Blending communications in a call center

• US 6,463,148 B1
• Filed: 10/10/2000
• Issued: 10/08/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 06/25/1992
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Cooper TGS LLC (Intellectual Ventures LLC)
• Original Assignee: Apropos Technology (Enghouse Systems Limited)
• Inventors: Brady, Patrick K.
• Primary Examiner(s): SMITH, CREIGHTON H
• Application Number:
  US09/685,033
• Time in Patent Office: 728 Days
• Field of Search: 379/265.01, 379/266.01, 379/309, 379/201.01
• US Class Current: 379/265.01
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2203/4509 Unified messaging with single point of access to voicemail and other mail or messaging systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42323 PBX's with CTI arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5158 in combination with automated outdialling systems devices for signalling identity of wanted subscriber H04M1/26
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5183 Call or contact centers with computer-telephony arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/523 with call distribution or queueing
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5233 Operator skill based call distribution
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5237 Interconnection arrangements between ACD systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2213/13072 Sequence circuits for call signaling, ACD systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2213/13093 Personal computer, PC
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2213/13103 Memory
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2213/1322 PBX
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2213/13389 LAN, internet

Abstract

A call processor in a call center provides agents with enhanced ability to handle multiple types of communications in a consistent manner. Information related to communications received by the call processor are displayed to agents in the call center in queue lists. Agents can select calls for further processing from the information presented in the queue lists.

Claims

1. A call processor in a call center having one or more agents to answer calls using one or more agent computers, comprising:

a blander process to blend one or more types of communications for display to said one or more agent;

a central computer to run said blender process;

a computer network to connect said one or more agent computers to said central computer;

a message router, executing on said central computer, for sending messages containing information related to said one or more types of communications to said one or more agent computers; and

a queue on each of said one or more agent computers to display said information related to said one or more types of communications to said one or more agents.

2. The call processor of claim 1, further comprising selection means for allowing said one or more agents to select one of said one or more types of communications listed in said queue for further processing.

3. The call processor of claim 2, further comprising filtering means for filtering particular types of communications for display to each of said one or more agents.

4. A method for processing calls in a call center having at least one agent, each agent having an agent'"'"'s computer and a display device associated with the agent'"'"'s computer and a computer network connecting each agent'"'"'s computer to a central computer, comprising the steps of:

(a) creating a queue list top store information relating to communications to the call center to each agent; and

(b) receiving a plurality of communications having different communication types;

(c) blending said plurality of communications such that information related to each communication of said plurality of communications is presented to each of the at least one agents in each agent'"'"'s respective queue list;

(d) presenting said queue list for each agent on the display device associated with the agent'"'"'s computer.

5. A method for blending communications in a call center, comprising the steps of:

displaying information related to one or more incoming communications to each agent in the call center in a communication list accessible to each respective agent;

allowing an agent to select a communication from the communication list accessible to the agent;

analyzing the communication list accessible to the agent when the agent wraps up handling the communication;

placing an outbound call if the communication list associated with the agent is empty; and

connecting the agent to the outbound call thereby blending communications in the call center.

6. The method recited in claim 5, further comprising the steps of:

sending an outbound call request to an outbound call database when the communication list is determined to be empty;

querying the outbound call database to obtain information related to an outbound call in response to the outbound call request;

returning the information related to the outbound call obtained in response to the step of querying the outbound call database; and

displaying the information related to the outbound call to the agent in the communication list as a new communication.

7. The method recited,in claim 6, wherein the querying step comprises the steps of:

performing an agent-specific query to obtain the information related to the outbound call; and

performing a non-agent-specific query if no information related to any outbound call is received in response to the agent-specific query.

8. The method recited in claim 6, further comprising the steps of setting a database entry to an inactive status to prevent other agents from accessing the information related to the outbound call.

9. The method recited in claim 5, wherein each of the communications can be one of a telephone call, a facsimile, or an e-mail.

10. The method recited in claim 5, displaying a communication type corresponding to each communication in each communication list.

11. The method recited in claim 5, further comprising the step of automatically transferring an inbound communication to an agent for processing.

12. The method recited in claim 5, further comprising the step of automatically placing the outbound call.

13. A system for blending communications in a call center, comprising:

a communication distribution computer having distribution software executing thereon for distributing one or more communications to one or more agents for processing;

a communication list displayed to each of the one or more agents, each communication list comprising information related to the one or more communications, an empty communication list indicating an agent is idle;

means for determining whether a communication list associated with a particular agent is empty;

means for obtaining information related to an outbound call from a database when the communication list associated with a particular agent is empty; and

means for presenting the information related to an outbound call to the particular agent in the communication list associated with the particular agent, thereby blending communications in the call center.

14. The system recited in claim 13, further comprising a database, wherein the means for obtaining information related to the outbound call comprises:

means for querying the database using information relating to a particular agent; and

means for returning the information related to the outbound call response to the query.

15. The system recited in claim 14, further comprising means for preventing access to a database entry corresponding to the outbound call by other agents in the call center.

16. The system recited in claim 14, further comprising means for automatically placing an outbound call in accordance with the information relating to the outbound call.

17. The system recited in claim 13, further comprising means for placing an outbound call in accordance with the information relating to the outbound call in response to the particular agent selecting the outbound call from the call list.

18. The system recited in claim 14, further comprising means for performing a multi-tiered query, said performing means comprising:

means for querying the database using information specific to the particular agent; and

means for querying the database using information that is not specific to the particular agent if no outbound call is found in response to the query using the information specific to the particular agent.

19. The system recited in claim 14, further comprising means for including incoming e-mails in one or more of the call lists.

20. The system recited in claim 14, further comprising means for including incoming facsimiles in one or more of the call lists.

21. A system for blending inbound communications in a call center, comprising:

a distribution computer coupled to the telephone switch for receiving the one or more inbound communications;

a queue associated with each agent for displaying information related to the inbound communications;

a blender process executing on the distribution computer for extracting information related to the inbound communications and sending that information to one or more of the queues so that information sent to a particular queue is displayed to the agent associated with the particular queue; and

selection means for allowing an agent to select one of the inbound communications from the queue associated with the agent for further processing.

22. The system recited in claim 21, further comprising a telephone switch for receiving telephone calls in the call center, and routing the telephone calls to the distribution computer for processing.

23. The system recited in claim 21, wherein the blender process connects an agent with an idle queue to an outbound call.

24. The system recited in claim 23, further comprising a database for storing outbound calls, and wherein the outbound call is determined by performing a query of the database to obtain the outbound call.

25. The system recited in claim 24, wherein the query comprises information corresponding to the agent with the idle queue.

26. A method for blending communications in a call center, comprising the steps of:

receiving a plurality of inbound communications in the call center;

extracting information from each communication;

posting some or all of the extracted information in each of one or more queues that are displayed to at least one agent thereby blending communications in the call center, wherein the information posted in each queue need not be unique;

receiving a request for a particular communication from a particular agent on the basis of the extracted information displayed to the particular agent in a queue viewable. by the particular agent; and

sending the communication to the agent for further processing.

27. The method recited in claim 26, further comprising the steps of:

determining whether the queue viewable by the particular agent is idle when the agent is in the wrap-up stage of processing the telephone call;

if the queue associated with the particular agent is idle;

determining if there is an outbound call to make that can be handled by the particular agent;

making the outbound call; and

connecting the particular agent to the outbound call to further blend communications in the call center.

28. The method recited in claim 27, wherein the determination of whether there is an outbound call that can be handled by the particular agent is made by querying a database of outbound calls using information corresponding to the particular agent.

29. The method recited in claim 26, further comprising the step of using predictive dialing to make the outbound call.

30. The method recited in claim 26, further comprising the step of forcing a communication to an agent for processing.