Telephonic communications – Centralized switching system – Call distribution to operator
Reexamination Certificate
1998-06-03
2001-05-15
Matar, Ahmad (Department: 2742)
Telephonic communications
Centralized switching system
Call distribution to operator
C379S207030, C379S242000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06233332
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to call processing systems and, in particular, to a rules-based call center routing process that utilizes the identity of the calling party, the call context and media capabilities of the calling party to route the call to a destination that is appropriate to the call in terms of media communications capabilities and type of desired service.
PROBLEM
It is a problem in communication systems to extend the basic call management paradigm of voice-based communications to provide the services and capabilities required of “anymedia” communications, wherein the term “anymedia” as used herein refers to the ability of the calling party to use any one or a combination of a number of different media to initiate the call. In particular, in a voice call, as parties are added to the call, a voice path is set up so that the newly added parties can communicate with all of the parties presently on the voice call. If a party drops from the voice call, the voice path between that person and all of the remaining parties to the voice call is dropped. The voice call is spontaneous and does not require the prearranged set up of communication facilities. The voice call model is therefore a one-dimensional model with the voice calls being characterized by their physical call connections. The controlling call processing system simply manages the physical call connections and no information is remembered either about the voice call once the voice call is completed or about a party to the voice call if the party hangs up during the progress of the voice call. The departing party is erased from memory once they depart and, upon call completion, the call connection data is also erased.
In the simplest form, an anymedia call should be an extension of the voice call of today, comprising any combination of audio, video, desktop data, or image services that are transmitted among the parties to the call. If the separate media types are bundled in a single call, the communication facilities for each media type can be handled in a consistent and expected way. For example, if a person drops a call involving audio and video, both types of media facilities are dropped automatically and simultaneously. If other people are conferenced onto the call, they receive all of the presently active types of media for which they are enabled. An anymedia call would ideally be as easy to use as voice calling is today, since it would behave in expected ways, and not require the people involved in the call to perform extra or complex work to establish the anymedia connection. However, this is not the case in existing call management systems. The provision of other than simple voice communications requires that the users expend a significant amount of effort to communicate via a selected set of media types. In addition, the media are not integrated and the communication connections that are established to serve an anymedia call are typically immutable for the call duration, with the ability to release a particular media facility during the call connection being an impossible task.
A further problem with anymedia communications in customer service scenarios, such as a call center, is that many existing information access systems are architected for voice-only access and in a manner to minimize the cost of providing the offered services pursuantto some predefined level of responsiveness to customers' requests. For example, a call center comprises an automated call management system where customers can access information regarding products and services that are offered by the call center operator. The call center is generally staffed by a number of agents who answer queries from the customers, provide information, and take customer orders. In order to increase the efficiency of operation of the call centers, these systems are architected to force a customer's incoming call down a predefined path through an immutable response hierarchy. While this reduces the cost of providing the agents and yet provides a modicum of service to the customers, these call center systems are limited in their ability to truly serve each particular customer's needs. In particular, the incoming call is queued as a function of the type of media, thereby requiring the implementation of multiple disjunct queues, each having different call management parameters and customer wait times. Furthermore, the call connection to a particular agent represents a localized transaction that cannot easily be forwarded to another agent during the processing of the call connection while retaining the call context. For example, the order entry agent cannot easily forward any information regarding the customer if the call is transferred to another agent and the customer must again provide the information requested by the original agent. This process is frustrating to both the agent and the customer. In addition, the call center operator may have extensive information regarding the customer, their existing orders, past orders, preferences, account balance, and the like, but this information is distributed over numerous databases within the organization and cannot easily be used to enhance the level of services provided in the processing of the customer's incoming call.
In summary, existing communications systems are lacking in their simplicity of use and ability to integrate the numerous disjunct information systems that are in use in commerce. As an example, call centers represent a typical instance where anymedia communications, integrated with an information system, would be beneficial to both the customers who access the call center and the call center operator, yet such integrated communications are unavailable for use in this application.
SOLUTION
The above described problems are solved and a technical advance achieved by the present system for context based media independent communications processing that functions to provide business useful services to customers with the media resources and customer-specific data, that is stored in a call “context,” that are required to satisfy the customer's request. In particular, the capabilities of this media independent communications processing system are illustrated in the call center example used above. The present media independent communications processing system functions to carry call information across the entirety of a transaction with the call being managed as an anymedia multi-transactional event surrounded by a “context” of customer-specific data.
The architecture used to implement the present media independent communications processing system in the call center application can be modeled with a hallways and rooms paradigm that enables the customer to dynamically navigate their anymedia communications connection to a desired information providing source hence fulfilling their request. The incoming call is processed through a universal work queue for agents, which enables the call center system administrator to adjust the media mix of the incoming call connections for each agent or group of agents while also monitoring call center statistics across all media types. Also, the agents who staff the call center are not dedicated to processing only a single type of media call, but can receive incoming calls of varying media types, as their terminal equipment permits. As the present media independent communications processing system routes the customer's call during the duration of the communication session, the call context information is stored and used by the rules-based call routing process to route the call to a source of information/services that is best adapted to serve the needs of this customer during this and future communication sessions. The present communication session is viewed as one segment of a potentially long-term interaction between customer and service provides with the present media independent communications processing system providing both the customer and serving agent with access to relevant customer and service provider data vi
Anderson Gregory Lane
Donnelly Robert W.
Landers Mark
Mathews Eugene
Sanders Lucinda M.
Avaya Technology Corp.
Duft, Graziano & Forest, P.C.
Matar Ahmad
Tieu Benny Q.
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