Monitoring system for telephony resources in a call center

• US 6,490,350 B2
• Filed: 09/30/1997
• Issued: 12/03/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 09/30/1997
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Original Assignee: MCI Communications Corporation (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Inventors: Shankar, Gopi, Ravenscroft, Donald L., Kaley, Craig, Baxter, Craig Alan, Atkinson, Wesley Jon, McDuff, Richard
• Primary Examiner(s): Hoosain, Allan
• Application Number:
  US08/940,546
• Publication Number:
  US 20010012356A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,890 Days
• Field of Search: 379/34, 379/38, 379/201, 379/207, 379/265, 379/266, 379/309, 379/338, 379/210, 379/211, 379/268, 379/265.01, 379/265.02, 379/265.03, 379/265.05, 379/214.01, 379/218.01, 379/265.06, 379/265.08, 379/265.1, 379/265.12, 379/265.14, 379/266.01, 379/266.03, 379/266.06, 395/200.34, 395/200.36, 395/200.57, 370/351, 370/352, 370/389, 370/401
• US Class Current: 379/265.06
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2201/42 Graphical user interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42323 PBX's with CTI arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/51 Centralised call answering arrangements requiring operator intervention , e.g. call or contact centers for telemarketing
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5175 Call or contact centers supervision arrangements

Abstract

An automated monitoring system monitors telephone resources in a call center. The call center may include agent stations at which agents are stationed to handle calls. A monitoring server monitors calling activity by the agents to maintain state information about the agents and to gather statistics about the calling activity of the agents. These statistics are forwarded to a client program run on a workstation or other type of computer system. The client program provides a graphical user interface and depicts the state information about the agents as part of the interface. The graphical user interface may also display statistics regarding the calling activity of agents, agent supervisors, business clients of the call center, and the call center in aggregate.

Claims

1. A call center for handling calls for more than one business, comprising:

agent stations for agents, each agent station including telephony resources through which agents handle calls;

a monitor for monitoring calling activity of the agents and producing statistics regarding the calling activity of the agents;

a computer system having a display device and running a program for obtaining the statistics from the monitor via periodic polling and displaying the statistics on the display device, wherein the computer system displays at least one statistic specific to a subset of the businesses handled by the call center.

2. The call center of claim 1, further comprising an event source for generating events regarding calls handled by the call center for forwarding the events to the monitor that uses the events in producing the statistics.

3. The call center of claim 1, further comprising a database for storing information regarding the agents.

4. The call center of claim 1 wherein the computer system produces a graphical user interface and the statistics are displayed as part of the graphical user interface.

5. The call center of claim 1 wherein the monitor is a server process and the program run on the client is a server process.

6. The call center of claim 1 wherein the monitor includes an agent module for producing statistics regarding calling activity of the agents.

7. The call center of claim 1 wherein the monitor includes a call center module for producing statistics regarding calling activity of all the agents in the call center.

8. The call center of claim 1 wherein the call center includes business clients that use the call center to handle calls on their behalf and wherein the monitor includes a business client module for generating statistics regarding calling activity on behalf of the business client.

9. The call center of claim 1, wherein said statistics include an average work time which identifies the time at which the agent is processing the call but not talking.

10. The call center of claim 1, wherein said statistics include an average talk time which identifies the time at which the agent is talking on the call.

11. The call center of claim 1, wherein said statistics include a business client code that identifies the business client for which a call is being processed.

12. In a call center having agents who handle calls for more than one business and a computer system having a display device, a method comprising the computer implemented steps of:

providing a monitor for monitoring calling activity by the agents and gathering statistics regarding the calling activity of the agents;

with the monitor, gathering statistics regarding the calling activity of the agents;

passing the statistics to an application program running on the computer system based on periodic polling; and

with the application program, displaying the statistics on the display device, wherein the displayed statistics comprise at least one statistic pertaining to a subset of the businesses handled by said call center.

13. The method of claim 12 wherein the statistics are displayed as part of a graphical user interface produced by the application program.

14. The method of claim 13 wherein the call center has a physical layout and wherein the graphical user interface depicts the physical layout of at least a portion of the call center.

15. The method of claim 14 wherein the graphical user interface depicts the layout of all of the call center.

16. The method of claim 12 wherein the monitor also maintains state information about the agents in the call center.

17. The method of claim 16, further comprising the steps of:

passing the state information about the agents from the monitor to the application program;

displaying a visual cue about a state of at least one of the agents on the display device based on the state information passed from the monitor.

18. The method of claim 12 wherein the monitor is a server process and the application program is a client process.

19. The method of claim 12 wherein the call center further includes an event source for generating events regarding calls handled by the call center and for forwarding the events to the monitor to facilitate the monitor generating the statistics.

20. The method of claim 12 wherein the statistics include statistics regarding calling activity of each of the agents.

21. The method of claim 12 wherein the statistics include aggregate statistics regarding the calling activity of all of the agents in the call center.

22. The call center of claim 12, wherein said statistics include an average work time which identifies the time at which the agent is processing the call but not talking.

23. The call center of claim 12, wherein said statistics include an average talk time which identifies the time at which the agent is talking on the call.

24. The call center of claim 12, wherein said statistics include a business client code that identifies the business client for which a call is being processed.

25. A telecommunications system for handling call for more than one business, comprising:

agent stations where agents are stationed to handle calls, each agent station including telephony resources for handling calls;

a switching mechanism for routing calls for the telecommunications system and generating raw data regarding calls;

a computer/telephony integration server for receiving the raw data from the switching mechanism and generating events about calling activity in the telecommunications system based on the raw data;

a monitoring server for receiving the events from the computer/telephony integration server and generating statistics regarding calling activity of the agents; and

a workstation running a program for acquiring the statistics from the monitoring server via periodic polling and generating output that includes at least some of the statistics, wherein the statistics comprise at least one statistic pertaining to a subset of the businesses handled by said agents.

26. The telecommunications system of claim 25 wherein the system includes a display device and the program running on the workstation displays at least some of the statistics on the display device.

27. The telecommunications system of claim 26 wherein the program produces a graphical user interface on the display device and the displayed statistics are displayed as part of the graphical user interface.

28. The telecommunications system of claim 25 wherein the program includes a polling mechanism for periodically polling the monitoring server for updated statistics regarding calling activity of the agents.

29. The call center of claim 25, wherein said statistics include an average work time which identifies the time at which the agent is processing the call but not talking.

30. The call center of claim 25, wherein said statistics include an average talk time which identifies the time at which the agent is talking on the call.

31. The call center of claim 25, wherein said statistics include a business client code that identifies the business client for which a call is being processed.

32. In a call center having agents who handle calls for more than one business and a computer system having a display device, a computer-readable medium holding computer-executable instructions for performing a method comprising the computer-implemented steps of:

providing a monitor for monitoring calling activity by the agents and gathering statistics regarding the calling activity of the agents;

with the monitor, gathering statistics regarding the calling activity of the agents;

passing the statistics to an application program running on the computer system in response to periodic polling; and

with the application program, displaying the statistics on the display device, wherein the displayed statistics comprise at least one statistic pertaining to a subset of the businesses handled by said call center.

33. The computer-readable medium of claim 32 wherein the statistics are displayed as part of a graphical user interface produced by the application program.

34. The computer-readable medium of claim 33 wherein the call center has a physical layout and wherein the graphical user interface depicts the physical layout of at least a portion of the call center.

35. The computer-readable medium of claim 34 wherein the monitor also maintains state information about the agents in the call center.

36. The computer-readable medium of claim 32 wherein the monitor also maintains state information about the agents in the call center.

37. The computer-readable medium of claim 36 wherein the method further comprises the steps of:

passing the state information about the agents from the monitor to the application program;

displaying a visual cue about a state of at least one of the agents on the display device based on the state information passed from the monitor.

38. The computer-readable medium of claim 36 wherein the statistics include statistics regarding calling activity of each of the agents.

39. The computer-readable medium of claim 32 wherein the statistics include aggregate statistics regarding the calling activity of all of the agents in the call center.

40. The call center of claim 32 wherein said statistics include an average work time which identifies the time at which the agent is processing the call but not talking.

41. The call center of claim 32, wherein said statistics include an average talk time which identifies the time at which the agent is talking on the call.

42. The call center of claim 32, wherein said statistics include a business client code that identifies the business client for which a call is being processed.

43. a call center having agents who handle calls on behalf of business clients, a computer-readable medium holding computer-executable instructions for performing a method practiced in a computer system, comprising the computer-implemented steps of:

providing a monitor for monitoring calling activity by the agents and gathering information for generating statistics regarding the calling activity of the agents;

gathering and generating statistics regarding the calling activity of the agents that summarize calling activity per business client, wherein the statistics include a business client code that identifies the business client for which a call is being processed; and

passing the statistics to a device in response to a polling signal received from the device.

44. A computer system for monitoring calling activity by agents in a call center that handles calls on behalf of business clients, said call center having a computer telephony/integration server for generating events about calling activity in the call center and an application program, comprising:

an interface for receiving events generated by the computer/telephony integration server;

a statistics generator configured to gather and generate statistics regarding the calling activity by agents in the call center on a per business client basis, wherein the statistics include a business client code that identifies the business client for which a call is being processed; and

an interface to the application program for passing statistics generated by the statistics generator to the application program in response to periodic polling.

45. In a call center having agents who handle calls for more than one business and a computer system having a display device, a method comprising the computer implemented steps of:

monitoring calling activity by the agents;

gathering statistics regarding the calling activity of the agents based on the monitoring;

periodically passing the statistics to an application program running on the computer system in response to a polling signal; and

displaying, via the application program, the statistics on the display device, the displayed statistics comprising at least one statistic pertaining to a subset of the businesses handled by the call center.