Method and apparatus for a business contact center

• US 7,606,909 B1
• Filed: 02/20/2002
• Issued: 10/20/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 02/20/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Alvaria Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Aspect Software Incorporated
• Inventors: Sipsey, Timothy P., Opiela, Robert, Adams, Calvin D., Ely, Michael
• Primary Examiner(s): Donaghue; Larry D
• Assistant Examiner(s): Pollack; Melvin H
• Application Number:
  US10/081,560
• Time in Patent Office: 2,799 Days
• Field of Search: 709/203, 709/204, 709/218, 709223-229, 709/235, 709/249, 718/104, 718/105, 705/5, 379/93.09, 379/93.12, 379/114.07, 455/452.2, 455/453
• US Class Current: 709/227
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/02 Reservations, e.g. for tickets, services or events
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1053 IP private branch exchange [PBX] functionality entities or arrangements circuit switched PBXs H04M3/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/4015 where at least one of the additional parallel sessions is real time or time sensitive, e.g. white board sharing, collaboration or spawning of a subconference
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/65 Network streaming protocols, e.g. real-time transport protocol [RTP] or real-time control protocol [RTCP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/51 Centralised call answering arrangements requiring operator intervention , e.g. call or contact centers for telemarketing

Abstract

A business contact center for interfacing customers with a business is described. The business contact center includes a plurality of media handlers and a conference controller. Each of the plurality of media handlers includes a corresponding control link. Each of the plurality of media handlers is configurable via the corresponding control link to define a plurality of media services including at least one of; routing media between selected media endpoints, recording media from a selectable media source, and playing selectable media to a selected media endpoint. The conference controller is coupled with each of the plurality of media handlers via the corresponding control link. The conference controller is responsive to a customer contact to configure via the corresponding control link an available one of the plurality of media handlers to define selected ones of the media services, media sources and media endpoints for handling the customer contact.

Claims

1. A business contact center for interfacing customers with a business, and the business contact center comprising:

a plurality of media handlers each media handler including a respective dedicated control interface and each of the plurality of media handlers configurable via the control interface to define a plurality of media services to service a customer contact received at the business contact center including at least one of routing media between selected media endpoints, recording media from a selectable media source, and playing selectable media to a selected media endpoint;

a conference controller coupled with each of the plurality of media handlers via the corresponding control interface, and the conference controller responsive to a customer contact to configure via the corresponding control interface an available one of the plurality of media handlers to define selected ones of the media services, media sources and media endpoints for handling the customer contact and to maintain a customer session under ongoing control of the conference controller through exchange of session control packets to present multiple media services to the customer, the controller including a bandwidth manager which estimates a bandwidth requirement of the customer contact in response to the customer contact and selects an available one of the media handlers based upon a lowest media handler bandwidth load.

2. The business contact center of claim 1, wherein the bandwidth manager manages media handler selection for each customer contact by comparing the bandwidth requirement to current bandwidth availability on each media handler, and by lowering the bandwidth requirement were possible by disabling one or more channels associated with the contact to enable selection if sufficient bandwidth is not available.

3. The business contact center of claim 1, wherein the conference controller further comprises:

an event handler for determining a next media event for a customer contact based on a correlation between pre-defined call contact states and status and actual call status.

4. The business contact center of claim 1, further comprising:

a plurality of agent communication devices each having a control interface coupled to a control interface of the conference controller wherein each of the plurality of agent communication devices is configurable via the corresponding control interface to couple with a selected one of the plurality of media handlers.

5. The business contact center of claim 4, wherein the conference controller further comprises:

an agent manager coupled to each of the plurality of agent communication devices via the corresponding control interface, and the agent manager responsive to a request for customer contact with an available agent to select an available one of the plurality of agent communication devices for coupling with the corresponding one of the plurality of media handlers handling the corresponding customer contact.

6. The business contact center of claim 4, wherein each of the plurality of agent communication devices further comprises:

an agent interface for accepting input from an agent of requests and for passing the requests to the conference controller via the control interface to manage a customer contact session.

7. The business contact center of claim 4, wherein the plurality of media handlers each further comprise:

a call sequence interacting with selected ones of the plurality of media services defined by each media handler to maintain consecutive sequence numbers in the real time protocol (RTP) packets output from the media handler from various media sources during a customer contact session.

8. A method for interfacing customers with a business, and the method comprising:

selecting at a conference controller an available one of a plurality of media handlers for handling a call with the calling one of the customers including estimating a bandwidth requirement for the call and basing the selecting on at least the bandwidth requirement,

passing call parameters for handling the call with the calling one of the customers from the conference controller to the available one of the media handlers, and

configuring the available one of the plurality of media handlers for selected ones of a plurality of media services, media sources and media endpoints for handling the customer contact, responsive to the passing of the call parameters in the passing act.

9. The method for interfacing customers of claim 8, further comprising in response to the configuring act, at least one of the following acts performed on the available one of the plurality of media handlers of:

routing media between selected media endpoints;

recording media from a selectable media source, and

playing selectable media to a selected media endpoint.

10. The method for interfacing customers of claim 8, wherein the call setup parameters passed in the passing act include at least outbound media ports and a media service type and wherein the conference controller multiplexes between new and existing calls to actively manage each.

11. The method for interfacing customers of claim 8, wherein the selecting act further comprises the act of:

managing media handler selection for successive calling ones of the customers to effect a balancing of relative loads among the plurality of media handlers by comparing the bandwidth requirement to current bandwidth availability on each media handler.

12. The method for interfacing customers of claim 8, wherein the passing act further comprises the act of:

determining a next media event for the calling one of the customers based on a correlation between pre-defined call contact states and status and actual call status for the calling one of the customers; and

with the configuring act responsive to each determination in the determining act to reconfigure the available one of the plurality of media handlers.

13. The method for interfacing customers of claim 8, further comprising the act of:

managing the available one of the plurality of media handlers to define additional selected ones of a plurality of media services, media sources and media endpoints for handling the customer contact from an agent communication device configured as a media endpoint in the configuring act.

14. The method for interfacing customers of claim 8, further comprising the act of maintaining consecutive sequence numbers in the real time protocol (RTP) packets output from the available one of the plurality of media handlers from successive selected ones of the media sources configured in the configuring act during a customer contact session with the calling one of the customers by incrementing the sequence number of a first RTP packet for each new media source by an offset equal to a last sequence number of an immediately preceding media source of the successive selected media sources plus one.

15. Computer software, tangibly embodied in a computer-readable medium for interfacing customers with a business, and the software comprising instructions to perform the following operations:

selecting at a conference controller an available one of a plurality of media handlers for handling a call with the calling one of the customers including estimating a bandwidth requirement for the call and using the bandwidth requirement in the selecting;

passing call parameters for handling the call with the calling one of the customers from the conference controller to the available one of the media handlers; and

configuring the available one of the plurality of media handlers for selected ones of a plurality of media services, media sources and media endpoints for handling the customer contact to maintain a customer session presenting multiple media services to the customer under ongoing control of the conference controller, responsive to the passing of the call parameters in the passing act.

16. The software of claim 15, in which the instructions for configuring the available one of the media handlers further comprise instructions for performing at least one of:

routing media between selected media endpoints;

recording media from a selectable media source, and

playing selectable media to a selected media endpoint.

17. The software of claim 15, in which the instructions for selecting further comprise instructions for:

managing media handler selection for successive calling ones of the customers to effect a balancing of relative loads among the plurality of media handlers by comparing the bandwidth requirement to a current bandwidth availability of each media handler.

18. The software of claim 15, in which the instructions for passing further comprise instructions for:

determining a next media event for the calling one of the customers based on a correlation between pre-defined call contact states and status and actual call status for the calling one of the customers, and

with the configuring act responsive to each determination in the determining act to reconfigure the available one of the plurality of media handlers.

19. The software of claim 15, in which the instructions further comprise instructions for:

managing the available one of the plurality of media handlers to define additional selected ones of a plurality of media services, media sources and media endpoints for handling the customer contact from an agent communication device configured as a media endpoint in the configuring act.

20. The software of claim 15, in which the instructions further comprise instructions for:

maintaining consecutive sequence numbers in the real time protocol (RTP) packets output from the available one of the plurality of media handlers from successive selected ones of the media sources configured in the configuring act during a customer contact session with the calling one of the customers by incrementing the sequence number of a first RTP packet for each new media source by an offset equal to a last sequence number of an immediately preceding media source of the successive selected media source plus one.