Implementing a contact center using open standards and non-proprietary components
First Claim
1. A system for an open contact center comprising:
- one or more processors;
one or more computer memories storing a plurality of contact center components each comprising a set of program instructions, wherein said contact center components conform to open standard, wherein said contact center components when executed by the one or more processors intercommunicate with each other utilizing open standards, said components together forming an open contact center, said open contact center providing automated interactive communications with callers, providing queue management for callers waiting to communicate with live agents, providing skills based routing for assigning live agents to callers based upon skills of the live agents and skills needed by the callers, and providing tooling for provisioning and monitoring the live agents, wherein each of the contact center components are service oriented architecture (SOA) components, wherein the contact center components intercommunicate via an enterprise service bus (ESB), and wherein each of the contact center components execute independent of other ones of the contact center components within a middleware solution having Internet Protocol (IP) Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) capabilities.
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Abstract
The present invention discloses an open contact center formed from multiple contact center components that conform to open standards and that intercommunicate utilizing open standards. The open contact center can provide automated interactive communications with callers, can provide queue management for callers waiting to communicate with live agents, can provide skills based routing for assigning live agents to callers based upon skills of the live agents and skills needed by the callers, and can provide tooling for provisioning and monitoring the live agents. In one configuration, the contact center components can execute within a middleware solution, such as WEBSPHERE, that has IP Multimedia Subsystem capability. Additionally, the contact center components can be implemented as service oriented architecture (SOA) components that communicate over an enterprise service bus (ESB).
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Citations
20 Claims
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1. A system for an open contact center comprising:
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one or more processors; one or more computer memories storing a plurality of contact center components each comprising a set of program instructions, wherein said contact center components conform to open standard, wherein said contact center components when executed by the one or more processors intercommunicate with each other utilizing open standards, said components together forming an open contact center, said open contact center providing automated interactive communications with callers, providing queue management for callers waiting to communicate with live agents, providing skills based routing for assigning live agents to callers based upon skills of the live agents and skills needed by the callers, and providing tooling for provisioning and monitoring the live agents, wherein each of the contact center components are service oriented architecture (SOA) components, wherein the contact center components intercommunicate via an enterprise service bus (ESB), and wherein each of the contact center components execute independent of other ones of the contact center components within a middleware solution having Internet Protocol (IP) Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) capabilities. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
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10. A system for an open contact center comprising:
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an agent desktop comprising an Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) browser and a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) phone each based upon open standards, wherein the agent desktop is configured to permit an agent to handle call center communications; a portal server, comprising hardware and software stored in a memory executing upon the hardware, configured to provide an agent portal, through which an agent utilizing the agent desktop communicates, said agent portal including a plurality of agent portlets within which contact center information is presented; an application server, comprising hardware and software stored in a memory executing upon the hardware, executing contact center applications configured to receive input for the contact center applications from the agent portlets and to present contact center output through the agent portlets; and a presence server, comprising hardware and software stored in a memory executing upon the hardware, configured to determine agent availability and configured to provide the application server with agent specific information including IP addresses for an agent'"'"'s Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) browser and Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) phone as well as agent expertise information, wherein the portal server, the application server and the presence server conform to open standards. - View Dependent Claims (11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16)
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17. A call center system comprising:
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at least one contact node comprising at least one of an Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) browser and a Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) telephone; least one agent node comprising an Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) browser and a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) phone; a middleware solution including a plurality of contact center components conforming to open standards that intercommunicate utilizing open standards, said contact center components together forming an open contact center, said open contact center providing automated interactive communications with callers, providing queue management for callers waiting to communicate with live agents, providing skills based routing for assigning live agents to callers based upon skills of the live agents and skills needed by the callers, and providing tooling for provisioning and monitoring the live agents, wherein said callers communicate with the contact center components via one of the contact nodes and said live agents communicate with the contact center components via one of the agent nodes, and wherein each contact node and each agent node communicate with the middleware solution over a network using standard communication protocols. - View Dependent Claims (18, 19, 20)
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Specification