Telephonic communications – Centralized switching system – Call distribution to operator
Reexamination Certificate
2001-01-29
2003-07-01
Matar, Ahmad F. (Department: 2642)
Telephonic communications
Centralized switching system
Call distribution to operator
C379S088040, C379S088050, C379S266090
Reexamination Certificate
active
06587558
ABSTRACT:
INTRODUCTION
This invention relates generally to the call center industry. More particularly, the present invention is a system for using human interaction to mimic and enhance an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) technology without requiring the customer to select from menu driven options and without using a Voice Response Unit to gather customer input.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
In the modern business world, telephone communications have become a tool of strategic importance. The telephone essentially allows modern business to operate. Each day, countless businesses utilize the telephone system to conduct a broad range of business transactions.
In order to increase the utility of telephones, a vast array of answering machines, voice mail, automated forwarding services, and the like have been developed. Each of these devices or services is intended to increase the usefulness of the telephone in a specific way.
Some companies rely heavily on the use of human operators as the main sales tool in their business. In these companies a caller is immediately referred to an agent who is trained to handle a sales inquiry. The operators typically describe to the customers the products or services offered, answer or respond to any questions the customer may have, and take orders from the customers. This method, however, necessarily requires that each operator working for the company be trained and knowledgeable regarding all aspects of the products or services offered in order to answer any potential question a customer may have. This training must be thorough enough to instill in the customer confidence that the operator is a credible source of information regarding the products or services offered.
If a customer cannot receive satisfactory answers to his or her questions from a knowledgeable, credible source, the sales of the company will suffer. Unfortunately, training each and every operator thoroughly enough to instill such knowledge and confidence is a difficult and expensive undertaking. It often takes a very long time in order to develop such knowledge and credibility. The turnover rate of operators can be quite high, thus significantly increasing the difficulty of providing a knowledgeable and trained staff of operators. Indeed, many contact centers experience 100% staff turnover each year. Currently, only a few methods exist to overcome this obstacle.
Some companies, in an effort to overcome this obstacle have resorted to multiple layers of operators. For example, if an initial operator lacks the experience or knowledge to answer a customer's question, the customer may be transferred to a supervisor who has a higher level of knowledge or skill in answering the question. While this method has the advantage of reducing the need to train every operator in all aspects of the products or services offered, it also has several drawbacks. Sometimes, customers do not wish to take the time to speak with a supervisor. They may instead elect to terminate the encounter. This results in lost sales to the company. Additionally, some customers may lose confidence in the ability of the company to provide adequate and accurate information when their questions cannot be immediately answered. Again this may result in lost sales. Finally, this method can suffer if an unusually large number of questions must be referred to a supervisor in a very short period of time. Such a situation can overwhelm the supervisor's ability to deal with the questions in a timely fashion. Again, customers may choose to terminate the discussion rather than wait for further answers to their questions.
Catalogue sales companies are not the only businesses to suffer these problems. Companies often have a help or support line where customers can call with questions or problems they are experiencing. These customer support lines provide a valuable service to the customer and often enhance the ability of the company to compete in the market place. Unfortunately, staffing such help lines can be very expensive. As with catalogue sales companies, the operators staffing the support lines must be thoroughly trained in all aspects of the product. If they receive questions that cannot be answered, problems similar to those described above may occur. Customers may become frustrated and lose confidence in the ability of the company to support their own product. As a result reputation and business can suffer.
In the effort to reduce costs and to provide additional services or information to their customers, many companies employ VRU's, where the caller moves through a series of tree menus by pressing buttons on the phone keypad. Using this method, the caller is in theory able to route their call to the most appropriate person or order various products or services, or obtain the information they need in an electronic format. Because VRU's are able to direct the user to the appropriately skilled person or to an electronic response that is pre-recorded by a person with the appropriate level of skill and experience, VRU's reduce the need for operators with this level of skill and experience.
There are problems with VRU solutions, however. A tree menu system might, for example, require a user to traverse many menu levels before getting the appropriate response. This wastes a user's time and results in frustration by the user.
Another difficulty with traditional VRU's is that frequently menus do not allow the user to obtain the information desired. In some cases, the caller has a request that has not been anticipated by the designers of the menu system and therefore the answer to the request cannot be found. In other cases, the VRU might be mis-programmed, sending the caller into an endless loop with no escape available. In other cases, the caller might not understand the terminology used by the VRU or which option to choose for her inquiry. For example, the user might not understand that she should press “1” for billing inquiries when she really wants to change her billing address.
The requirement to have a DTMF keypad poses another problem for VRU's. Sometimes users have only a rotary dial phone, preventing them from pressing keys. Other callers are unable to understand instructions on how to use the keypad.
Yet another difficulty of VRU's is that they frequently do not allow manual intervention by a live agent at a point where a user may desire such intervention. Thus the system does not generally allow a user to ask questions to a live agent until the user has exhausted all other options. This may take an extended amount of time and result in user frustration and lost business.
Indeed the amount of time spent searching through the VRU for the desired information is really one of the major costs of the VRU. Customers in some instances have become accustomed to spending minutes hunting through menus to get the information that they desire. If their time spent hunting through menus were truly valued at a market rate, the overall cost of a VRU system would be huge.
Another type of slightly enhanced IVR functionality is currently available in the marketplace. In some directory assistance applications, U.S. based operators listen to the city and state and name of the party that is being requested. The operator can then respond in one of two ways. The operator can activate an announcement to communicate the number to the listener, assuming that the name and location are understood, or the operator can engage the listener in a voice interaction to get further information about the name or the location of the party that is being requested.
While this form of interaction generally works, the cost of operators in the United States can be significant due to the high cost of labor in the U.S.
In order to reduce the use of high cost U.S. operators, a VRU enhanced with speech recognition can sometimes be used. Some companies also use this enhanced functionality to help users traverse a traditional VRU menu without using a DTMF keypad. In these applications, instead of “pressing 1”, the caller is able to “sa
AL-Aubaidi Rasha
Immequire, LLC
Matar Ahmad F.
Roberts Abokhair & Mardula LLC
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