20110164610A1
• Filed: 06/01/2009
• Published: 07/07/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 06/26/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: RPX Corporation
• Original Assignee: Alcatel-Lucent SA (Nokia Corporation)
• Inventors: Cabasse, Gilbert, Thomas, Frederic
• Granted Patent: US 8,867,554 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/352
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5191 interacting with the Internet
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5231 with call back arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/003 Click to dial services

Abstract

Click-to-dial function whereby the URL sent to the contact center is appended with additional information used within the contact center (ACD) for routing. Function is known under the terms such as: extended URL, URL Encoding, Percent-encoding and the query string (part of a URL that contains data to be passed to web applications such as CGI programs). The method to route a communication from a caller to a specific endpoint in a contact center comprises the routing (124) of the communication from an entry point of the contact center routing parameter contained in a hypertext link selected by a caller on his endpoint, this contact center routing parameter being irrelevant for routing the communication over Internet. Relates to use of RFC 3986 in call center environment.

Claims

1. A method to route a communication from caller to a specific endpoint in a contact center, the method comprising:

displaying (92) a hypertext link on a caller endpoint, the hypertext link containing a contact center URL (Uniform Resource Locator) to route a communication to an entry point (43) of the contact center over Internet,

upon selection of the hypertext link by a caller, addressing (96) a communication to the entry point (43) of the contact center using the contact center URL contained in the hypertext link,

upon reception of this communication at an entry point (43) in the contact center, routing (124) the communication to the specific endpoint among a plurality of different endpoints of the contact center able to receive this communication,

wherein the routing (124) of the communication from the entry point (43) of the contact center to the specific endpoint is done by a communication server (42) of the contact center (8) as a function of at least one contact center routing parameter contained in the hypertext link, said contact center routing parameter being irrelevant for routing the communication over Internet.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the method comprises the concatenation (82) of a contact center network address and the contact center routing parameter to form the contact center URL.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein the method comprises:

incorporating (82) at least one hypertext link in each document of a set of documents that the caller endpoint can display, the contact center network address contained in those hypertext links being the same whereas the contact center routing parameter contained in those hypertext links varies from one document to the other.

4. A method to address a communication to an entry point (43) of a contact center over Internet, the method comprising:

displaying (92) a hypertext link on a caller endpoint, the hypertext link containing a contact center URL to route a communication to the entry point (43) of the contact center over Internet, and

upon selection of the hypertext link by a caller, addressing (96) a communication to the entry point (43) of the contact center over Internet using the contact center URL contained in the hypertext link,

wherein the displayed hypertext link contains a contact center routing parameter used to route the communication from the entry point (43) of the contact center to a specific endpoint among a plurality of different endpoints able to receive this communication by a communication server (42) of the contact center (8), this contact center routing parameter being irrelevant for routing the communication over Internet.

5. The method according to claim 4, wherein addressing a communication to the contact center comprises sending (104) the contact center routing parameter to the contact center along with a communication request over Internet.

6. The method according to claim 5, wherein the communication request is an INVITE request of SIP (Session Initiation Protocol).

7. A method to receive a communication over Internet in a contact center, the method comprising, upon reception of the communication at an entry point (43) of the contact center, routing (124) the communication to a specific endpoint among a plurality of different endpoints of the contact center able to receive this communication by a communication server (42) of the contact center (8), wherein the routing (124) of the communication from the entry point (43) of the contact center to the specific endpoint is done as a function of at least one contact center routing parameter contained in a hypertext link selected by a caller on his endpoint, this contact center routing parameter being irrelevant for routing the communication over Internet.

8. The method according to claim 7, wherein, before proceeding to the routing of the communication from the entry point (43) to the specific endpoint, the method comprises:

extracting (110) the contact center routing parameter from a communication request,

executing (122) an advanced communication routing to determine to which specific endpoint the communication shall be routed as a function of the extracted contact center routing parameter.

9. The method according to claim 7, wherein if no contact center routing parameter is provided, the method comprises routing (126) the communication to a voice machine to collect through a voice interface or via database mining according to a caller identifier, the information needed to route this communication to the specific endpoint.

10. The method according to claim 9, wherein the collected routing information are formatted using the same syntax as the one used for the contact center routing parameter before executing the advanced communication routing based on the formatted collected routing information so that no modification of the advanced communication routing is needed even if the routed communication was initially received without contact center routing parameter.

11. A caller endpoint comprising:

a user interface (12) to present at least one hypertext link (24, 28), the hypertext link containing a contact center URL to route a communication to an entry point (43) of a contact center over Internet,

a telecommunication application (16) to address a communication to the entry point (43) of the contact center using the contact center URL contained in the hypertext link upon selection of the hypertext link,

wherein the hypertext link (24, 28) contains a contact center routing parameter used to route the communication from the entry point (43) of the contact center to a specific endpoint among a plurality of different endpoints of the contact center able to receive this communication by a communication server (42) of the contact center (8), this contact center routing parameter being irrelevant for routing the communication over Internet.

12. A communication server (42) of a contact center, the communication server being able to route a communication received over Internet from an entry point (43) of the contact center to a specific endpoint among different endpoints of the contact center able to receive the communication,

wherein the communication server (42) is able to route the communication from the entry point (43) to the specific endpoint as a function of at least one contact center routing parameter contained in a hypertext link selected by a caller on his endpoint, this contact center routing parameter being irrelevant for routing the communication over Internet.

13. A document server (54) able to deliver over Internet a document incorporating a least one hypertext link (24, 28) containing a contact center URL to route a communication to an entry point (43) of a contact center over Internet, wherein the hypertext link (24, 28) contains a contact center routing parameter used to route the communication from the entry point (43) of the contact center to a specific endpoint among a plurality of endpoints of the contact center able to receive this communication by a communication server (42) of the contact center (8), this contact center routing parameter being constant or dynamically adapted to the destinator of the document, and being irrelevant for routing the communication over Internet.