Fuzzy-logic routing system for call routing with-in communication centers and in other telephony environments

• US 6,556,671 B1
• Filed: 05/31/2000
• Issued: 04/29/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 05/31/2000
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories Incorporated (Genesys Cloud Services Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories Incorporated (Genesys Cloud Services Incorporated)
• Inventors: Beauvois, Alexandre
• Primary Examiner(s): TIEU, BENNY QUOC
• Application Number:
  US09/587,091
• Time in Patent Office: 1,063 Days
• Field of Search: 379/265.01, 379/265.02, 379/266-1-2, 379/309, 379/221.06, 370/351, 370/352, 370/355
• US Class Current: 379/265.02
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5183 Call or contact centers with computer-telephony arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5232 Call distribution algorithms
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/006 Networks other than PSTN/ISDN providing telephone service, e.g. Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) , including next generation networks with a packet-switched transport layer H04L65/00 takes precedence; aspects not specific to the type of network H04M3/00; special services in those networks H04M3/42

Abstract

A fuzzy-logic routing system is provided for routing communications events to agents working in a telephony environment. The routing system uses parsed input taken from communications events upon arrival of those events to a telephony switch or IP data router to create needs expressions, which reflect the intended purposes of originators of the communications events. The system, using the needs expressions, performs a data search in a repository containing capabilities expressions, which reflect capabilities of service agents and/or automated systems responsible for handling the communications events. Upon suitably matching a needs expression with a capabilities expression, the system then routes the associated communications event to the associated agent. The system may be integrated to CTI telephony systems, data network telephony systems, or a combination thereof.

Claims

1. A computerized routing system for routing communications events to final destinations comprising;

a communications routing apparatus for receiving and routing the communications events;

a system-client interface for accepting input from the communications events upon arrival of the events to the communications routing apparatus, and translation of the input into a needs expression (NE);

a data repository for storing a capability expression (CE) for at least one communications agent; and

a software application for performing a fuzzy logic match between NE and CE, and for determining routing destinations for the communications events based on the results of the match.

2. The computerized routing system of claim 1 wherein at least one of the communications events is a telephone call, at least one of the communications agents is a service representative, and the routing apparatus is a telephony switch.

3. The computerized routing system of claim 2 wherein the routing takes place within a telephony communications center.

4. The computerized routing system of claim 1 wherein at least one of the communications events is an IP voice call, at least one of the communications agents is a service representative, and the routing apparatus is an IP data router.

5. The computerized routing system of claim 4 wherein the medium of communication is a wireless data network.

6. The computerized routing system of claim 1 wherein the routing apparatus is a personal router serving one communications agent having multiple destination numbers.

7. The computerized routing system of claim 6 wherein the routing apparatus is part of a telephony service subscribed to by the communications agent.

8. The computerized routing system of claim 6 wherein the routing apparatus is an IP data router.

9. A software application for determining routing destinations for communications events comprising;

a parsing module for parsing input from a communications event, producing a parsed result;

a data-search module for searching a data repository for agent characteristics matching the parsed result; and

an optimization module for optimizing the results of the data search and selecting a routing destination from the optimized data.

10. The software application of claim 9 wherein the input is solicited through an interactive voice response capability.

11. The software application of claim 10 wherein the interactive voice response capability is additionally enhanced with voice recognition capability.

12. The software application of claim 9 wherein the communications events are text based and the parsing module parses text from the events.

13. The software application of claim 9 wherein the communications events are voice calls and the parsing module parses keywords and phrases from solicited voice input.

14. The software application of claim 9 wherein the optimization module optimizes the data according to data-match percentage values.

15. The software application of claim 9 wherein the data-search module searches more than one designated data repository.

16. A method for routing communications events to communications agents comprising the steps of;

(a) obtaining input data from the communications events;

(b) parsing the obtained data for keywords and phrases;

(c) performing a data search of agent characteristics using the parsed keywords and phrases;

(d) optimizing data returned in the search;

(e) determining a routing destination from the optimized data; and

(f) routing the communications events to the selected routing destination.

17. The method of claim 16 wherein in step (a), the input data is solicited voice data.

18. The method of claim 16 wherein in step (a), the input data is text-based data.

19. The method of claim 16 wherein in step (c), more than one data repository is searched.

20. The method of claim 16 wherein in step (d), data optimization involves ranking the data according to data-match percentage values.

21. The method of claim 16 wherein in step (f), the communications events are routed by a telephony switch.

22. The method of claim 16 wherein in step (f), the communications events are routed by an IP data router.