Data processing: artificial intelligence – Knowledge processing system – Knowledge representation and reasoning technique
Reexamination Certificate
1999-09-29
2002-12-10
Black, Thomas (Department: 2121)
Data processing: artificial intelligence
Knowledge processing system
Knowledge representation and reasoning technique
C706S045000, C706S046000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06493695
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to methods and systems for processing customer interactions such as may occur in a customer service call center. Specifically, the present invention relates to methods and systems for uniformly processing call center customer interactions across all media types such as e-mail, facsimile, telephone and the like to assign and send the processed customer interactions to one or more call center agents and/or call center agent queues.
2. Description of the Related Art
FIG. 1
is a block diagram of the organization and operation of a call center
100
receiving and originating a variety of customer-related communications. Call centers such as shown at
100
in
FIG. 1
conventionally feature a large group of agents
102
A,
108
A,
110
A,
112
A,
114
A,
116
A and
118
A handling inbound calls
116
(order taking, billing inquiries, technical support requests, for example), outbound calls
108
and callbacks
118
(telesales, for example) or both. Such a call center
100
may also handle inbound or outbound communications over media other than the telephone, such as facsimile (faxed) communications
112
, communications
102
originating from the World Wide Web (hereafter “Web”), email communications
110
and/or customer letters, as shown at
114
. Such customer communications may be assigned to the first available agent that handles such communications. While waiting for such first available agent, the communications may be stored in a queue, which may be thought of as a holding place and an organizational structure to hold communications. Typically, there is one queue for each media type. Indeed, there may be one queue
102
Q for Web-based communications
102
, one queue
112
Q holding faxed communications
112
, one queue
110
Q holding emailed communications
110
, one queue
116
Q for telephone inbound customer communications and other queues
108
Q,
118
Q for outbound, agent-originated communications
108
and callbacks
118
. In the case of a customer letter
114
, the corresponding queue
114
Q may be a simple physical inbox where the customer letters
114
are deposited while waiting for action from an agent
114
A. Communications may be removed from such queues
102
Q,
108
Q,
110
Q,
112
Q,
114
Q,
116
Q and
118
Q by corresponding call center agents
102
A,
108
A,
110
A,
112
A,
114
A,
116
A and
118
A respectively, on a first-in first-out basis or may be prioritized according to a predetermined service level, for example.
Conventionally, a separate system handles (receives, processes, routes, queues and sends out, for example) each different media type. For example, one system handles incoming and outgoing telephone calls
116
,
108
, another system handles emails
110
, another handles Web-based customer communications
102
, while another separate system may handle faxed communications
112
. Such separate have thus far been necessary as the email system, for example, does not “know” how to handle telephone calls and the Web system does not “know” how to handle facsimile communications
112
. Indeed, each system is only equipped to handle a specific media type, as each media type is formatted differently. The consequence of such a fragmented approach to customer-related communications is that separate agents
102
A,
108
A,
110
A,
112
A,
114
A,
116
A and
118
A are needed to handle Web communications
102
, outbound calls
108
, email communications
110
, facsimile communications
112
, customer letter
114
, in bound calls
116
and callbacks
118
, respectively. Each agent
102
A,
108
A,
110
A,
112
A,
114
A,
116
A and
118
A, therefore, plucks the next available communication from queues
102
Q,
108
Q,
110
Q,
112
Q,
114
Q,
116
Q and
118
Q specific to a single media type. For example, the Web customer agent
102
Q only plucks communications from the Web queue
102
Q, the email call center agent
110
A only retrieves communications from the email queue
110
Q and so on. In turn, this entails that the workload of the agents
102
A,
108
A,
110
A,
112
A,
114
A,
116
A and
118
A may vary widely, depending upon the most prevalent media in the queues
102
Q,
108
Q,
110
Q,
112
Q,
114
Q,
116
Q and
118
Q at any given time. For example, the telephone call center agents
108
A,
116
A and
118
A may be overworked (as their respective queues
108
Q,
116
Q and
118
Q are full), while the email call center agents
110
A sit idle, for lack of requests in their email-only queue
110
Q. However, when separate systems administer queues
102
Q,
108
Q,
110
Q,
112
Q,
114
Q,
116
Q and
118
Q and routing (i.e., assigning and sending the communication to selected agent(s) and/or queues) for each different media type, it is not possible to re-route some of the customer communications of one media type to a system handling only communications of another media type. For example, inbound calls
116
normally routed and/or queued by the inbound call system to the inbound call-only agent
116
A and/or the inbound call-only queue
116
Q may not be re-routed and/or queued to the idle email call center agents
110
A and/or queue
110
Q, as the inbound call-only system is not equipped to handle an email communication
110
. Such separate systems, although effective to handle a single well-defined media type, have arguably become an artificial technologically based barrier to human interaction.
In an increasingly multimedia electronic marketplace where orders and support requests, for example, may be placed in a variety of different media, such separate systems increasingly constitute a liability (both in terms of cost and functionality) and hamper the call center's ability to effectively handle a large volume of calls and customer communications in a timely manner. Ultimately, the operating costs of the call center increases and the customers suffer from less than optimal quality of service. There has been a long felt need, therefore, for methods and systems that would allow call centers to have greater flexibility in the manner in which they handle customer communications. What are needed, specifically, are methods and systems that would allow call centers to handle all customer communications in a homogeneous manner, across all media types. Such a system should allow the call center to make optimum use of its existing material and human resources by increasing the flexibility of its queuing and routing systems and by allowing, for example, previously idle email agents
110
A to handle incoming Web-based or facsimile communications
102
,
112
.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of the present invention, therefore, to provide methods, devices and systems that that would allow call centers to have greater flexibility in the manner in which they handle customer communications. It is a further object to provide methods and systems that would allow call centers to handle all customer communications in a homogeneous manner, across all media types, to thereby allow the call center to make optimum use of its existing material and human resources.
In accordance with the above-described objects and those that will be mentioned and will become apparent below, a method for processing a customer interaction of any media type for assignment to at least one selected agent or to at least one selected queue coupled to at least one agent, according to an embodiment of the present invention, comprises steps of receiving the customer interaction, extracting customer data from the received customer interaction and linking the customer data with the customer interaction from which the customer data was extracted. The customer data is stored in a data structure that is generic across all media types of the customer interactions. The customer data in the generic data structure is applied to a rule-based engine, the rule-based engine operating upon the extracted customer data to select the one or more agents and/or one or more queues to which to assign the generic data structure. The generic d
Kodur Narasimhaprasad
Pickering David
Holmes Michael B.
Oracle Corporation
Young Law Firm P.C.
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