Virtual customer sales and service center and method

• US 6,070,142 A
• Filed: 04/17/1998
• Issued: 05/30/2000
• Est. Priority Date: 04/17/1998
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Accenture Global Services Limited (Accenture PLC)
• Original Assignee: Andersen Consulting (Accenture PLC)
• Inventors: Bunting, Bryan, McDonough, Charles
• Primary Examiner(s): MacDonald, Allen R.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Patel, Jagdish
• Application Number:
  US09/062,151
• Time in Patent Office: 774 Days
• Field of Search: 705/8, 705/9, 705/10, 705/11, 705/7, 379/34, 379/220, 379/225
• US Class Current: 705/7.14
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/063112 Skill-based matching of a person or a group to a task
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06314 Calendaring for a resource
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06315 Needs-based resource requirements planning or analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0639 Performance analysis of employees; Performance analysis of enterprise or organisation operations
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06395 Quality analysis or management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/1097 Task assignment
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0641 Shopping interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/51 Centralised call answering arrangements requiring operator intervention , e.g. call or contact centers for telemarketing

Abstract

A virtual customer sales and service center is disclosed that connects a customer to a customer access resource through any access method at any time from any customer location. The virtual customer sales and service center includes customer access resources which can both meet customer needs and also acquire and retrieve customer information during a contact, a computer telephony system for gathering interaction data associated with the contact, a rule based routing system for identifying a resource best suited to handle the call and a switch for routing the contact to the identified employee. A customer information database and an employee profile database are included, wherein the best suited resource is identified as having a skill corresponding to the type of customer ascertained from the customer information database and to the retrieved customer information. A context manager and a plurality of service providers are provided. The context manager coordinates access to an appropriate service provider and provides the service provider the context to complete the transaction and interfaces to the rule based routing system. A quality center is included for integrating and aiding in management of a plurality of physical resource locations as a single virtual resource center.

Claims

1. A virtual customer sales and service center, comprising:

customer access resources with which customers can directly interact;

a computer telephony system for gathering interaction data associated with the customer contact;

a rule based routing system, operatively coupled to the customer access resources and the computer telephony system, for identifying a customer access resource best suited to handle the contact;

a switch, operatively coupled to the rule based routing system, for routing a voice call to the identified resource; and

comprising a quality center for integrating and aiding in management of a plurality of physical resource locations as a single virtual resource center;

wherein the quality center manages virtual customer sales and service center operations to define an escalation process for handling the customer contact during the customer contact.

2. The virtual customer sales and service center of claim 1 wherein the resource is one of a plurality of resources and wherein the plurality of resources have different physical locations.

3. The virtual customer sales and service center of claim 1 further comprising a customer information database and a resource profile database, wherein a best suited resource is identified as having a skill corresponding to the type of customer ascertained from the customer information database.

4. The virtual customer sales and service center of claim 3 wherein the best suited resource is one of a plurality of resources and wherein the plurality of resources have different physical locations.

5. The virtual customer sales and service center of claim 3 wherein the type of customer comprises a business segment correlation and a business or consumer indication.

6. The virtual customer sales and service center of claim 1 further comprising context managers and service providers, the context managers manage overall customer contact, coordinate access to an appropriate service provider, provides the service providers the context to complete the transaction and interface to the rule based routing system.

7. The virtual customer sales and service center of claim 6 wherein the context manager receives customer initiated responses from a plurality of resources and provides interfaces between the rule based routing system and the plurality of resources.

8. The virtual customer sales and service center of claim 7 wherein the customer access resources comprise kiosks, Internet sources, on-line sources, and home personal computers.

9. The virtual customer sales and service center of claim 6 wherein the context managers query the service provider to identify cross-sell opportunities, and direct the execution of cross-sell activities through an appropriate customer access resource, including facilitating the routing of cross-sell activities to the appropriate customer access resource identified as a cross-sell resource based on skill requirements determined by the first resource.

10. The virtual customer sales and service center of claim 6 wherein customer contacts are transferred form a first resource to a second resource.

11. The virtual customer sales and service center of claim 10 wherein the transfers between the first resource and the second resource is unlimited in number.

12. The virtual customer sales and service center of claim 1 wherein the quality center manages virtual customer sales and service center operations to provide proactive support and feedback on sales and service performance issues after the end of the customer contact.

13. The virtual customer sales and service center of claim 12 wherein the functions managed by the quality center further comprise scheduling and forecasting, performance measurement and feedback, contact monitoring and routing, analysis of the virtual customer sales and service center, help desk, quality and continuous improvement, maintenance and broadcast messaging.

14. The virtual customer sales and service center of claim 1 wherein the rule based routing system makes routing decisions based upon customer information profiles, employee skills profiles, customer input, availability of employees, customer access resources, computer telephony system resources, service provider resources, switch resources, and overflow management.

15. The virtual customer sales and service center of claim 1 wherein the computer telephony processing server manipulates call treatment based on the retrieved customer information.

16. The virtual customer sales and service center of claim 1 wherein the rule based routing system further comprises a resource profile database comprising a statistics server for directly determining which resource is currently available for the contact.

17. The virtual customer sales and service center of claim 16 wherein the rule based routing engine checks the routing rules for overflow processing when the statistics server indicates that a resource having an optimal profile is not expected to be available within a desired timeframe.

18. The virtual customer sales and service center of claim 1 wherein the rule based routing system provides data associated with the identified customer profile of the contact to the identified resource.

19. The virtual customer sales and service center of claim 1 wherein the computer telephony processing system comprises intelligent answering functions.

20. The virtual customer sales and service center of claim 1 wherein the intelligent answering functions comprise Automatic Number Identification (ANI) information from the telephone system for providing a billing directory number associated with a call and Dialed Number Identification Services (DNIS) for multiple 800 numbers for identifying what the caller wishes to discuss.

21. A virtual customer sales and service center, comprising:

customer access resources with which customers can directly interact;

a computer telephony system for gathering interaction data associated with the customer contact;

a rule based routing system, operatively coupled to the customer access resources and the computer telephony system, for identifying a customer access resource best suited to handle the contact;

a switch, operatively coupled to the rule based routing system, for routing a voice call to the identified resource; and

context managers and service providers,

wherein the context managers manage overall customer contact, coordinate access to an appropriate service provider, provides the service providers the context to complete the transaction and interface to the rule based routing system; and

the context manager solely provides an interface between the business process service provider and customer access resource.

22. A virtual customer sales and service center, comprising:

customer access resources with which customers can directly interact;

a computer telephony system for gathering interaction data associated with the customer contact;

a rule based routing system, operatively coupled to the customer access resources and the computer telephony system, for identifying a customer access resource best suited to handle the contact;

a switch, operatively coupled to the rule based routing system, for routing a voice call to the identified resource; and

context managers and service providers,

wherein the context managers manage overall customer contact, coordinate access to an appropriate service provider, provides the service providers the context to complete the transaction and interface to the rule based routing system; and

the context manager tracks session information of the user experience across customer access resources by creating and terminating context manager objects as sessions start and end.

23. A virtual customer sales and service center, comprising:

customer access resources with which customers can directly interact;

a computer telephony system for gathering interaction data associated with the customer contact;

a rule based routing system, operatively coupled to the customer access resources and the computer telephony system, for identifying a customer access resource best suited to handle the contact;

a switch, operatively coupled to the rule based routing system, for routing a voice call to the identified resource; and

context managers and service providers,

wherein the context managers manage overall customer contact, coordinate access to an appropriate service provider, provides the service providers the context to complete the transaction and interface to the rule based routing system; and

a plurality of context managers are grouped into modules and multiple modules are employed to deliver infinite scalability while still delivering seamless connection of any customer to any resource.

24. A virtual customer sales and service center, comprising:

customer access resources with which customers can directly interact;

a computer telephony system for gathering interaction data associated with the customer contact;

a rule based routing system, operatively coupled to the customer access resources and the computer telephony system, for identifying a customer access resource best suited to handle the contact;

a switch, operatively coupled to the rule based routing system, for routing a voice call to the identified resource; and

a service provider for maintaining business logic for determining and fulfilling a customer'"'"'s needs.

25. The virtual customer sales and service center of claim 24 wherein the business logic comprises customer access resource independent applets.

26. A method of forming a virtual customer sales and service center, comprising the steps of:

providing customers with access to customer access resources which can both meet customer needs and also acquire and retrieve customer information during a contact;

identifying a resource best suited to handle the contact using a rule based routing system for processing the retrieved customer information and the gathered interaction data; and

routing the call to the identified resource; and

integrating and aiding in management of a plurality of physical resource locations as a single virtual resource center to define an escalation process for handling the customer contact during the customer contact;

wherein the steps of integrating and aiding in management of a plurality of physical resource locations comprises the step of managing scheduling and forecasting of employees, performance measurement and feedback, contact monitoring and routing, analysis of the virtual customer sales and service center, help desk, quality and continuous improvement, maintenance and broadcast messaging.

27. The method of claim 26 wherein the method of identifying a resource comprises the step of identifying one of a plurality of resources having different physical locations.

28. The method of claim 26 wherein the step of identifying the best suited resource further comprises the step of determining a resource having a skill corresponding to the type of customer ascertained from the retrieved customer information.

29. The method of claim 27 wherein the type of customer comprises a business segment correlation and a business or consumer indication.

30. The method of claim 26 further comprising the steps of managing overall customer contact, coordinating access to an appropriate service provider, providing the appropriate service provider a context to complete the transaction and interfacing to the rule based routing system.

31. The method of claim 30 further comprising the steps of receiving customer initiated responses from a plurality of customer access resources and providing interfaces between the rule based routing system and the plurality of resources.

32. The method of claim 31 wherein the customer access resources comprise kiosks, Internet sources, on-line sources, and home personal computers.

33. The method of claim 26 wherein the step of providing customers with access to customer access resource further comprises the step of interacting with the customer and with the context manager and service provider, wherein the context manager and service provider determine the existence of cross-sell opportunities and the manner for executing cross-sell activities, and facilitate the routing of cross-sell activities to an identified resource.

34. A method of forming a virtual customer sales and service center, comprising the steps of:

providing customers with access to customer access resources which can both meet customer needs and also acquire and retrieve customer information during a contact;

identifying a resource best suited to handle the contact using a rule based routing system for processing the retrieved customer information and the gathered interaction data; and

routing the call to the identified resource; and

identifying a resource further comprises the step of directly determining which resources are currently available for the contact;

wherein the step of identifying an resource further comprises the step of processing customer information profiles, resource skills profiles, customer contact information, availability of resources, and overflow management parameters.

35. A method of forming a virtual customer sales and service center, comprising the steps of:

providing customers with access to customer access resources which can both meet customer needs and also acquire and retrieve customer information including customer interaction data during a contact;

identifying a resource best suited to handle the contact using a rule based routing system for processing the retrieved customer information and the customer interaction data; and

routing the call to the identified resource;

wherein the step of identifying a resource further comprises the steps of directly determining which resources are currently available for the contact and checking routing rules for overflow processing when a resource having an optimal profile is not expected to be available within a desirable time frame.

36. A method of forming a virtual customer sales and service center, comprising the steps of:

providing customers with access to customer access resources which can both meet customer needs and also acquire and retrieve customer information including customer interaction data during a contact;

identifying a resource best suited to handle the contact using a rule based routing system for processing the retrieved customer information and the customer interaction data;

routing the call to the identified resource; and

providing data associated with the retrieved customer information during the contact to the identified resource.

37. A method of forming a virtual customer sales and service center, comprising the steps of:

providing customers with access to customer access resources which can both meet customer needs and also acquire and retrieve customer information including customer interaction data during a contact;

identifying a resource best suited to handle the contact using a rule based routing system for processing the retrieved customer information and the customer interaction data;

routing the call to the identified resource; and

tracking session information across customer access resources by creating and terminating context manager objects as sessions start and end.