Method and system for a scalable computer-telephony integration system

• US 9,924,037 B1
• Filed: 06/28/2017
• Issued: 03/20/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 03/25/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company (State Farm)
• Original Assignee: State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company (State Farm)
• Inventors: Kammeyer, Aaron C., Kirchner, Randall J., Ward, Christopher L., Littell, Louis A.
• Primary Examiner(s): Hong, Harry S
• Application Number:
  US15/635,459
• Time in Patent Office: 265 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/285 Clustering or classification
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6218 to a system of files or objects, e.g. local or distributed file system or database
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/84 output devices, e.g. displays or monitors
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/02 Banking, e.g. interest calculation or account maintenance credit or loans G06Q40/03
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/08 Insurance
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2201/40 using speech recognition speech recognition per se G10L15/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2201/42 Graphical user interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2203/256 comprising a service specific user interface
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2203/404 Collaboration among agents
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2203/558 Databases
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2203/60 related to security aspects in telephonic communication systems network architectures or network communication protocols for network security H04L63/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2203/6009 Personal information, e.g. profiles or personal directories being only provided to authorised persons
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2203/6018 Subscriber or terminal logon/logoff
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42068 where the identifier is used to access a profile
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5133 Operator terminal details
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5166 in combination with interactive voice response systems or voice portals, e.g. as front-ends
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5175 Call or contact centers supervision arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5183 Call or contact centers with computer-telephony arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5233 Operator skill based call distribution
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/58 Arrangements for transferring received calls from one subscriber to another; Arrangements affording interim conversations between either the calling or the called party and a third party substation line holding circuits H04M1/80
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/0012 : Details of application programming interfaces [API] for telephone networks; Arrangements which combine a telephonic communication equipment and a computer, i.e. computer telephony integration [CPI] arrangements

Abstract

Methods, systems, apparatus, and non-transitory computer readable media are described for a scalable computer-telephony integration system. Various aspects may include storing sets of call agent login information for several call agents within the computer-telephony integration system and across several independent computing systems in a contact center login database. Additionally, various aspects may include generating several contact center service categories and sets of contact information for each contact center service category, which may be stored in a contact center directory database. When an incoming call is received from a customer, various aspects may include obtaining customer call information from the customer and generating a customer call key, which may be stored as a reference to the customer call information in a contact center customer call information database. The call key may be used to reduce an amount of data electronically transferred between call agents during telephone call transfers.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for enabling a call agent to login to one or more call agent profiles within a computer-telephony integration (CTI) system, the method executed by one or more processors programmed to perform the method, the method comprising:

for each of a plurality of call agents, receiving, via one or more processors in a CTI system, identification information for enabling the respective call agent to login to a call agent profile of a plurality of call agent profiles via a server from a plurality of servers and an associated indication of the server for enabling the respective call agent to login to the call agent profile;

receiving, via the one or more processors, the identification information from a call agent of the plurality of call agents;

determining, via the one or more processors, that the identification information from the call agent corresponds to one of the plurality of call agent profiles;

retrieving, via the one or more processors, the indication of the server associated with the call agent profile; and

establishing, via the one or more processors, a communication link between a contact center device for the call agent and the associated server for enabling the call agent to access the call agent profile to dynamically route call agents to servers corresponding to received identification information for the call agents.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the call agent has a plurality of sets of identification information corresponding to a plurality of call agent profiles, each accessible by a different server of the plurality of servers.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

presenting, via the one or more processors, at least a portion of each set of identification information associated with each of the plurality of call agent profiles for the call agent on a display for use by the call agent; and

presenting, via the one or more processors, one or more user controls for selecting one of the plurality of call agent profiles based upon the associated identification information on the display.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

upon receiving a selection of one of the plurality of call agent profiles based upon the associated identification information from the call agent, retrieving, via the one or more processors, an indication of a server associated with the identification information; and

establishing, via the one or more processors, a communication link between the contact center device for the call agent and the associated server.

5. The method of claim 2, wherein the plurality of call agent profiles includes at least two call agent profiles accessible by servers each associated with a different independent computing system of a plurality of independent computing systems, each independent computing system within the CTI system corresponding to a subdivision within the CTI system, wherein the subdivision includes the plurality of servers for the respective independent computing system communicating over a subnetwork.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the plurality of independent computing systems includes at least two of:

an independent computing system associated with a banking division of the CTI system, an independent computing system associated with an insurance sales division of the CTI system, an independent computing system associated with an insurance claims division of the CTI system, or an independent computing system associated with an insurance underwriting division of the CTI system.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising assigning, via the one or more processors, the call agent profile to one or more security groups based upon at least one of:

(i) a job function related to a role of each of the call agents within the CTI system, or (ii) a contact center location corresponding to the call agent within the CTI system, wherein each security group receives permission to access secure data assets, and the call agent profile receives permission to access the same secure data assets as the corresponding one or more security groups.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving, by the call agent, a customer call from a customer and customer call information for responding to the customer call.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

receiving, via the one or more processors, at least some of the customer call information via natural language processing in an interactive voice response (IVR) module;

determining, via the one or more processors, additional customer call information by comparing the received at least some customer call information to previously stored customer personal information and when there is a match, determining the additional customer call information by obtaining the previously stored customer personal information; and

transferring the customer call, via the one or more processors, from the IVR module to the call agent based upon the call agent profile for the call agent.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein determining additional customer call information comprises:

receiving, via the one or more processors, a phone number for the customer when the customer call is received;

comparing, via the one or more processors, the received phone number to previously stored customer phone numbers; and

when there is a match, obtaining, via the one or more processors, insurance policy information associated with the previously stored customer phone number.

11. A computer-telephony integration (CTI) system for enabling a call agent to login to one or more call agent profiles within the CTI system, the CTI system comprising:

one or more processors;

a communication network; and

a non-transitory computer-readable memory communicatively coupled to the one or more processors and the communication network, and storing thereon instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the CTI system to;

for each of a plurality of call agents, receive, via the communication network, identification information for enabling the respective call agent to login to a call agent profile of a plurality of call agent profiles via a server from a plurality of servers and an associated indication of the server for enabling the respective call agent to login to the call agent profile;

receive, via the communication network, the identification information from a call agent of the plurality of call agents;

determine that the identification information from the call agent corresponds to one of the plurality of call agent profiles;

retrieve the indication of the server associated with the call agent profile; and

establish a communication link between a contact center device for the call agent and the associated server for enabling the call agent to access the call agent profile to dynamically route call agents to servers corresponding to received identification information for the call agents.

12. The CTI system of claim 11, wherein the call agent has a plurality of sets of identification information corresponding to a plurality of call agent profiles, each accessible by a different server of the plurality of servers.

13. The CTI system of claim 12, wherein the instructions further cause the CTI system to:

present at least a portion of each set of identification information associated with each of the plurality of call agent profiles for the call agent on a display for use by the call agent; and

present one or more user controls for selecting one of the plurality of call agent profiles based upon the associated identification information on the display.

14. The CTI system of claim 13, wherein the instructions further cause the CTI system to:

upon receiving a selection of one of the plurality of call agent profiles based upon the associated identification information from the call agent, retrieve an indication of a server associated with the identification information; and

establish a communication link between the contact center device for the call agent and the associated server.

15. The CTI system of claim 12, wherein the plurality of call agent profiles includes at least two call agent profiles accessible by servers each associated with a different independent computing system of a plurality of independent computing systems, each independent computing system within the CTI system corresponding to a subdivision within the CTI system, wherein the subdivision includes the plurality of servers for the respective independent computing system communicating over a subnetwork.

16. The CTI system of claim 15, wherein the plurality of independent computing systems includes at least two of:

an independent computing system associated with a banking division of the CTI system, an independent computing system associated with an insurance sales division of the CTI system, an independent computing system associated with an insurance claims division of the CTI system, or an independent computing system associated with an insurance underwriting division of the CTI system.

17. The CTI system of claim 11, wherein the instructions further cause the CTI system to assign the call agent profile to one or more security groups based upon at least one of:

(i) a job function related to a role of each of the call agent within the CTI system, or (ii) a contact center location corresponding to the call agent within the CTI system, wherein each security group receives permission to access secure data assets, and the call agent profile receives permission to access the same secure data assets as the corresponding one or more security groups.

18. The CTI system of claim 11, further comprising the contact center device for the call agent, wherein a customer call from a customer and customer call information for responding to the customer call are received at the contact center device.

19. The CTI system of claim 18, wherein the instructions further cause the CTI system to:

receive at least some of the customer call information via natural language processing in an interactive voice response (IVR) module;

determine additional customer call information by comparing the received at least some customer call information to previously stored customer personal information and when there is a match, determine the additional customer call information by obtaining the previously stored customer personal information; and

transfer the customer call from the IVR module to the call agent based upon the call agent profile for the call agent.

20. The CTI system of claim 19, wherein to determine additional customer call information, the instructions cause the CTI system to:

receive a phone number for the customer when the customer call is received;

compare the received phone number to previously stored customer phone numbers; and

when there is a match, obtain insurance policy information associated with the previously stored customer phone number.