Routing contact center interactions

• US 8,761,377 B2
• Filed: 02/01/2011
• Issued: 06/24/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 02/01/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Inventors: Famous, Tod
• Primary Examiner(s): GAY, SONIA L
• Application Number:
  US13/018,903
• Publication Number:
  US 20120195422A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,239 Days
• Field of Search: 37926501-2661
• US Class Current: 379/265.09
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/51 Centralised call answering arrangements requiring operator intervention , e.g. call or contact centers for telemarketing
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5191 interacting with the Internet
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5232 Call distribution algorithms

Abstract

In one implementation, customer service is managed by a contact center. The contact center includes a contact center server and an agent device. The contact center receives a customer service interaction, which may be a phone call, a text, an email, a chat, or a website communication. The contact center server accesses external social media to identify a social media post by a customer. The social media posts contain clues as to the subject matter of the customer service interaction. The social media post may be filtered by the customer names, product identities, and/or the nature of the post. In this way, information derived from the social media post is used to select an appropriate customer service agent to handle the customer interaction.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving, at an interface, a first customer service interaction, the first customer service interaction including data from a phone call, text, email, chat, or website post;

determining, with a processor operatively coupled to the interface, service request information from the first customer service interaction;

determining, with the processor, an identity of a customer from the service request information;

accessing, via the interface, social media based on the identity;

determining, with the processor, social media information from the social media; and

calculating, with the processor, routing information for a second customer service interaction based on the service request information and the social media information, wherein the routing information is calculated according to vector based matching using at least two vectors, wherein a first vector of the at least two vectors includes two or more factors pertaining to the social media information, and wherein a second vector of the at least two vectors includes two or more factors pertaining to the service request information.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the two or more factors pertaining to social media information pertain to at least two of timing information derived from the social media information, location information derived from the social media information, state of mind information derived from the social media information, or product information derived from the social media information.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the routing information for the second customer service interaction includes identification of a customer service agent.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

filtering, with the processor, the social media information by at least one aspect of the service request information.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the vector based matching includes using a third vector including two or more agent scores associated with the two or more factors pertaining to the social media information or the two or more factors pertaining to the service request information.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising determining with the processor whether the two or more agent scores are normalized values pertaining to a qualifications rank of an agent relative to other agents for the second customer service interaction, or whether an agent is qualified or not qualified for the second customer service interaction.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining the routing information with the processor in accordance with ranked base matching of a plurality of customer service interactions with a plurality of customer service agents.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising the processor adjusting respective weighting of the two or more factors pertaining to the social media information, the two or more factors pertaining to the customer service request information, or a combination thereof in correspondence to signals received via a user interface.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising the processor automatically adjusting respective weighting of the two or more factors pertaining to the social media information, the two or more factors pertaining to the service request information, or a combination thereof according to feedback resulting from routing of the second customer service interaction.

5. An apparatus comprising:

a memory storing a customer database of customer identities; and

a controller configured to access a social media posting based on a customer identity retrieved from the customer database, and

configured to calculate routing information for selecting a customer service agent from among a plurality of customer services agents based on the social media posting and inputted customer information, wherein the routing information is calculated according to a tag cloud based matching algorithm including at least two tag clouds, wherein a first tag cloud of the at least two tag clouds includes one or more factors pertaining to the social media posting, and wherein a second tag cloud of the at least two tag clouds includes one or more factors pertaining to agents of the plurality of customer services agents.

6. The apparatus of claim 5, wherein the controller is further configured to filter the social media posting according to the inputted customer information.

13. The apparatus of claim 5, wherein the second tag cloud includes agent scores associated with factors pertaining to the social media posting.

14. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the scores are normalized values pertaining to a qualifications rank of an agent relative to other agents for assisting a corresponding customer or whether an agent is qualified or not qualified for assisting a corresponding customer.

15. The apparatus of claim 5, wherein the routing information is calculated in accordance with ranked base matching of a plurality of customer service interactions with a plurality of customer service agents.

16. The apparatus of claim 5, wherein weighting of the one or more factors pertaining to the social media posting is manually adjustable by signals received via a user interface or adjustable by a processor according to feedback resulting from use of the routing information.

7. A non-transitory computer readable medium encoded with software comprising computer executable instructions and when the software is executed operable to:

receive a first customer service interaction including an identity and user inputted information;

access a customer database with the identity to determine a username for an online service;

download a posting from the online service associated with the username;

filter information of the posting based on the user inputted information, wherein the filtering is according to at least two vectors, wherein a first vector of the at least two vectors includes two or more factors pertaining to the posting, and wherein a second vector of the at least two vectors includes two or more factors pertaining to the user inputted information; and

assign a customer service agent to a second customer service interaction based on the filtered information of the posting.

17. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 7, wherein the first vector includes timing information derived from the posting and the second vector includes timing information derived from the user inputted information.

18. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 7, wherein the first vector includes location information derived from the posting and the second vector includes location information derived from the user inputted information.

19. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 7, wherein the first vector includes product information derived from the posting and the second vector includes product information derived from the user inputted information.

20. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 7, wherein the first vector includes state of mind information derived from the posting and the second vector includes state of mind information derived from the user inputted information.