Telephonic communications – Special services – Repetitive call attempts
Reexamination Certificate
2000-07-11
2004-03-09
Deane, Jr., William J. (Department: 2642)
Telephonic communications
Special services
Repetitive call attempts
C379S265010
Reexamination Certificate
active
06704404
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates to a call-back telecommunication system and a method for using it and in particular to a call-back system which does not requite integration into a telephone switch and a method of using such a system.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Individuals are increasingly mobile and many are becoming harder to reach at their place of employment. Furthermore, businesses are frequently unwilling to employ sufficient staff in business groups such as sales or support to deal with the number of calls at peak periods, only to have the same staff idle at slack periods. However, if it becomes too difficult for callers to reach individuals or business groups, the callers may become discouraged. Such discouraged callers may represent lost sales opportunities or disgruntled customers.
One way of addressing this problem is to record the caller's telephone number and to call back the caller at some later time. Receptionists have being doing this for many years, but more recently automatic equipment for this purpose has been described in a number of patents relating to call centre operations. To put the disclosure of these patents in context call centre operation and the systems described in these patents will now be described. However, it should be emphasised that all businesses need systems for dealing with incoming calls, and call-back functionality might be useful to any business, not just in call centres.
A steadily increasing number of businesses are using call-centres to deal with telephone queries from customers. Many banks, financial institutions and insurance companies use such call-centres, but call-centres are not restricted to such uses and call-centres may also be suitable for dealing with customer sales queries or support queries an any of a large number of businesses.
A typical call-centre has a telephone switch which receives calls from the external telephone networks and an automatic call distribution (ACD) system which carries out a number of functions, such as routing each incoming call, intercepting digital information from the incoming call and monitoring call progress. A number of agents are connected to the switch and generally sit at terminals having a voice telephone, a computer screen and a computer input means such as a keyboard and/or a mouse.
Incoming callers are either connected directly to an agent at a terminal, if an agent is free, or held in a queue commonly arranged inside the ACD until an agent becomes free.
However, callers to a call centre frequently object to being held in a queue and can become irate or hang up if they have to wait too long. Those customers may then call a competitor, or simply not call back. Furthermore, if the callers become irate over the length of time they have to wait this makes it difficult for the agent to expeditiously deal with the incoming caller when the agent finally becomes available.
Ideally, sufficient agents would be used to deal with all incoming calls but in most call-centre operations there are very large peaks and troughs in demand. For example, if the call-centre is dealing with telephone orders for products, an advertisement transmitted on the television or radio can markedly increase the number of callers to the call-centre. Also, callers typically bunch at certain times of day. For example, many call-centres experience peaks in calls between 9.00 am and 11.00 am after customers have arrived at work, and also at around 6.30 pm, when the customers return home. It would be economically unfeasible to employ sufficient agents to deal with these peaks and troughs in demand.
To deal with this problem, which is particularly apparent in call centres, the possibility of automatic call-back has been proposed. One such call-back system is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,002,760 to Gisby. In this system, there is a single queue initiated by customers calling the call-centre. However, the identity of the caller is automatically determined, or inputted by the caller, to allow the caller to hang up while waiting in the queue. Then, when the caller nears or arrives at the front of the queue, an out-dialler dials the original caller back to connect that caller with an agent The call queue thus combines both callers that are still on hold and callers who have had their identity determined so that they can he called back.
Another call-back system is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,155,761 to Hammond. In this system a robot controller is connected to the telephone switch for handling a call-back queue with a time controller and for calling back a caller when an agent becomes free. When the call-back succeeds, the caller is connected to an agent. Another similar system is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,559,878 to Keys et al.
However, prior art systems have a significant disadvantage in that they require dedicated hardware to handle the calls. The hardware described must cause a switch to connect callers to agent and such dedicated hardware will in general only be able to interface with a very limited selection of switches. Indeed, such hardware is likely only to be particularly suitable for installation in new call-centres or as part of a replacement switch for a call centre. They are thus only suitable for a very small part of the possible market for call-back functionality.
Furthermore, since many businesses rely on their switches, exchanges or call-centres for their business, they require absolute reliability and dependability and are reluctant to change the switch or interfere with its operation just to add call-back functionality
An alternative solution to some of the problems identified above is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,282,243 in which calls are diverted to a processor which simply stores the CLI/ANI information, for later access by the called business. However, the absence of automatic call-back is a significant inconvenience.
Accordingly, there is a need for an improved call-back method and/or system that can be more easily integrated with existing equipment, whether in call cenures or elsewhere, and that can deal with a wide variety of equipment.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
According to a first aspect of the invention, there is provided a call-back method. Firstly, a call-back handler receives a call from a caller to a client, and determines a number at which the caller can be called back. In due course, the call-back handler initiates a telephone call to the client. A telephone call from the call-back handler to the original caller is made and the original caller is connected to the client in the call-back handler so that the connection between caller and client is routed through the call-back handler.
The call to the client may be made on a telephone standard line, for example a line that uses conventional public switched telephone network (PSTN) standards. By using these standards to connect the call-back handler to the client it becomes much easier to integrate the call-back handler in a variety of situations. Of course, such standards may change in the future or be different in different regions or markets and any appropriate standard may be used.
In embodiments of the invention the call-back handler will initiate a telephone call to the client by transmitting a dial signal to a switch so that the switch can read the dial signal and connect the call to the client in a known manner, or more accurately expressed the call is connected to telephone apparatus at the client. The switch may be a public exchange or private exchange, for example a private branch exchange (PBX).
The term “client” is used in this specification to refer to the called party, and not to imply any contractual relationship between any of the parties.
A preferred embodiment of the invention provides a call-back handler for handling calls made by a caller to a client. The call-back handler includes a caller identification system for recording the identity of the caller, and a telephone standard out-dialler for dialling out using telephone standard codes. The call-back handler includes code for causing the out-dialler to
Deane, Jr. William J.
Netcall PLC
Townsend and Townsend / and Crew LLP
LandOfFree
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