Telephonic communications – Centralized switching system – Call distribution to operator
Reexamination Certificate
1997-12-11
2001-02-27
Zele, Krista (Department: 2742)
Telephonic communications
Centralized switching system
Call distribution to operator
C379S265080, C379S088200, C379S088220
Reexamination Certificate
active
06195426
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a communication service that provides customized information to a customer holding in queue.
Customer support “hotlines” has become a necessary feature of customer service. Customers call in with questions or problems associated with a vendor's goods or services (“products”), seeking guidance from representatives of the vendor. Typically, the vendor hires a number of attendants to staff the hotline and field customer questions. When all attendants are occupied with customers, additional customers that call in are placed in a queue to hold until an attendant becomes available. Communications equipment may maintain the queue of holding customers.
The maintenance and support of these hotlines is expensive. Vendors must hire and train attendants to become familiar with the vendor's products and services. The vendor may offer a substantial number of different products. Thus, a vendor makes a substantial investment in the personnel that it hires to staff the hotlines. However, because customers typically call with routine uncomplicated questions, the expense of training attendants and maintenance of the hotline, while necessary to maintain proper customer relations, may not be fully realized.
Attempts to reduce the number of attendants that staff the hotlines causes customer relations problems for a vendor. If the vendor were to reduce the number of attendants, a greater number of customers are placed in queue. Queue wait times increase and customer dissatisfaction grows. Some vendors may attempt to answer the customer's questions by answering the customer's question while the customer holds. Using conventional “broadcast on hold” circuitry, the queue system provides general information to holding customers. Under this measure, the vendor provides general purpose information in an attempt to service the customer's needs without having the customer advance through the queue and reach an attendant. However, when the vendor offers a variety of products these attempts often are stymied. Information that is relevant to all products often is too general to be useful. Information that specifically relates to one of the vendor's products may provide no useful information regarding other products. Neither services the customer's needs. As a result, the customer stays in the queue.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art for a queuing system that provides meaningful information to customers regarding information of interest to them. There is a need in the art for such a queuing system that provides information, such as commonly known frequently asked questions (“FAQs”) to customers based on their identity.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The disadvantages of the prior art are alleviated to a great extent by a communication system that provides information to a customer while in a queue. The information is selected from a universe of information based upon a statistical likelihood that it is relevant to the customer's motivation for entering the queue.
Upon arrival to a queue, the queue identifies the customer. Based on the customer's identity and/or optional customer input, the queue identifies information that is related to the customer's motivation for entering the queue. The queue selects individual messages from the relevant information for presentation to the customer. Certain messages may be prioritized over others based on the queue experience with other customers or based on external events that raise the likelihood that the message is relevant.
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Bolduc Raymond L.
Finberg Robert
Markowitz Robert Edward
Rosen Kenneth H.
Salimando Steven Charles
AT&T Corp.
Tieu Benny Q.
Zele Krista
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