System and method for calculating and displaying estimated wait times for transaction request based on the skill required to process the transaction request

• US 8,209,210 B2
• Filed: 02/06/2008
• Issued: 06/26/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 03/30/2001
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Nishikawa, Akira, Yokote, Masato, Moriya, Tsutomu
• Primary Examiner(s): Jarrett, Scott L
• Application Number:
  US12/026,803
• Publication Number:
  US 20080300956A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,602 Days
• Field of Search: 705/7.14
• US Class Current: 705/7.14
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06311 Scheduling, planning or task assignment for a person or group
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/063112 Skill-based matching of a person or a group to a task
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06314 Calendaring for a resource
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06315 Needs-based resource requirements planning or analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/1097 Task assignment
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/10 specially adapted for electronic funds transfer [EFT] systems; specially adapted for home banking systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/00 Finance; Insurance; Tax strategies; Processing of corporate or income taxes

Abstract

A reception management system for handling transactions includes a plurality of ACMs (Automated Contract/Consulting Terminals) for receiving procedure requests for predetermined transactions from customers, a plurality of ROTs (Remote Operation Terminals) to be employed by an operator for handling the procedure requests, a server for storing information for managing the operators for each transaction skill, and information about queues formed for each transaction skill upon a procedure request accepted from an ACM, and a queue monitoring terminal for monitoring the queues by receiving information from the SACD server.

Claims

1. A customer terminal for communicating with an operator terminal to process a transaction between a customer at the customer terminal and an operator at the operator terminal, the customer terminal comprising:

a request accepting unit for accepting a reception request for a transaction of a given type from a customer;

an outputting unit for outputting the reception request and information about said transaction to a server;

a receiving unit for receiving, from said server, an estimated waiting time for a reception requested by the reception request and for receiving waiting conditions from the server at fixed intervals, the estimated waiting time being determined from a reception status of at least one operator having a predetermined transaction skill to handle transactions of the given type; and

a video conference system device for interacting with said at least one operator at the operator terminal and to enable video conferencing between the customer at the customer terminal and the operator at the operator terminal;

a display unit for displaying said estimated waiting time received by said receiving unit; and

wherein

the customer terminal manages three states, including;

i) a waiting state, wherein the customer terminal waits for assignment to one of a group of operator terminals,

ii) an assignment state, wherein the customer terminal has been assigned to one of the operator terminals, and

iii) a service state, wherein the requested transaction is handled by the operating terminal to which the requested transaction is assigned;

when the customer terminal outputs the reception request, the estimated waiting time for the transaction requested by the customer terminal, and the number of persons waiting for other transactions of the given type of transaction requested by the customer terminal are displayed on the customer terminal; and

the customer terminal includes;

an operator terminal assignment interruption function of interrupting the assignment state of the customer terminal; and

a direct connection request receiving function of making a request for a direct connection from the one of the operator terminals;

the server, in response to the reception request from the customer terminal, checks to determine whether there is any record of an operator having the predetermined transaction skill needed to handle the transaction of the given type requested at the customer terminal;

the customer has a customer ID, and the customer is assigned to a selected one of the operators on the basis of the customer'"'"'s ID, and the reception status of the at least one operator having the predetermined transaction skill, and wherein once the customer is assigned to the selected operator, the state of the customer terminal changes to the assignment state or the service state;

upon receiving the reception request, the server calculates the estimated waiting time on the basis of the number of operators that have logged on the server, and a skill level and an expertness for each of the operators at handling transactions of the given type requested at the customer terminal;

the customer is put in a line to wait for one of the operators, and the state of the customer terminal is changed to the waiting state;

the receiving unit receives a priority for said transaction based on given criteria including the reception status of the operator terminal of the at least one operator having the predetermined transaction skill to handle transactions of the given type requested at the customer terminal; and

when the customer terminal is connected to one of the operators in charge of another transaction due to an error of the customer, said priority is changed, thereby accepting the transaction with a higher priority, so there is no need for the customer to line up again, to shorten the waiting time of the customer.

2. The terminal according to claim 1, further comprising a customer identification unit for identifying the customer making the reception request,

wherein said estimated waiting time is determined further based on information about the customer identified by said customer identification unit.

3. The customer terminal according to claim 1, wherein:

after said estimated waiting time and the number of waiting persons are displayed, the reception request is suspended until selected information is received from the server;

thereafter, a check is made to determine if the customer terminal is connected to one of the operator terminals; and

if the customer terminal is connected to one of the operator terminals, the reception request is ended.