Arrangement for using dynamic metrics to monitor contact center performance

• US 6,700,971 B1
• Filed: 11/27/2000
• Issued: 03/02/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 11/27/2000
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Avaya Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Avaya Technology Corporation Miami Lakes FLA US
• Inventors: Prabhakar, Gokul Chander, Cohen, Richard Alan, Knotts, Marcus, Gourlay, William Edward
• Primary Examiner(s): Matar, Ahmad F.
• Assistant Examiner(s): LE, KAREN L
• Application Number:
  US09/723,114
• Time in Patent Office: 1,191 Days
• Field of Search: 379/266.08, 379/265.06, 379/265.1
• US Class Current: 379/265.06
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5175 Call or contact centers supervision arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5233 Operator skill based call distribution

Abstract

An arrangement (100) for monitoring contact-center (104-108) performance automates the monitoring process by using a database schema (250-270) that records (200-224) the contact center to be monitored, its skills, the locations where the skills are located (in the case of a distributed contact center), the objective or target value for a given skill attribute (such as average speed of answer, maximum delay, etc.), the acceptable deviation from the objective (tolerance), the maximum acceptable deviation between locations (in the case of a distributed contact center), the periodicity or frequency of the monitoring, and the comparison operator needed to determine how a given observed or actual value for the skill attribute is to be compared with its specified objective and tolerance. Monitoring is then effected (300-366) as follows. Periodically, the contact center is automatically polled for performance data, actual values of the skill attributes are computed therefrom, and the actual values, the objective values, and the tolerances are used in a meta formula to determine the performance metrics. When skills are distributed across several locations of a distributed contact center, the arrangement determines the performance metrics for each location, and further determines whether the maximum deviation between the locations of their actual values exceeds the maximum acceptable deviation. Results indicating performance outages are sent to a party that is responsible for the contact center.

Claims

1. A method of monitoring performance of one or more contact centers, comprising:

(a) specifying a skill attribute, an attribute objective, a comparison operator, and a comparison tolerance for one or more skills of each of the contact centers;

(b) automatically obtaining performance data for each of the one or more skills from the one or more contact centers;

(c) automatically determining an actual value of the specified skill attribute from the obtained data for each of the one or more skills of the one or more contact centers;

(d) automatically comparing a difference between the actual value and the specified attribute objective against the specified comparison tolerance using the specified comparison operator, for each of the one or more skills of the one or more contact centers; and

(e) automatically reporting each comparing that does not satisfy its comparison operator.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

specifying a periodicity for repeating the monitoring for each of the contact centers; and

repeating steps (b) through (e) for each of the contact centers with the periodicity specified for each said contact center.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein:

specifying comprises

for each of the contact centers, creating a skill table comprising an entry for each of the one or more skills of the contact center and storing the skill attribute, the attribute objective, the comparison operator, and the comparison tolerance for the skill; and

for each of the contact centers, creating an entry in a master table storing the periodicity for the contact center and pointing to the skill table of the contact center.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

specifying a monitoring interval for one of the contact centers; and

repeating steps (b) through (e) for the one of the contact centers only during the specified monitoring interval.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein:

specifying further comprises

specifying a skill attribute deviation and a plurality of locations of a distributed one of the contact centers;

obtaining comprises

automatically obtaining performance data for each of the one or more skills from each of the plurality of locations of the distributed contact center;

determining comprises

automatically determining an actual value of the specified skill attribute from the obtained data for each of the one or more skills for each of the plurality of locations of the distributed contact center;

comparing comprises

automatically comparing a difference between the actual value and the specified attribute objective against the specified comparison tolerance using the specified comparison operator for each of the one or more skills for each of the plurality of locations of the distributed contact center, and

automatically comparing a difference between a maximum said actual value and a minimum said actual value of the specified skill attribute of the plurality of locations of the distributed contact center against the specified skill attribute deviation; and

reporting further comprises

automatically reporting each comparison where the difference between the maximum actual value and the minimum actual value exceeds the specified skill attribute deviation.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein

specifying comprises

for each of the one or more skills of the distributed contact center, creating a link table comprising an entry for each of the locations of the distributed contact center that has the skill and storing an address for the location;

for each of the contact centers, creating a skill table comprising an entry for each of the one or more skills of said contract center and storing the skill attribute, the attribute objective, the comparison operator, and the comparison tolerance for said skill, and for the distributed contact center further storing the skill attribute deviation and pointing to the corresponding link table for said skill; and

for each of the contact centers, creating an entry in a master table pointing to the skill table of said contact center.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

manually specifying one of the contact centers; and

in response, performing steps (b) through (e) for the one of the contact centers.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein:

reporting further comprises

reporting the actual value that was used in each said comparing that does not satisfy its comparison operator.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein:

specifying comprises

obtaining the skill attribute, the attribute objective, the comparison operator, and the comparison tolerance for the one or more skills of a contact center from a requester;

returning a registration number to the requester; and

storing the registration number in correspondence with the obtained skill attribute, the attribute objective, the comparison operator, and the comparison tolerance for each of the one or more skills of the contact center.

11. An apparatus that performs the method of any one of claims 1-10.

12. A computer-readable medium containing instructions which, when executed in a computer, cause the computer to perform the method of any one of claims 1-10.

10. A method of monitoring performance of one or more contact centers comprising:

(a) obtaining a contact center address, a time period for repeating monitoring, a skill identifier, a skill attribute, an attribute objective, a comparison operator, and a comparison tolerance, for one or more skills of a contact center from a requestor;

(b) further obtaining addresses of a plurality of locations and a skill attribute deviation for the one or more skills of the contact center from the requester, if the contact center is a distributed contact center;

(c) returning a registration number to the requestor;

(d) for each of the one or more skills, creating a link table comprising an entry for each of the locations that has the skill, each entry storing the address of corresponding said location, if the contact center is the distributed contact center;

(e) creating a skill table for the contact center comprising an entry for each of the one or more skills, each entry storing the attribute objective, the comparison operator, and the comparison tolerance for said skill, and further storing the skill attribute deviation and pointing to the link table for the skill if the contact center is the distributed contact center;

(f) creating an entry in a master table, pointing to the skill table of the contact center and storing the registration number, the contact center address, and the period for repeating the monitoring;

(g) repeating steps (h) through (m) upon each passing of the period for repeating the monitoring;

(h) automatically obtaining performance data for each of the one or more skills from the contact center by using the address stored in the master table entry, and from each of the locations by using the addresses stored in the link table entries if the contact center is the distributed contact center;

(i) automatically determining an actual value of the skill attribute specified in each skill'"'"'s skill table entry from the obtained data for each of the skills, and for each of the locations if the contact center is the distributed contact center;

(j) automatically comparing a difference between the actual value of each skill'"'"'s attribute and the attribute objective specified by the skill'"'"'s skill table entry against the comparison tolerance specified by the skill'"'"'s skill table entry using the comparison operator specified by the skill'"'"'s skill table entry for each of the skills, and for each of the locations if the contact center is the distributed contact center;

(k) automatically comparing a difference between a maximum said actual value and a minimum said actual value of the specified skill'"'"'s attribute of the plurality of locations against the specified skill attribute deviation specified by the skill'"'"'s skill table entry, if the contact center is the distributed contact center;

(l) automatically reporting to the requestor each comparing that does not satisfy its comparison operator and the actual value that was used in said each comparing; and

(m) automatically reporting to the requestor each comparison where the difference between the maximum actual value and the minimum actual value exceeds the skill attribute deviation specified by the skill'"'"'s skill table entry and the actual values that were used in said each comparison, if the contact center is the distributed contact center.