Abstract: Contact centers strive to provide a positive and productive customer-agent interaction to successfully resolve the issue for a call. While audio content, such as music or messages, on hold are commonplace, selecting audio enhancements to be inserted into, and concurrently with, the customer-agent provides the customer and/or agent with cues and motivations to promote the successful completion of the call. Cues may be provided to announce the arrival or departure of an agent, virtually take a customer from one location to another for a different portion of the interaction, add excitement and anticipation to an upcoming event by providing an audio experience foreshadowing of the actual event, calm frayed nerves, or other purpose.

Abstract: Providing zip tones for a call includes receiving, by a computer of a contact center, a call-related event for the call; generating, by the computer of the contact center, one zip tone from among a plurality of different zip tones based on the call-related event, wherein the one zip tone is indicative of one or more attributes of the call-related event that are different than other call-related events; transmitting, by the computer of the contact center, the one zip tone to a device associated with a call participant of the call; and requesting, by the computer of the contact center, customization instructions for one or more of the plurality of different zip tones

Abstract: The need for efficient and effective communications is of key importance to contact centers. Agent communications with customers are designed to maximize results while minimizing resources, in particular the time required for human agents to be engaged with a particular customer. Often the impact of two agents on a communication can both improve customer satisfaction and better produce the intended result of the communication. However, two (or more) live agents is resource intensive. By providing a virtual agent controlled, entirely or in part, by a live agent, the customer may be presented with the appearance of two agents while requiring the human resources of a single agent.

Abstract: When an agent is about to be connected to a customer for a communication, there is a small window of time in which the agent may be presented with information determined to be relevant to the communication. After the window closes, the communication may then be connected to the customer. If too much information is presented, the agent may be unable to ascertain or retain such information. However, a neural network to determine the most relevant customer attributes and selecting cues corresponding to the most relevant customer attributes for presentation on an agent device, allowed the agent to be presented with only the most relevant information in a retainable manner.

Abstract: The technology disclosed herein enables user notifications via a light emitter associated with a video camera. In a particular embodiment, a method provides exchanging video user communications on the video communication session between a first endpoint operated by a first user and a second endpoint operated by a second user. The method further includes receiving video of the first user for inclusion in the video user communications using a video camera for the first endpoint and monitoring first behavior of the first user during the video communication session to determine whether the first behavior satisfies a notification criterion. In response to determining that the first behavior satisfies the notification criterion, the method includes directing a light emitter associated with the video camera to present a visual notification to the first user.

Abstract: Customers can become bored with an interaction with an agent. By providing speech and/or images, of a celebrity disguising the speech, and/or image, of the agent, customers can appear to interact with a particular celebrity. As a result, customers are more likely to stay engaged and have a positive experience. The celebrity, or a particular persona of a celebrity, may be selected from customer preferences and/or a purpose of the call. For example, a movie star's role may have a persona, such as a “heavy,” suitable for collection calls (audio or audio-video), whereas a scientific or technical innovator may be selected for technical support calls.

Abstract: Efficient and effective communications with customers is a cornerstone of many businesses. Automation, such as in the form of automated agents that can engage in a communication with a customer, furthers those efficient and effective communications. However, textual messages are a series of messages that are often limited to factual statements and direct questions, leaving many customers, such as those that prefer or require high-context communications, may have the impression that the organization with which they are communicating is cold and uncaring or unconcerned about them. By selectively altering the series of messages, an appropriate degree of concern or empathy may be conveyed to facilitate a better relationship and more effective and efficient communications.

Abstract: Systems and methods are provided to enable a communication to be monitored and, if found to possess emotionally charged content, reduce or eliminate the emotionally charged content while allowing the communication to otherwise be presented to the recipient. For example, agents in a contact center may encounter a customer who utilizes emotionally charged content which may be expressed as words or phrases (e.g., insults, slurs, profanity, etc.) or by intonations (e.g., yelling, talking through their teeth, etc.). By omitting such content through volume level balancing, tonal balancing, and/or redaction or substitution, the recipient may focus on the content of the message without the distraction of the emotionally charged content of a communication, whether the communication is audio, video, or text.

Abstract: Contact centers strive to provide a positive and productive customer-agent interaction to successfully resolve the issue for a call. While audio content, such as music or messages, on hold are commonplace, selecting audio enhancements to be inserted into, and concurrently with, the customer-agent provides the customer and/or agent with cues and motivations to promote the successful completion of the call. Cues may be provided to announce the arrival or departure of an agent, virtually take a customer from one location to another for a different portion of the interaction, add excitement and anticipation to an upcoming event by providing an audio experience foreshadowing of the actual event, calm frayed nerves, or other purpose.

Abstract: The technology disclosed herein enables the use of adaptive durations when alerting users about communication session requests. In a particular embodiment, a method provides identifying a first request to establish a first communication session with a first endpoint and determining a first duration for alerting a first user of the first endpoint about the first request based on information about the first request. The method further provides alerting the first user about the first request in accordance with the first duration.

Abstract: Fixed-time meeting notifications are almost always wrong in terms of the time required for a user to be presented with the notification, attend to all preliminary matters necessary, and join the meeting. Either there is too much time, in which case the advance notification is more of a distraction, or too little. By dynamically determining delay factors associated with a meeting, such as time to locate to the meeting room or appropriate location to join a remote meeting, launch applications, and tending to personal needs, a meeting notification may be provided just-in-time to allow the user to proceed with all the preliminary matters, without rushing or being late, in order to join the meeting at the user's preferred time, which may or may not coincide with the start of the meeting.

Abstract: Human agents may be repeatedly provide the same content to customers. Often the content may be the result of an event giving no notice (e.g., a network outage). Systems and methods are provided herein to automatically determine when agent(s) are providing the same content to customers. As a result, the system may capture the agent's speech and, when encountering a precursor speech in a subsequent communication, the system automatically inserts the recording or generated speech into the communication.

Abstract: The need for efficient and effective communications is of key importance to contact centers. Agent communications with customers are designed to maximize results while minimizing resources, in particular the time required for human agents to be engaged with a particular customer. Often the impact of two agents on a communication can both improve customer satisfaction and better produce the intended result of the communication. However, two (or more) live agents is resource intensive. By providing a virtual agent controlled, entirely or in part, by a live agent, the customer may be presented with the appearance of two agents while requiring the human resources of a single agent.

Abstract: Providing zip tones for a call includes receiving, by a computer of a contact center, a call-related event for the call; generating, by the computer of the contact center, one zip tone from among a plurality of different zip tones based on the call-related event, wherein the one zip tone is indicative of one or more attributes of the call-related event that are different than other call-related events; transmitting, by the computer of the contact center, the one zip tone to a device associated with a call participant of the call; and requesting, by the computer of the contact center, customization instructions for one or more of the plurality of different zip tones

Abstract: The technology disclosed herein enables user notifications via a light emitter associated with a video camera. In a particular embodiment, a method provides exchanging video user communications on the video communication session between a first endpoint operated by a first user and a second endpoint operated by a second user. The method further includes receiving video of the first user for inclusion in the video user communications using a video camera for the first endpoint and monitoring first behavior of the first user during the video communication session to determine whether the first behavior satisfies a notification criterion. In response to determining that the first behavior satisfies the notification criterion, the method includes directing a light emitter associated with the video camera to present a visual notification to the first user.

Abstract: Customers can become bored with an interaction with an agent. By providing speech and/or images, of a celebrity disguising the speech, and/or image, of the agent, customers can appear to interact with a particular celebrity. As a result, customers are more likely to stay engaged and have a positive experience. The celebrity, or a particular persona of a celebrity, may be selected from customer preferences and/or a purpose of the call. For example, a movie star's role may have a persona, such as a “heavy,” suitable for collection calls (audio or audio-video), whereas a scientific or technical innovator may be selected for technical support calls.

Abstract: Agents, whether human agents or automated agents, may be provided with content to deliver to a customer during a communication. The content may have an emotional content, as well as a factual content, that may be appropriate or inappropriate for a particular communication with a customer. Agents may be prompted to provide the content and the emotional content but whether they do or not is not always certain. By determining a difference between actual emotional content and an expected emotional content and executing steps to correct such differences, communications that comprise emotional content outside of nominal range may be corrected, within the communication and/or in subsequent communications. Additionally, long-term trends for one or a plurality of agents may be identified and managed as appropriate.

Abstract: The technology disclosed herein enables the use of adaptive durations when alerting users about communication session requests. In a particular embodiment, a method provides identifying a first request to establish a first communication session with a first endpoint and determining a first duration for alerting a first user of the first endpoint about the first request based on information about the first request. The method further provides alerting the first user about the first request in accordance with the first duration.

Abstract: Efficient and effective communications with customers is a cornerstone of many businesses. Automation, such as in the form of automated agents that can engage in a communication with a customer, furthers those efficient and effective communications. However, textual messages are a series of messages that are often limited to factual statements and direct questions, leaving many customers, such as those that prefer or require high-context communications, may have the impression that the organization with which they are communicating is cold and uncaring or unconcerned about them. By selectively altering the series of messages, an appropriate degree of concern or empathy may be conveyed to facilitate a better relationship and more effective and efficient communications.

Abstract: Contact centers strive to successfully resolve communications with customers as efficiently and effectively as possible. While providing prompts or scripts to agents may assist in the content delivered to the customer by the agent, such prompts or scripts lack emotion and cause the agent to rely on their own determination of what is appropriate, which may not be appropriate for a particular communication with a customer. By determining and prompting an agent to utilize a particular emotion, agents may better relate to the customer and improve the opportunity to successfully conclude the communication sooner than normal and allow resource to be utilized for other purposes.