Methods and apparatus for providing live agent assistance

• US 8,135,126 B2
• Filed: 07/30/2004
• Issued: 03/13/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 08/31/1999
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Rakuten Group, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Verizon Services Corporation (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Inventors: Shafiee, Mohammad Reza, Subramanian, Sankar
• Primary Examiner(s): AL AUBAIDI, RASHA S
• Application Number:
  US10/903,600
• Publication Number:
  US 20050002514A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,783 Days
• Field of Search: 379/265.01, 379/265.02, 379/265.09, 379/265.13, 379/265.11
• US Class Current: 379/265.09
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5191 interacting with the Internet
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/0036 where the data service is an information service
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/0039 where the data service is provided by a stream of packets which are rendered in real time by the receiving terminal network streaming of media packets H04L65/60

Abstract

Establishing a conference between a customer at a customer terminal and a live agent at an agent station, by (a) accepting a call request from the customer terminal, (b) requesting that an available live agent take the call request, (c) when a live agent becomes available to take the call request, passing customer information to the agent station associated with the available live agent, and (d) establishing a conference from the agent station associated with the available live agent to the customer terminal. The conference may be an audio-video conference. The audio-video conference may be compliant with the H.323 standard. The call request may generated in response to an event sensed by an API which was previously downloaded to the customer terminal from a web server. The call request may be generated in response to a trigger event. The trigger event may be a customer request for a live agent, adding an item to a virtual shopping cart, adding items having a total purchase prices of more than a predetermined threshold to a virtual shopping cart, removing an item from a virtual shopping cart, dwelling at a certain web page for more than a predetermined length of time, rendering certain content, rendering a certain sequence of content, filling out a form, or issuing a particular command. The customer information may include an Internet protocol address of the customer terminal, a video capability of the customer terminal, and/or a browser type used by the customer terminal.

Claims

1. A method for establishing a conference between a customer at a customer terminal and a live agent at an agent station, the method comprising steps of:

a) accepting a call request from the customer terminal, wherein the call request includes customer information, wherein the call request is assigned a unique identifier that identifies a call, wherein the unique identifier can be referenced in all subsequent transactions associated with the customer to identify the call, and wherein the customer information includes (1) an Internet protocol address of the customer terminal, (2) a video capability of the customer terminal, and (3) a browser type used by the customer terminal;

b) requesting that an available live agent take the call request;

c) when a live agent becomes available to take the call request, passing the customer information and the unique identifier included in the call request to the agent station associated with the available live agent; and

d) establishing a call from the agent station associated with the available live agent to the customer terminal.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the call includes at least one of audio, video, or text communications.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the call includes at least two of audio, video, or text communications.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the call is an audio-video call.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein the audio-video call is compliant with the H.323 standard.

6. The method of claim 4 further comprising:

providing a video stream to the customer terminal before the call is established between the customer terminal and the live agent at the agent station.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein the video stream provided to the customer terminal before the call is established between the customer terminal and the agent station includes a slide show.

8. In a system having a customer terminal, a web site server, and at least one agent station, a method of establishing a call between the customer terminal and an agent station, the method comprising steps of:

a) accepting a call request from the customer terminal;

b) in response to the accepted call request, transmitting a page load script to the customer terminal, wherein the page load script includes (1) a command to open a web browser window, (2) a command to load web conferencing software, and (3) a command to load video streaming software;

c) accepting a web call request from the customer terminal;

d) queuing the web call request until a live agent at an agent station becomes available;

e) providing a video stream to the customer terminal via the video streaming software before the call is established between the customer terminal and the live agent at an agent station; and

f) when it is determined that a live agent at an agent station becomes available, forwarding a web call request to the agent station.

9. The method of claim 8 wherein the web call request forwarded to the agent station contains information about the customer terminal, and

wherein the agent station can establish a call with the customer terminal based solely on the information about the customer terminal.

10. The method of claim 8 wherein each of the call request and the web call request includes at least one of (a) an Internet protocol address of the customer terminal;

(b) a video capability of the customer terminal; and

(c) a browser type used by the customer terminal.

11. The method of claim 8 wherein the page load script includes at least two of (a) a command to open a web browser window, (b) a command to load web conferencing software, or (c) a command to load video streaming software.

12. The method of claim 8 wherein the video stream provided to the customer terminal via the video streaming software between the customer terminal and the live agent at the agent station includes a slide show.

13. A system for establishing a call between a customer at a customer terminal and a live agent at an agent station, the system comprising:

a) a web request processor for

i) submitting a page load script to the customer terminal in response to a call request from the customer terminal, wherein the page load script includes (a) a command to open a web browser window, (b) a command to load web conferencing software, and (c) a command to load video streaming software, and

ii) requesting an agent in response to a web call request received from the customer terminal; and

b) a multimedia session manager for

i) accepting a request for an agent from the web request processor,

ii) queuing the accepted request until a live agent becomes available, and

iii) providing a video stream to the customer terminal via the video streaming software before the call is established between the customer terminal and the live agent at an agent station.

14. The system of claim 13 wherein the multimedia session manager informs the web request processor when an available live agent accepts the queued call.

15. The system of claim 13 further comprising:

c) a site server for

i) serving web pages to the customer terminal, and

ii) providing a “

call agent”

application program interface to the customer terminal.

16. The system of claim 15 wherein the customer terminal is coupled with the Internet, the system further comprising:

d) a semi-secure LAN including the agent station and the site server;

e) a first firewall arranged between the Internet and the semi-secure LAN;

f) a secure LAN including the web request processor and the multimedia session manager; and

g) a second firewall arranged between the semi-secure LAN and the secure LAN.

17. The system of claim 16 wherein the conference between the agent station and the customer terminal takes place via the semi-secure LAN, the first firewall, and the Internet.

18. The system of claim 16 wherein the call between the agent station and the customer terminal takes place via the Internet.

19. The system of claim 13 wherein the page load script includes at least two of (a) a command to open a web browser window, (b) a command to load web conferencing software, or (c) a command to load video streaming software.