| Class / Patent application number | Description | Number of patent applications / Date published |
|---|
| 379265140 | Based on time (e.g., longest waiting agent) | 9 |
| 20100080378 | Accommodating telecommunications call-center - A call center is described in which a caller to a call center is given a choice of which specific call-center agent the caller prefers to speak with. To assist the caller in making an informed decision, the call center provides the caller with: an indicium of two or more call-center agents, an indicium of an estimate of the amount of time before the caller can communicate with each of the call-center agents, an indicium of a satisfaction rating of each call-center agent, and other factors. The caller can then convey his or her preference to the call center, which will attempt to honor the preference by connecting the caller with the preferred call-center agent. This increases the likelihood that the caller will be connected with a call-center agent who is well-suited to dealing with the caller, which is beneficial to both the caller and the call center. | 04-01-2010 |
| 20100111288 | TIME TO ANSWER SELECTOR AND ADVISOR FOR CALL ROUTING CENTER - Systems and methods are disclosed for routing callers to agents in a contact center, along with an intelligent routing system. An exemplary interface for use with a contact center includes a graphical user element for adjusting a time limit for a caller to be held before routed to an agent according to a pattern matching algorithm where the caller is compared to a set of agents via the pattern matching algorithm and routed to the best matching agent of the set of agents if available prior to the time limit and routed to the best matching agent of available agents if the time limit is exceeded. The interface may further display an estimated effect of the time limit on at least one outcome variable, which may include revenue generation, cost, customer satisfaction, first call resolution, cancellation, or other variable outputs from the pattern matching algorithm(s) of the system. | 05-06-2010 |
| 20110038476 | System and Methods for Scheduling and Optimizing Inbound Call Flow to a Call Center - A method for providing inbound call reservations to a communication center has steps for monitoring service access points into the communication center by reservation software executing from a machine-readable medium, evaluating communicators and potential communicators, and issuing invitations for reserved communication sessions to qualified communicators and potential communicators, the reserved times coordinated according to data pertaining to predicted communication load and resource availability statistics. | 02-17-2011 |
| 20110235798 | Method for Predicting Call Waiting Times - A method is provided for the production produce accurate waiting time estimates based on at least one of (i) a queue arrival rate and (ii) estimated queue length. In a first embodiment of the present invention, the waiting time for a caller is determined on the basis of a queue arrival rate. In a second embodiment of the present invention, the waiting time for a caller is determined on the basis of a queue length estimate. The queue length estimate is a prediction of the size of the queue at a given time instant. | 09-29-2011 |
| 20130034226 | PLAYING EXPECTED WAIT TIME ON AGENT'S NOTIFICATION - Systems and methods for providing estimated wait times are provided. More particularly, an estimated wait time is calculated based at least in part on agent availability information entered by the agent. The agent availability information may be obtained from the agent through a user interface provided by a contact center communication device. The user interface may include soft keys. In addition, the estimated wait time can be provided to client communication devices. | 02-07-2013 |
| 20130163746 | VOICE RESPONSE UNIT (VRU) OPTIMIZATION - Systems, methods, apparatuses, and computer-readable media for voice response unit optimization are presented. Embodiments of the invention relate to providing a user with the ability to specify actions within a voice response unit (VRU). The specified actions may involve transferring a caller to a customer service representative (CSR) rather than following a pre-determined VRU call flow. In addition, users can specify how forced transfers can be routed: (1) stand alone (e.g., routing the call to the first call center), (2) shared service (e.g., routing the call to a second call center or the first call center based on the first call center's business hours or other factors), or (3) full service (e.g., routing the call to the second call center). The forced transfers can consider routing factors (e.g., call center hours of operation, wait time, skill set of CSRs). | 06-27-2013 |
| 20140093065 | INCREASING CONTACT CENTER EFFICIENCY VIA MULTI-CAST AND MULTI-ITEM PRESENTATION - A contact center includes a resource selection module operable to determine and select a plurality of agents based on a work request. The plurality of agents includes agents suitable for the work request. Further, the plurality of agents includes agents having previous work requests in a presenting state. Furthermore, the plurality of agents includes agents working below individual capacity of the agents for simultaneously handling work requests. Further, the plurality of agents is dynamic and may increase in size. The contact center further includes a resource connector module operable to present the work request simultaneously to the plurality of agents. The resource connector module further may subsequently present the work request to newly available suitable agents. The resource connector module further routes the work request to an agent based on actual agent responsiveness. | 04-03-2014 |
| 20140341370 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR ROUTING A CALL USING A HYBRID CALL ROUTING SCHEME WITH REAL-TIME AUTOMATIC ADJUSTMENT - A method, non-transitory computer readable medium, and apparatus for routing a call using a hybrid call routing scheme are disclosed. For example, the method receives a call for a customer agent at a call center, identifies a list of available customer agents, calculates a hybrid score for each one of the available customer agents, wherein the hybrid score is based upon a combination of a longest-idle-agent routing parameter, a performance based routing parameter and a tuning parameter, selects a customer agent from the list of the available customer agents having a highest hybrid score and routes, by the processor, the call to the customer agent that is selected. | 11-20-2014 |
| 20160205254 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR AUTOMATIC INTENTION EVALUATION AND COMMUNICATION ROUTING | 07-14-2016 |
