SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR CONTACT CENTER ACTIVITY ROUTING BASED ON AGENT PREFERENCES

• US 20140140495A1
• Filed: 11/19/2012
• Published: 05/22/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 11/19/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories Incorporated (Genesys Cloud Services Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories Incorporated (Genesys Cloud Services Incorporated)
• Inventors: Ristock, Herbert Willi Artur, Mezhibovsky, Vladimir, Korolev, Nikolay, Teryoshin, Vitaliy
• Granted Patent: US 9,392,115 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 379/265.05
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5232 Call distribution algorithms
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5233 Operator skill based call distribution

Abstract

A method for routing activities in a contact center to contact center agents includes: identifying an activity to be routed to a contact center agent; identifying one or more parameters for handling the activity; identifying one or more contact center agents; retrieving preference settings for the identified one or more contact center agents; routing the activity to one of the identified contact center agents based on the identified one or more parameters and the retrieved preference settings.

Claims

1. A method for routing activities to contact center agents in a contact center comprising a processor, the method comprising:

identifying, by the processor, an activity to be routed to one of the contact center agents;

identifying, by the processor, one or more parameters for handling the activity;

identifying, by the processor, one or more contact center agents;

retrieving, by the processor, preference settings for each contact center agent of the identified one or more contact center agents;

for a particular contact center agent of the identified one or more contact center agents, overriding, by the processor, the preference settings for the particular contact center agent in response to at least one of receiving a preference override from a contact center administrator, or detecting that quality of performance of the contact center agent is below a threshold quality; and

routing, by the processor, the activity to one of the identified contact center agents based on the identified one or more parameters and the retrieved preference settings that are not overridden.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more parameters are set by a contact center administrator.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more parameters identify one or more skills for handling the activity.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more parameters identify one or more skill levels for handling the activity.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more parameters identify one or more agent capacities for the one or more contact center agents.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more parameters are identified based on user input entered in response to prompts by an interactive voice response system.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the preference settings are set by the identified one or more contact center agents.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the preference settings relate to one or more of a service type, a media type, a contact direction, or an agent capacity.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the activity is a telephony call.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining, by the processor, if an override condition is satisfied in response to one or more of:

an idle time of the one or more contact center agents exceeding an idle time threshold;

a service level of the contact center is below a service level threshold.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising changing, by the processor, one of the preference settings when the override condition is met.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the routing the activity is further based on the override condition being satisfied.

13. A server for routing activities to contact center agents, the server including:

a processor; and

a memory, wherein the memory has stored thereon instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to;

identify an activity to be routed to one of the contact center agents;

identify one or more parameters for handling the activity;

identify one or more contact center agents;

retrieve preference settings for each contact center agent of the identified one or more contact center agents;

for a particular contact center agent of the identified one or more contact center agents, override the preference settings for the particular contact center agent in response to at least one of receiving a preference override from a contact center administrator, or detecting that quality of performance of the contact center agent is below a threshold quality; and

route the activity to one of the identified contact center agents based on the identified one or more parameters and the retrieved preference settings that are not overridden.

14. The routing server of claim 13, wherein the one or more parameters are set by a contact center administrator.

15. The routing server of claim 13, wherein the one or more parameters identify one or more skills for handling the activity.

16. The routing server of claim 13, wherein the one or more parameters identify one or more skill levels for handling the activity.

17. The routing server of claim 13, wherein the one or more parameters identify one or more agent capacities for the one or more contact center agents.

18. The routing server of claim 13, wherein the one or more parameters are identified based on user input entered in response to prompts by an interactive voice response system.

19. The routing server of claim 13, wherein the preference settings are set by the identified one or more contact center agents.

20. The routing server of claim 13, wherein the preference settings relate to one or more of a service type, a media type, a contact direction, or an agent capacity.