Queuing and routing telephone calls

• US 8,320,876 B2
• Filed: 10/27/2011
• Issued: 11/27/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 07/26/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Inventors: Shaffer, Shmuel, Patel, Labhesh, Jain, Mukul, Kumar, Sanjeev
• Primary Examiner(s): RAMPURIA, SHARAD K
• Application Number:
  US13/283,273
• Publication Number:
  US 20120039451A1
• Time in Patent Office: 397 Days
• Field of Search: 379/45, 37921101-21105, 3792651-2661, 4554041-4042, 455/457
• US Class Current: 455/404.1
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2242/30 Determination of the location of a subscriber
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42059 Making use of the calling party identifier
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42187 Lines and connections with preferential service
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42348 Location-based services which utilize the location information of a target
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/523 with call distribution or queueing

Abstract

A method and system to process communications in an automatic communication distributor is described. The method may comprise receiving a communication and identifying an originating location from which the communication originates. Thereafter, a determination is made when the originating location corresponds to a predefined high priority geographical area and a priority to the communication is assigned based on the originating location. The call may be assigned a higher priority when the originating location corresponds to the high priority geographical area than when the originating location does not correspond with the high priority geographical area. The communication is queued based on the assigned priority. A method is also provided to assign an agent using an automated call distributor based on a distance between the originating location of the communication and the determined geographical locations of the potential respondents.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

defining a high priority geographical area in response to identifying an event, the defining of the high priority geographical area comprising determining a size of the high priority geographical area based on a preset radius associated with a type of the event;

receiving a communication after the defining of the high priority geographical area;

identifying an originating location of the communication;

determining whether the originating location corresponds to the high priority geographical area;

assigning a priority to the communication based on the originating location, the communication being assigned a higher priority when the originating location corresponds to the high priority geographical area than when the originating location does not correspond to the high priority geographical area; and

queuing the communication in a queue based on the assigned priority.

2. The method of claim 1, the identifying of the event occurring in response to receiving an earlier communication related to the event, the defining of the high priority geographical area comprising determining a location of the high priority geographical area based on an originating location of the earlier communication.

3. The method of claim 1, the identifying of the event occurring in response to receiving an earlier communication, the type of the event being identified in the earlier communication.

4. The method of claim 1, the determining of the size of the high priority geographical area further comprising retrieving the preset radius from a database in which preset radii are associated with respective types of events.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving a subsequent communication comprising additional information related to the event, and modifying at least one of a location of the high priority geographical area and the size of the high priority geographical area based on the additional information.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving a subsequent communication comprising additional information related to the event, and terminating the definition of the high priority geographical area based on the additional information.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a subsequent communication;

identifying an originating location of the subsequent communication;

determining that the originating location of the subsequent communication corresponds to the high priority geographical area; and

conferencing the communication and the subsequent communication together based on a proximity of the originating location of the communication and the originating location of the subsequent communication.

8. The method of claim 7, the conferencing of the communication and the subsequent communication being responsive to receiving an approval for the conferencing from a user corresponding to at least one of the communication and the subsequent communication.

9. The method of claim 1, the queuing of the communication comprising selecting the queue from a plurality of queues associated with different priorities.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

modifying a priority of the high priority geographical area; and

modifying the priority of queued communications associated with the high priority geographical area in response to modifying the priority of the geographical area.

11. The method of claim 1, the communication being one of a telephone call, an email message, an instant message, and a video call.

12. A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium comprising instructions that, when executed by at least one processor of a machine, cause the machine to perform operations comprising:

defining a high priority geographical area in response to identifying an event, the defining of the high priority geographical area comprising determining a size of the high priority geographical area based on a preset radius associated with a type of the event;

receiving a communication after the defining of the high priority geographical area;

identifying an originating location of the communication;

determining whether the originating location corresponds to the high priority geographical area;

assigning a priority to the communication based on the originating location, the communication being assigned a higher priority when the originating location corresponds to the high priority geographical area than when the originating location does not correspond to the high priority geographical area; and

queuing the communication in a queue based on the assigned priority.

13. A system comprising:

a network interface to receive communications;

a queue to store a plurality of the communications for processing;

at least one processor; and

data storage comprising modules executable by the at least one processor, the modules comprising;

a location arrangement to identify originating locations for the communications; and

a prioritizer to determine whether an originating location of a first communication corresponds to a high priority geographical area, and to assign a priority to the first communication based on the originating location, the first communication being assigned a higher priority when the originating location corresponds to the high priority geographical area than when the originating location does not correspond to the high priority geographical area, and to queue the first communication in the queue based on the assigned priority, the high priority geographical area corresponding to an event occurring within the high priority geographical area, a size of the high priority geographical area being based on a preset radius associated with a type of the event.

14. The system of claim 13, a location of the high priority geographical area being based on a location of the event.

15. The system of claim 13, a location of the high priority geographical area being based on an originating location of a prior communication describing the event.

16. The system of claim 15, the type of the event being identified in the prior communication.

17. The system of claim 16, further comprising a database comprising data associating preset radii with types of events, the size of the high priority geographical data being based on the data of the database.

18. The system of claim 13, further comprising an input interface to receive input to modify at least one of a geographical position of the high priority geographical area and the size of the high priority geographical area based on additional information from at least one subsequent communication.

19. The system of claim 13, further comprising an input interface to receive input to terminate the definition of the high priority geographical area based on additional information from at least one subsequent communication.