Inbound telecommunications services resources management system

• US 5,509,055 A
• Filed: 08/03/1995
• Issued: 04/16/1996
• Est. Priority Date: 06/30/1993
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: AT&T Corporation (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Corporation (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Ehrlich, Karel, Trutt, David
• Primary Examiner(s): Matar, Ahmad F.
• Assistant Examiner(s): WEAVER, SCOTT LOUIS
• Application Number:
  US08/511,034
• Time in Patent Office: 257 Days
• Field of Search: 379/34, 379/111, 379/112, 379/113, 379/115, 379/119, 379/120, 379/126, 379/127, 379/133, 379/135, 379/137, 379/138, 379/139, 379/140, 379/141, 379/201, 379/265, 379/266 , 379/309
• US Class Current: 379/133
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/00 Arrangements for metering, time-control or time indication ; Metering, charging or billing arrangements for voice wireline or wireless communications, e.g. VoIP
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/36 Statistical metering, e.g. recording occasions when traffic exceeds capacity of trunks
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/51 Centralised call answering arrangements requiring operator intervention , e.g. call or contact centers for telemarketing

Abstract

Billing records for call attempts directed to an inbound subscriber are sorted by originating telephone number, date and time of day in order to group together a) sequences of call attempts initiated at each telephone number, and b) corresponding disposition for each call attempt in that sequence. When the billing records indicate that all call attempts initiated from an originating telephone number have been unavailing (blocked calls, ring-no-answer), a caller associated with that telephone number is deemed "lost" with respect to a selected time window. The number of lost callers within a predetermined period of time is then used to determine the desirability of committing additional resources to a call center.

Claims

1. A method of identifying lost callers for call attempts directed to a telecommunications service center having a customer premises equipment, wherein said method comprises the steps of:

generating billing records for a plurality of calls received by the customer premises equipment, wherein at least a portion of said billing records include fields selected from a group of such fields comprised of originating telephone number, date, time and disposition of a respective received call;

merging said billing records with records of unsuccessful call attempts directed at said telecommunications service center and initiated within a predetermined time period, wherein at least a portion of said unsuccessful call attempt records include fields selected from a group of such fields comprised of originating telephone number, date, time and disposition of a respective attempted call;

sorting the merged records in ascending order by originating telephone number, time and date to derive a sequence of merged and sorted records for each originating telephone number; and

classifying a particular sequence of merged and sorted records as a lost caller if a last record in said sequence of merged and sorted records indicates one of the following call dispositions;

a) busy line condition, b) ring-no-answer condition, and c) abandoned in queue condition.

2. A system of identifying lost callers for call attempts directed to a telecommunications service center having a customer premises equipment, wherein said system comprises:

means for generating billing records for a plurality of calls received by the customer premises equipment, each one of said billing records including fields selected from a group of such fields comprised of originating telephone number, date, time and disposition of a respective received call;

means for merging said billing records with records of unsuccessful call attempts directed at said telecommunications service center and initiated within a predetermined time period, each one of said unsuccessful call attempts records including fields selected from a group of such fields comprised of originating telephone number, date, time and disposition of a respective attempted call;

means for sorting the merged records in ascending order by originating telephone number, time and date to derive a sequence of merged and sorted records for each originating telephone number; and

means for classifying a particular sequence of merged and sorted records as a lost caller if a last record in said sequence of merged and sorted records indicates one of the following call dispositions;

a) busy line condition, b) ring-no-answer condition, and c) abandoned in queue condition.