Automatic dynamic changing of agents' call-handling assignments
First Claim
1. An arrangement for automatically assigning call center agents to skills in a call center wherein individual calls requiring different skills are handled by a plurality of agents who are individually assigned to different ones of the skills, comprising:
- means for automatically determining present values of call center parameters that impact a predetermined performance characteristic of the call center, which characteristic is sought to be optimized, the parameters including a parameter indicating actual assignments of the plurality of call center agents to work handling calls requiring individual ones of the skills;
means for automatically performing an optimization function, using the determined present values, on the predetermined performance characteristic to determine optimum assignments of the plurality of call center agents to skills that optimize the predetermined performance characteristic; and
means for automatically adjusting the actual assignments of the plurality of call center agents to skills, to bring the actual assignments closer to the determined optimum assignments.
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Accused Products
Abstract
An agent vector monitors selected performance parameters of a call center, such as service times, in-queue times, call volumes, call abandonment rates, benefits derived from having different agents handle calls requiring different skills, proportions of work spent by agents on handling calls requiring different skills, etc., and automatically adjusts agents'"'"' call-handling assignments, for example, by changing the skills to which an agent is assigned or by changing the relative priorities of the agent'"'"'s skills, in order to optimize a predefined objective. The objective is a selected performance characteristic of the call center, for example, the total benefit to the call center of individual ones of the agents handling calls requiring individual agent skills.
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Citations
25 Claims
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1. An arrangement for automatically assigning call center agents to skills in a call center wherein individual calls requiring different skills are handled by a plurality of agents who are individually assigned to different ones of the skills, comprising:
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means for automatically determining present values of call center parameters that impact a predetermined performance characteristic of the call center, which characteristic is sought to be optimized, the parameters including a parameter indicating actual assignments of the plurality of call center agents to work handling calls requiring individual ones of the skills; means for automatically performing an optimization function, using the determined present values, on the predetermined performance characteristic to determine optimum assignments of the plurality of call center agents to skills that optimize the predetermined performance characteristic; and means for automatically adjusting the actual assignments of the plurality of call center agents to skills, to bring the actual assignments closer to the determined optimum assignments. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17)
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18. A method of automatically assigning call center agents to skills in a call center wherein individual calls requiring different skills are handled by a plurality of agents who are individually assigned to different ones of the skills, comprising the steps of:
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automatically determining present values of call center parameters that impact a predetermined performance characteristic of the call center, which characteristic is sought to be optimized, the parameters including a parameter indicating actual assignments of the plurality of call center agents to work handling calls requiring individual ones of the skills; automatically performing an optimization function, using the determined present values, on the predetermined performance characteristic to determine optimum assignments of the plurality of call center agents to skills that optimize the predetermined performance characteristic; and automatically adjusting the actual assignments of the plurality of call center agents to skills, to bring the actual assignments closer to the determined optimum assignments. - View Dependent Claims (19, 20, 21)
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22. A computer-usable program storage device having embodied therein means for automatically assigning call center agents to skills in a call center, wherein individual calls requiring different skills are handled by a plurality of agents who are individually assigned to different ones of the skills, said means being computer-readable program code means for causing the computer to perform the functions of:
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determining present values of call center parameters that impact a predetermined performance characteristic of the call center, which characteristic is sought to be optimized, the parameters including a parameter indicating actual assignments of the plurality of call center agents to work handling calls requiring individual ones of the skills; performing an optimization function, using the determined present values, on the predetermined performance characteristic to determine optimum assignments of the plurality of call center agents to skills that optimize the predetermined performance characteristic; and adjusting the actual assignments of the plurality of call center is agents to skills, to bring the actual assignments closer to the determined optimum assignments. - View Dependent Claims (23, 24, 25)
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Specification