Telephonic communications – Centralized switching system – Call distribution to operator
Reexamination Certificate
1998-10-30
2001-07-03
Smith, Creighton (Department: 2742)
Telephonic communications
Centralized switching system
Call distribution to operator
C379S207030, C379S233000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06256381
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention relates generally to the field of transferring telephone calls, in particular, to associating data records with a transferred telephone call.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
A call center is a facility for receiving and/or placing large volumes of telephone calls. The calls are received and placed by call servers, such as a combination of human agents with communication devices or automatic response units. Such call centers typically include an automatic call distributor or a private branch exchange for assigning each incoming call to a call server. A call server typically includes a telephone component and a workstation component to assist a human call agent. During the process of serving an original incoming telephone call, the call server may retrieve or originate an electronic data record related to the incoming call. The electronic data record is originated or retrieved and stored via a computer system which does not share the same communication path as the original incoming call.
In the course of servicing telephone calls, a first call server of a first call center may transfer an original incoming call to a second call server of a distant, separate second call center in which the call servers of the second call center may possess a specialty which may assist in serving the original incoming call. To increase service efficiency, the second call server should be able to quickly and automatically access the same data record originated or retrieved by the first call server for the original incoming call.
For automatic access, the second call server must automatically receive identification of the data record. The prior art which provides such identification uses either the identification of the calling party generally referred to as Caller ID to identify the specific call instance, or systems which send the data record identification in the telephone call itself using User to User Information (UUI), or systems which depend on some global identifier maintained by the telephone switching system. However, these prior art methods and systems can provide data record identification only on a limited basis because the methods and systems are not universally available and are not dependable.
The Caller ID approach is not universally available because many telephone systems do not have Caller ID, many systems use outbound only trunks which do not have a telephone number, many generating telephone systems do not provide for the inclusion of Caller ID, Caller ID is not uniformly passed between calling systems such as from long distance carriers to a local telephone network, many times Caller ID is only passed when the Signaling System #7 (SS7) method is used to deliver telephone calls within the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), and many times Caller ID is only passed when special circuits like Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) are used. The Caller ID approach is also not dependable because many times the Caller ID is not unique to the caller and thus to a data record for the caller, but is rather a pilot number for an entire organization, a billing number, or is generated arbitrarily by the originating telephone system.
The UUI can only be communicated if ISDN circuits are used at both the source and destination. A great many networks are not ISDN and not all ISDN networks provide UUI. Also, UUI requires SS7 which is not universally available. Finally, in most cases the call center interfaces which are between the telephone network and the electronic based application used by the call server do not pass UUI in either direction.
Global identifiers are not maintained by many telephone systems and are not normally passed between telephone switches. If the switches do pass the global identifiers, they must be homogeneous having the same architecture or else they will not maintain the global identifiers. Also, in call center interfaces which do provide global identifiers, the software used only works with particular switches and networks.
Thus, the prior art systems and methods for providing data record identification to allow for automatic access of an associated electronic data record by a call server handling a call transferred from another call center are too often either not available or not sufficiently reliable. Based on the disadvantages of the prior art, a system and method are needed which would be nearly universally available and would reliably provide electronic data record identification to allow for automatic access of data records associated with transferred telephone calls.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention resides in a data record and telephone call handling system for use with a telephone network and a data network. The system includes a first call connector configured to receive and route telephone calls originating with call origination devices. A first telephone call receiver associated with the first call connector receives telephone calls from the first call connector originated by the call origination devices. The system also includes data records which are associated with one of the originating telephone calls originated by one of the call origination devices.
In the illustrated embodiments, an assignment processor assigns a transfer routing telephone number to each of the data records to produce a first assignment. A second call connector associated with the assigned telephone number receives and routes telephone calls from the first call connector. A call processor is associated with the first call connector and uses the assigned telephone number to initiate a processor telephone call via the telephone network to the second call connector while the originating call origination device remains connected via the originating telephone call to the first call connector. The call processor also includes the originating call origination device in the processor telephone call.
The system further includes a second telephone call receiver associated with the second call connector which receives telephone calls from the second call connector including the processor telephone call. An access processor associated with the second call connector uses the assigned transfer routing telephone number and the first assignment to access the data record associated with the originating telephone call.
In further embodiments, the access processor accesses the data record associated with the originating telephone call using the data network having a communication path separate from a communication path of the processor telephone call. The first and second call connectors are private branch exchanges or automated call distributors. The assigned telephone number is a direct inward dialing (DID) number.
Another embodiment includes a selector configured to select DID numbers from a set of DID numbers. The set of DID numbers is those DID numbers that are available from a pool of reusable DID numbers, wherein an available DID number becomes unavailable upon being selected by the selector and linked to the data record associated with the originating telephone call and remains unavailable until the processor accesses the data record associated with the originating telephone call.
Other features and advantages of the invention will become apparent from the following detailed description, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.
REFERENCES:
patent: 4580012 (1986-04-01), Matthews
patent: 4805209 (1989-02-01), Baker, Jr. et al.
patent: 5452349 (1995-09-01), Uehara
patent: 5469504 (1995-11-01), Blaha
patent: 5696809 (1997-12-01), Voit
patent: 5854837 (1998-12-01), Trader et al.
patent: 5923745 (1999-07-01), Hurd
patent: 0610625 A3 (1994-08-01), None
patent: WO98/37676 (1998-08-01), None
Avaya Technology Corp.
Smith Creighton
Volejnicek David
LandOfFree
System and method for identifying a data record associated... does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with System and method for identifying a data record associated..., we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and System and method for identifying a data record associated... will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2549929