Multiplex communications – Pathfinding or routing – Combined circuit switching and packet switching
Reexamination Certificate
1998-06-16
2002-03-05
Marcelo, Melvin (Department: 2733)
Multiplex communications
Pathfinding or routing
Combined circuit switching and packet switching
C370S401000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06353608
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention relates to computerized telephone call centers and in particular to a computerized gateway that interconnects call center interactive voice response platforms with customer host computing applications.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
A typical call center includes a number of agents who field inbound telephone calls and place outbound telephone calls. The agent may place outbound sales calls or field inbound calls (such as 800 numbers) from callers. A third party typically operates a call center for a customer. The customer may link certain skilled employees into the call center's communications channels as call center agents, in addition to other agents provided by the third party that operates the call center. Customers also frequently make their business record computing systems, or customer host computing systems, available to the call center and its agents as a means of expediting calls.
In a conventional call center, before a call reaches an agent, the call may first be directed into an interactive voice response (IVR) platform having an IVR application. Numerous types of IVR platforms and IVR applications are known in the prior art. The IVR application associated with the IVR platform queries the caller for information pertinent to the call. Information retrieved from the caller may be forwarded to the call center agent as an aid for expediting the caller's request, e.g., that the caller wishes to discuss an upcoming audit with a call center agent having tax auditing skills. Information retrieved from the caller may also be forwarded to the customer host computing system, and the reply received from the customer host computing system may be made available to the call center agent, e.g., the caller provides a taxpayer identification number, and the host computing system uses the taxpayer identification number to retrieve the caller's tax return for a previous year, and the IVR application forwards the tax return to a call center agent along with the call.
In some instances, the information retrieved from the host computing system by the IVR application may satisfactorily meet the customer's needs, and no action by a call center agent will be required, e.g., the customer provides a taxpayer identification number, and the host computing system responds with the date that the taxpayer's refind was mailed along with the refund amount. Thus, the IVR application efficiently responds to many customer requests without the necessity for intervention by an actual call center agent.
The IVR platform and the IVR application may execute a variety of specific applications for calls received in the call center. Third party telecommunications service providers typically offer a variety of network-based call center services to their customers. These services comprise a broad range of features for processing calls in the call center and for routing calls to one or more of the customer's own computing centers. Call centers having an IVR platform typically operate at lower cost than call centers staffed with agents performing tasks that could be performed by an IVR application communicating with a customer host computing system.
In a conventional IVR-configured call center, the IVR platform communicates with a customer host computing system through dedicated circuits or a router-based or a switch-based network that requires the IVR application to have knowledge of both the customer host computing system, including its software, hardware, and operating system, and the customer host computing system's network address. Because the IVR application must know so much information about the customer host computing system, deploying new applications requiring IVR platform-to-host computing system communications has been difficult. In addition to deploying new applications, these same difficulties have also arisen with mere updates to existing IVR platforms and customer host computing systems. Thus, in a conventional IVR-configured call center, connecting the customer host computing system to the IVR platform has been expensive and technically cumbersome.
FIG. 1
illustrates a prior art IVR-configured call center
112
implemented by the applicant for the Missouri Department of Revenue that overcomes some of the above limitations in an extremely limited context. The IVR-configured call center
112
has been designed to interface a specific type of IVR platform to a specific customer host computing system containing a specific application for handling the tax records of Missouri taxpayers. In the IVR-configured call center
112
, an enhanced call router (ECR)
102
having an enhanced routing services (ERS) application
103
intercedes on behalf of call center agents
111
and receives calls from callers
100
via a public switched telephone network (PSTN)
101
. The ECR
102
and the ERS
103
are a well known type of IVR platform and IVR application, respectively, and process calls received from callers in the manner described above.
While processing a call, the ERS
103
may require information stored in the customer's host computing system. In the specific prior art system shown in
FIG. 1
, the customer host computer is an IBM Multiple Virtual Storage (MVS) mainframe computer
109
containing a Missouri Department of Revenue tax application
110
. Accordingly, the ERS
103
constructs a query for ultimate delivery to and processing by the Missouri Department of Revenue tax application
110
.
As discussed above, in conventional IVR-configured call centers, the IVR application had to know how to format a query for the customer host computing system and the customer host application. However, in the IVR-configured call center
112
, a host connect gateway
105
provides an interface between the ECR
102
, a specific type of IVR, and the IBM MVS mainframe computer
109
, a specific type of customer host computing system. The host connect gateway
105
provides an ECR front-end interface
106
that receives queries from the ERS
103
in an ERS-specific format via an Ethernet wide area network (WAN)
104
. The ECR front-end interface
106
then provides each query to a Missouri Department of Revenue back-end interface
107
that formats the query for both the IBM MVS mainframe computer
109
and the Missouri Department of Revenue tax application
110
and sends the query over a token ring connection
108
to the IBM MVS mainframe computer
109
.
The Missouri Department of Revenue tax application
110
processes the query and formats a reply. The IBM MVS mainframe computer
109
sends the reply over the token ring connection
108
to the Missouri Department of Revenue back-end interface
107
. The Missouri Department of Revenue back-end interface
107
provides the reply to the ECR front-end interface
106
. The ECR front-end interface
106
processes the reply into an ERS format. The ECR front-end interface
106
then sends the re-formatted reply to the ECR
102
over the Ethernet WAN
104
.
The IVR-configured call center
112
overcomes the limitations discussed above only for connections between a specific IVR, the ECR
102
, a specific IVR application, the ERS
103
, a specific computing system, the IBM MVS mainframe computer
109
, and a specific application, the Missouri Department of Revenue tax application
110
. The IVR-configured call center
112
has not been designed to interface with computing systems other than the IBM MVS mainframe computer
109
or with applications other than the Missouri Department of Revenue tax application
110
. The IVR-configured call center
112
also does not interface with IVRs other than the ECR
102
or with IVR applications other than the ERS
103
. Moreover, the IVR-configured call center
112
has no facility for modifying either the Missouri Department of Revenue back-end interface
107
or the ECR front-end interface
106
. The host connect gateway
105
has not been designed to connect multiple ECRs
102
with multiple IBM MVS mainframe computers
109
, let alone to connect multipl
Cullers William R.
Underhill Greg L.
Marcelo Melvin
MCI Communications Corporation
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