Arrangement for equalizing levels of service among skills
First Claim
1. A method of assigning a call handler to handle a call, comprising the steps of:
- in response to a call handler having both a rare skill and a different common skill becoming available to handle a call, determining whether assigning the call handler to handle a call needing the common skill would deprive calls needing the rare skill of an only available call handler having the rare skill; and
in response to determining that the assignment would deprive the calls needing the rare skill,assigning the call handler to handle a call needing the rare skill even when no call needing the rare skill is available for handling by the call handler, andforbearing from assigning the call handler to handle calls needing the common skill even when a call needing the common skill is available for handling by the call handler.
19 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
In a skills-based ACD, an available agent is reserved and assigned to handle calls needing a "rare" skill of the agent and is prevented from handling calls needing a "common" skill of the agent even if calls needing the common skill are waiting to be handled, if not reserving the agent for the calls needing the rare skill would deprive those calls of the last available agent, even if no calls needing the rare skill are available for handling. The agent is reserved only if target performance criteria, such as average speed of answer, for handling the calls needing the common skill are being met. In case of more than one agent being available to handle calls that need the rare skills, one of these agents is selected and reserved and the other agents are freed to serve calls needing "common" skills.
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Citations
10 Claims
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1. A method of assigning a call handler to handle a call, comprising the steps of:
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in response to a call handler having both a rare skill and a different common skill becoming available to handle a call, determining whether assigning the call handler to handle a call needing the common skill would deprive calls needing the rare skill of an only available call handler having the rare skill; and in response to determining that the assignment would deprive the calls needing the rare skill, assigning the call handler to handle a call needing the rare skill even when no call needing the rare skill is available for handling by the call handler, and forbearing from assigning the call handler to handle calls needing the common skill even when a call needing the common skill is available for handling by the call handler. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 8, 9)
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5. A method of assigning a call handler to handle a call in an environment that comprises a plurality of call queues each corresponding to a different skill and for identifying calls waiting to be handled by a call handler having the corresponding skill, comprising the steps of:
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in response to a call handler, who has both one or more rare skills and different one or more common skills, becoming available to handle a call, determining whether all non-empty call queues that correspond to the agent'"'"'s skills correspond to the agent'"'"'s common skills, and determining whether service objectives are being met for calls needing skills corresponding to each of the non-empty call queues that correspond to the agent'"'"'s common skills; and in response to a determination that all non-empty call queues that correspond to the agent'"'"'s skills correspond to the agent'"'"'s common skills and that service objectives are being met for calls needing skills corresponding to each of the non-empty call queues that correspond to the agent'"'"'s common skills, if assigning the call handler to handle calls from the call queues corresponding to the call handler'"'"'s common skills would deprive a rare skill of an only available handler, assigning the call handler to handle calls from the call queues corresponding to the call handler'"'"'s rare skills, and forbearing from assigning the call handler to handle calls from the call queues corresponding to the agent'"'"'s common skills. - View Dependent Claims (6, 7)
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10. An apparatus for assigning a call handler to handle a call, comprising:
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an effector, responsive to a call handler having both a rare skill and a different common skill becoming available to handle a call, of determining whether assigning the call handler to handle a call needing the common skill would deprive calls needing the rare skill of an only available call handler having the rare skill; and an effector, responsive to a determination that the assignment would deprive the calls needing the rare skill, of assigning the call handler to handle a call needing the rare skill even when no call needing the rare skill is available for handling by the call handler, and of forbearing from assigning the call handler to handle calls needing the common skill even when a call needing the common skill is available for handling by the call handler.
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Specification