Callback imitation as incoming calls

Details Callback imitation as incoming calls Callback imitation as incoming calls

1999-09-20

2004-08-03

Deane, Jr., William J. (Department: 2742)

Telephonic communications

Special services

Repetitive call attempts

C379S210010, C379S265020

Reexamination Certificate

active

06771760

ABSTRACT:

FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates generally to business call centers, and specifically to handling of customer callback requests in such call centers.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
For many businesses, call centers play increasingly important roles in providing superior customer service in a cost-effective manner. Call centers enable businesses to offer their customers products, services and customer support 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Sophisticated switching equipment and software for call centers enable customer calls to be routed efficiently to agents in the call center who have the appropriate skills to handle the customers' specific requirements. The software keeps records of calls in order to track customer needs and preferences, manage the agents' states and activities, and maintain statistics on agents' performance. The software also balances the load of incoming calls from customers among the available agents, using data provided by the switching equipment, in order to maximize the efficiency of use of call center resources and minimize customer waiting time.
Call centers frequently offer callback service, in order to enhance their availability to customers and avoid situations in which incoming calls from customers are kept on hold for extended periods while waiting for an agent to become available. A customer can request a callback immediately, in which case an agent from the call center returns the customer's call immediately upon becoming available, or at a later time that the customer indicates is convenient. The actual callback is, of course, an outgoing call and is handled differently from incoming calls by the switching equipment and call center software. Agents engaged in making callbacks, therefore, are removed from the pool of available agents for purposes of load balancing. Outgoing calls, which are typically dialed out by the agents, are not subject to same the sort of call tracking and acquisition of statistics as are incoming calls.
Increasingly, business Web sites offer telephony links to their call centers. For this purpose, for example, Lucent Technologies offers an Internet Call Center, which is described in a White Paper (Lucent Technologies, Dec. 15, 1997), which is incorporated herein by reference. The Internet Call Center is built around an Internet Telephony Gateway (ITG) and a Java Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) server, integrated with a “Definity” Enterprise Communications Server (ECS), which serves as the call center switching equipment. A Web site using the Internet Call Center can offer the customer the options of placing a voice call to the call center over the Internet, using a Java applet that the ITG downloads to the customer's computer, or of requesting a callback from the center to a telephone number that the customer specifies. The customer typically invokes these options by selecting appropriate on-screen controls on certain pages of the Web site.
When the customer requests a callback in this manner, an electronic mail (e-mail) message to the call center is generated. The ITG reads the message and initiates a “phantom call” through the ECS, i.e., an internal virtual message call, which does not use a connection to the public switched telephone network (PSTN) to which the ECS is coupled. The phantom call from the ITG is queued and routed by the ECS according to a Vector Directory Number (VDN) specified by the Web page from which the customer requested the callback, along with other information indicative of the customer's service needs. The VDN and other information are used by the ECS to route the callback request automatically to an agent in a group having the appropriate skills to handle the particular customer request.
When an agent in the group becomes available, the email “call” is delivered to the agent's voice terminal (i.e., the agent's telephone extension), and the CTI server notifies the ITG that the call has been answered. The ITG sends a copy of the actual e-mail message to be viewed on the monitor screen of the agent's personal computer (PC) terminal. Communications between the ITG, CTI and agent terminals are generally carried out using the Java Telephony Application Program Interface (JTAPI), as described, for example, in the JTAPI Programmer's Reference and the JTAPI Client Programmer's Guide (Lucent Technologies, October, 1997), which are incorporated herein by reference. The agent may, if necessary, forward the message to other agents for consultation or handling. When the agent is ready to speak with the customer, he or she places an outgoing call from the voice terminal, through the ECS, via the PSTN to a telephone number (or to one of a list of telephone numbers) that the customer has specified and which appears in the e-mail message.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of some aspects of the present invention to provide improved callback capabilities for call centers.
It is a further object of some aspects of the present invention to provide methods and apparatus enabling improved tracking of callbacks from a call center.
It is still a further object of some aspects of the present invention to provide methods and apparatus enabling improved load balancing among incoming and outgoing calls in a call center.
It is yet a further object of some aspects of the present invention to provide common and consistent methods to manage the states and activities of agents in the call center using a single point of control, through which all types of service requests are directed.
In preferred embodiments of the present invention, a call center is configured so that callbacks are handled as incoming, rather than outgoing, calls. The call center comprises telephone switching equipment, referred to hereinafter simply as a switch, and one or more telephony servers coupled to the switch, including a callback server for handling callback requests from customers. When a callback request is received, the callback server queues the callback request, preferably in a queue maintained as a database, for either immediate or deferred processing. At the appropriate time, the server places an incoming phantom call to a suitable agent, and the phantom call is then conferenced with an outgoing call to the requesting customer, typically using conferencing capability already built into the call center. As a result of initiating the phantom call to the agent, the switch recognizes and handles the callback as an incoming call. Callbacks are thus subject to the same statistical record generation and load balancing functions performed by the switch with respect to normal incoming calls.
In some preferred embodiments of the present invention, a customer requesting a callback is asked to specify a time or times at which the callback should be made. Preferably, the call center schedules the callbacks so as to ensure that the call load on agents (including normal incoming calls, as well) does not exceed the expected availability of agents at any particular time of day and, further preferably, so that agents do not encounter “dead times” during the day. For this purpose, the call center tracks the expected load against expected agent availability and blocks out certain times of day during which the customer may or may not request that the callback be made. Additional factors, such as customer service level agreements, are preferably also taken into account. The available times for callback are preferably displayed for customer selection on a customer service Web page associated with the call center. Alternatively or additionally, the customer may request the callback by telephone, fax or e-mail message without going through the Web page. In any case, the callback server receives the customer request and causes the switch to handle the callback as an incoming call, as described hereinabove.
Preferably, the call center enables agents to handle multiple calls concurrently or sequentially, without altering the incoming call status of callbacks. Most preferably, the i

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