Selective contact between customers and customer service agents

• US 8,873,735 B1
• Filed: 09/14/2012
• Issued: 10/28/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 12/21/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Inventors: Brandwine, Eric Jason, Doane, Andrew J.
• Primary Examiner(s): SMITH, CREIGHTON H
• Application Number:
  US13/620,441
• Time in Patent Office: 774 Days
• Field of Search: 379/265.09, 709/212
• US Class Current: 379/265.09
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2203/408 Customer-specific call routing plans
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/523 with call distribution or queueing
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5238 with waiting time or load prediction arrangements

Abstract

A network-based service may generate notifications regarding items of interest to a user. A contact selection service may receive the notifications and generate a user interface for transmission of the notification to the user. The generated user interface may include a unique identifier and may further enable the user to submit user contact information to request contact with a service agent. The contact selection service may further pre-authorize contacts between users and customer service agents CSA. The unique identifier, and optionally the submitted user contact information, may be employed by the contact selection service to selectively determine which customer contact requests received by the contact selection service are pre-authorized for contact with a CSA and enables such contacts between customers and CSAs to proceed.

Claims

1. Non-transitory computer-readable storage having one or more computer-executable components, the computer-executable components comprising:

a contact selection service component, the contact selection service component operative to;

receive a notification pertaining to a request for communication between a first person and a second person;

provide a user interface to the first person in response to receiving the notification, the user interface comprising a first identifier associated with the first person;

receive a contact request from the first person in response to providing the user interface, the contact request comprising a second identifier associated with the first person; and

authorize communication between the first person and the second person if the first identifier and the second identifier are the same.

2. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the contact selection service component is further configured to provide the user interface to the first person over a computer network.

3. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the contact selection service component is further configured to receive the contact request over a computer network.

4. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the notification is associated with a request provided to a network-based service by the first person.

5. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the notification is associated with a request provided to a network-based service by a third person.

6. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the contact selection service component is further configured to receive the notification from a network-based service.

7. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the contact request includes information regarding the first person that enables contact to be established between the first person and the second person.

8. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the contact selection service component is further configured to generate a user interface that enables the first person to input one or more pieces of information.

9. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein the information comprises at least one of name, address, telephone number, e-mail address, and an internet protocol address of a computing device of the first person.

10. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the contact selection service component is further configured to deny contact between the first person and the second person if the first identifier and the second identifier are different.

11. A computer-implemented method for selectively permitting contact between a first person and a second person, the method comprising:

receiving a notification pertaining to a request for communication between a first person and a second person;

transmitting a user interface to the first person in response to receiving the notification, the user interface comprising a first identifier associated with the first person;

receiving a contact request from the first person in response to providing the user interface, the contact request comprising a second identifier associated with the first person; and

authorizing communication between the first person and the second person if the first identifier and the second identifier are the same.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 11, further comprising denying communication between the first person and the second person if the first identifier and the second identifier are different.

13. The computer-implemented method of claim 11, wherein the user interface is transmitted over a computer network.

14. The computer-implemented method of claim 11, wherein the contact request is received over a computer network.

15. The computer-implemented method of claim 11, wherein the contact request comprises information regarding the first person that enables communication to be established between the first person and the second person.

16. A system comprising:

a data store configured to store one or more unique identifiers;

a computing device in communication with the data store, wherein the computing device is configured to;

receive a notification pertaining to a request for communication between a first person and a second person;

provide a user interface to the first person in response to receiving the notification;

receive a contact request from the first person in response to providing the user interface, the contact request comprising a unique identifier associated with the first person;

compare the received unique identifier with the one or more unique identifiers stored within the data store; and

authorize communication between the first and second person if the received unique identifier matches the one or more unique identifiers stored within the data store.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the computing device is further configured to deny contact between the first person and the second person if the received unique identifier does not match the one or more unique identifiers stored within the data store.

18. The system of claim 16, wherein the contact request comprises information regarding the first person that enables contact to be established between the first person and the second person.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein the information regarding the first person comprises at least one of name, address, telephone number, e-mail address, and an internet protocol address of a computing device of the first person.

20. The system of claim 18, wherein the computing device is further configured to authorize communication between the first person and the second person if the received unique identifier matches the one or more unique identifiers stored within the data store, and the information matches a selected subset of information regarding the first person stored within the data store.