Skills based routing in a standards based contact center using a presence server and expertise specific watchers
First Claim
1. A presence management system for a contact center comprising:
- a presence server that accepts, manages, and distributes presence information using Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) based messages and in conformance with an open standard;
a data store communicatively linked to the presence server, wherein the data store contains and stores the presence information, said stored presence information including presence information for each of a plurality of contact center agents, at least one of the contact center agents being an independent contractor, wherein for each agent the stored presence information includes an element indicating at least one expertise of the associated agent;
a plurality of watchers each configured to subscribe to the presence information managed by the presence server, wherein each of the watchers corresponds to a unique expertise and wherein each watcher is associated with the presence information for all of the contact center agents of the plurality of contact center agents having the unique expertise to which that watcher corresponds; and
a plurality of watcher specific filters, each associated with one of the watchers, said watcher specific filters including configurable parameters for determining which of the associated live agents is to handle a communication requiring the expertise category to which that watcher corresponds, wherein load balancing among the associated live agents is performed by an appropriate one of the watcher specific filters, and wherein the load balancing causes the corresponding watcher to select the at least one independent contractor when a queue wait time for a queue exceeds a preselected threshold.
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Accused Products
Abstract
The present invention discloses a presence management system for a contact center including a presence server, a data store, and one or more watchers. The presence server can accept, manage, and distribute presence information using Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) based messages in conformance with an open standard, such as an Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) based standard. The data store can be communicatively linked to the presence server and can be configured to store the presence information. The stored presence information can include presence information for multiple contact center agents, wherein for each agent the stored presence information includes an element for expertise of the associated agent. The watchers can subscribe to the presence information managed by the presence server. Each of the watchers can correspond to a unique expertise. The watcher associated with an expertise can watch presence information for all of the contact center agents having that expertise.
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Citations
18 Claims
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1. A presence management system for a contact center comprising:
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a presence server that accepts, manages, and distributes presence information using Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) based messages and in conformance with an open standard; a data store communicatively linked to the presence server, wherein the data store contains and stores the presence information, said stored presence information including presence information for each of a plurality of contact center agents, at least one of the contact center agents being an independent contractor, wherein for each agent the stored presence information includes an element indicating at least one expertise of the associated agent; a plurality of watchers each configured to subscribe to the presence information managed by the presence server, wherein each of the watchers corresponds to a unique expertise and wherein each watcher is associated with the presence information for all of the contact center agents of the plurality of contact center agents having the unique expertise to which that watcher corresponds; and a plurality of watcher specific filters, each associated with one of the watchers, said watcher specific filters including configurable parameters for determining which of the associated live agents is to handle a communication requiring the expertise category to which that watcher corresponds, wherein load balancing among the associated live agents is performed by an appropriate one of the watcher specific filters, and wherein the load balancing causes the corresponding watcher to select the at least one independent contractor when a queue wait time for a queue exceeds a preselected threshold. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
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7. A contact center comprising:
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a plurality of contact center components conforming to open standards that intercommunicate 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, and providing skills based routing for assigning live agents to callers based upon an expertise possessed by the live agents and an expertise needed by the callers, wherein a plurality of defined expertise categories are defined for the skills based routing, and where at least one of the live agents is an independent contractor; a presence server that accepts, manages, and distributes presence information of each of the live agents using Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) based messages and in conformance with an open standard, wherein the presence information for each of the live agents includes an indication of at least one expertise category for the associated live agent; a plurality of watchers configured to subscribe to the presence information managed by the presence server, wherein a one-to-one correspondence exists between the watchers and expertise category, and wherein the watchers and presence server are used in providing the skills based routing; a plurality of watcher specific filters, each associated with one of the watchers, said watcher specific filters including configurable parameters for determining which of the associated live agents is to handle a communication requiring the expertise category to which that watcher corresponds, wherein load balancing among the associated live agents is performed by an appropriate one of the watcher specific filters, and wherein the load balancing causes the corresponding watcher to select the at least one independent contractor when a queue wait time for a queue exceeds a preselected threshold. - View Dependent Claims (8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13)
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14. A method for performing skills based routing for a contact center comprising:
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a call center interacting with a caller using an automated response mechanism; determining that the caller is to be transferred to a live agent; ascertaining an expertise needed based upon information acquired during the interacting step; determining one of a plurality of watchers that corresponds to the expertise based on presence information for each of the plurality of watchers, each of the plurality of watches having an associated watcher specific filter, wherein each of the watchers uniquely corresponds to a particular expertise, wherein each watcher subscribes to the presence information, and wherein the presence information is managed by a presence server that accepts, manages, and distributes presence information related to each of the live agents using Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) based messages and in conformance with an open standard, at least one of the live agents being an independent contractor, and wherein the presence information for each live agent includes an indication of at least one expertise for the associated live agent, wherein the presence information is maintained in a data store communicatively linked to the presence server; the watcher identifying an agent of the live agents to handle the caller based on the presence information via interaction with the presence server using the SIP based messages, wherein the identifying is performed by the watcher specific filter associated with the watcher load balancing among the live agents and selecting the independent contractor when a queue wait time exceeds a preselected threshold; and transferring the caller to the identified agent. - View Dependent Claims (15, 16, 17, 18)
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Specification