Predictive (e.g., Anticipating Next Available Agent) Patents (Class 379/265.1)
  • Patent number: 11916767
    Abstract: Embodiments are directed to security analysis agents. Events associated with a computing environment may be provided. Prompt fragments may be determined based on the events. A prompt may be generated for a large language model (LLM) based on a prompt template and the prompt fragments such that the prompt fragments may be included in the prompt and provided to the LLM. Actions for evaluating the events may be determined based on the LLM response. These actions may be executed to evaluate the events. Portions of the response that correspond to the prompt fragments may be determined. A performance score may be determined for each prompt fragment based on its corresponding portion of the response such that the prompt may be modified to exclude a portion of the prompt fragments that have a performance score less than a threshold value.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 3, 2023
    Date of Patent: February 27, 2024
    Assignee: Dropzone.ai, Inc.
    Inventors: Xue Jun Wu, Sen Xiang, Eric Joseph Hammerle
  • Patent number: 11750744
    Abstract: Predictive mapping technology is used to route a telephone call from a user to a customer service representative. The disclosed technology can use any one or more of the following factors to map a telephone call from a user to a customer service representative: (1) a sentiment score based on a topic of conversation; (2) an experience score of the customer service representative with a topic of conversation; and (3) a performance score of the customer service representative in managing a topic of conversation.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 31, 2022
    Date of Patent: September 5, 2023
    Assignee: United Services Automobile Association (USAA)
    Inventors: Kristopher Williams, Reynaldo Medina, III, Mark Anthony Lopez, Amy Daali
  • Patent number: 11330105
    Abstract: Embodiments of the present disclosure provide methods, apparatus, systems, computing devices, and/or computing entities for processing performance metric recommendations for an agent profile.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 28, 2021
    Date of Patent: May 10, 2022
    Assignee: Optum, Inc.
    Inventors: Jun Li, Julie Zhu
  • Patent number: 11258883
    Abstract: Provided is a framework including a generic communication layer that facilitates a separation between communication connections for different communication technologies and an application interfacing with the communication connections. The framework generally includes a remote interface layer including communication interfaces that generically communicate with a client, an application layer that includes applications represented by a set of services that use the communication interfaces to communicate with a client, and a service layer that includes one or more services. The framework includes mechanisms to map parameters of a specific communication technology to a standardized parameter structure that can be used by different service-based applications.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 8, 2020
    Date of Patent: February 22, 2022
    Assignee: SAP SE
    Inventors: Stefan Rau, Daniel Bos
  • Patent number: 10979570
    Abstract: Techniques for benchmarking pairing strategies in a contact center system are disclosed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 2, 2020
    Date of Patent: April 13, 2021
    Assignee: Afiniti, Ltd.
    Inventor: Zia Chishti
  • Patent number: 10951767
    Abstract: Techniques for benchmarking pairing strategies in a contact center system are disclosed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 2, 2020
    Date of Patent: March 16, 2021
    Assignee: Afiniti, Ltd.
    Inventor: Zia Chishti
  • Patent number: 10924612
    Abstract: Techniques for benchmarking pairing strategies in a contact center system are disclosed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 29, 2020
    Date of Patent: February 16, 2021
    Assignee: Afiniti, Ltd.
    Inventor: Zia Chishti
  • Patent number: 10917518
    Abstract: A network device (e.g., a user's mobile phone) may be used to make a telephone call to a landline telephone associated with a client device (e.g., a business's device). If the telephone call is terminated, either the network device or the client device may generate a text message to the other and establish a communication session. The client device may present a variety of options to the network device of service requests that may be completed by text message. The network device may transmit the service request and the service request may be fulfilled by the client.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 26, 2020
    Date of Patent: February 9, 2021
    Assignee: LIVEPERSON, INC.
    Inventor: Jeffrey Salter
  • Patent number: 10873664
    Abstract: Techniques for benchmarking pairing strategies in a contact center system are disclosed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 2, 2020
    Date of Patent: December 22, 2020
    Assignee: Afiniti, Ltd.
    Inventor: Zia Chishti
  • Patent number: 10863029
    Abstract: Techniques for benchmarking pairing strategies in a contact center system are disclosed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 18, 2020
    Date of Patent: December 8, 2020
    Assignee: Afiniti, Ltd.
    Inventor: Zia Chishti
  • Patent number: 10863030
    Abstract: Techniques for benchmarking pairing strategies in a contact center system are disclosed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 29, 2020
    Date of Patent: December 8, 2020
    Assignee: Afiniti, Ltd.
    Inventor: Zia Chishti
  • Patent number: 10863028
    Abstract: Techniques for benchmarking pairing strategies in a contact center system are disclosed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 18, 2020
    Date of Patent: December 8, 2020
    Assignee: Afiniti, Ltd.
    Inventor: Zia Chishti
  • Patent number: 10798245
    Abstract: In a method and apparatus for facilitating agent interactions with customers of an enterprise, one or more intents corresponding to an input provided by a customer during a conversation with a Virtual Agent (VA) are predicted. A confidence score corresponding to each intent is computed that is indicative of an ability of the VA to provide an effective response to the input. The confidence score corresponding to each intent is compared with a predefined threshold score. If the confidence score is less than the predefined threshold score, the conversation is deflected from the VA to a human agent to respond to the input of the customer. The conversation is deflected from the human agent to the VA for a subsequent input if a respective confidence score of at least one intent predicted for the subsequent input is greater than or equal to the predefined threshold score.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 20, 2020
    Date of Patent: October 6, 2020
    Assignee: [24]7.ai, Inc.
    Inventors: Pallipuram V. Kannan, Subha Sethumadhavan
  • Patent number: 10791223
    Abstract: Techniques for benchmarking pairing strategies in a contact center system are disclosed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 28, 2020
    Date of Patent: September 29, 2020
    Assignee: Afiniti Europe Techologies Limited
    Inventor: Zia Chishti
  • Patent number: 10574824
    Abstract: In a method and apparatus for facilitating agent interactions with customers of an enterprise, one or more intents corresponding to an input provided by a customer during a conversation with a Virtual Agent (VA) are predicted. A confidence score corresponding to each intent is computed. The confidence score is indicative of an ability of the VA to provide an effective response to the input. The confidence score corresponding to each intent is compared with a predefined threshold score. If the confidence score is less than the predefined threshold score, the conversation is deflected from the VA to a human agent to respond to the input of the customer. The conversation is deflected from the human agent to the VA for a subsequent input if a respective confidence score of at least one intent predicted for the subsequent input is greater than or equal to the predefined threshold score.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 30, 2018
    Date of Patent: February 25, 2020
    Assignee: [24]7.ai, Inc.
    Inventor: Pallipuram V. Kannan
  • Patent number: 10542148
    Abstract: Systems and methods described herein can automatically route an inbound call from an identified customer to one of a plurality of agents, the agent being selected on the basis of likelihood of a favorable outcome. The method determines a predictive model appropriate for the identified customer, with model variables including call center data, and targeted marketing data based upon risk data for the customer. An analytical engine calculates outcome predictions by applying the predictive model to values of model variables over a recent time interval. In a time-series analysis, this calculation is repeated while dynamically adjusting the recent time interval, until identifying a call routing option that satisfies a favorable outcome criterion. This method may be used to select the agent to handle the incoming call, and optionally to select a product for that agent to discuss with the identified customer.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 6, 2017
    Date of Patent: January 21, 2020
    Assignee: Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company
    Inventor: Sears Merritt
  • Patent number: 10484538
    Abstract: An improved predictive dialer system and method that dials telephone numbers and connects answered calls to available agents monitors an active call between an agent and a client using speech recognition. In the active call, the speech recognition searches for occurrence of at least one key phrase that indicates intention of termination of the call; and upon occurrence of at least one key phrase, predicts a remaining time period until the call will be terminated. Based on the predicted remaining time period, during the remaining time period, the system or method determines a point of time for initiating at least one new call to a client and initiates at least one new call at the determined point of time.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 20, 2018
    Date of Patent: November 19, 2019
    Assignee: InContact Inc.
    Inventors: Antigoni Bitou, Stamatios Glikos, Ilianna Spiliopoulou, Nikolaos Skintzis, Aristeidis Giachalis, Anthansios Pagonis, Alexandros Cheimarios
  • Patent number: 10412221
    Abstract: Various embodiments of the invention provide methods, systems, and computer program products for providing near real-time feedback to an originating agent on one or more instances initiated by the originating agent during a text-based communication being conducted between the originating agent and a remote party. In various embodiments, a determination is made that the one or more instances initiated by the originating agent for the text-based communication require verification and as a result, a verification agent is located to review the instances before they are delivered to the remote party. Accordingly, upon the verification agent editing the text of one of the instances, the instance is delivered to the remote party displaying the edited text and the edited text is also displayed to the originating agent at virtually the same time to provide the originating agent with near real-time feedback on the instance.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 15, 2019
    Date of Patent: September 10, 2019
    Assignee: Noble Systems Corporation
    Inventors: Denney A. Burkholder, Jason P. Ouimette
  • Patent number: 9992341
    Abstract: In a method for managing customer interactions for a customer contact center, the method includes: receiving, by a processor, information on an interaction to be routed; identifying, by the processor, a context associated with the interaction; receiving, by the processor, first proximity information relating to a proximity between an electronic device and a first proximity device; adjusting, by the processor, a proficiency level of an agent corresponding to the context associated with the interaction to a first value in response to the receiving of the first proximity information; determining, by the processor, whether or not the agent is qualified to handle the interaction based on the proficiency level; and transmitting, by the processor, a message for routing the interaction to the agent in response to determining the agent is qualified to handle the interaction based on the proficiency level.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 31, 2014
    Date of Patent: June 5, 2018
    Assignee: GENESYS TELECOMMUNICATIONS LABORATORIES, INC.
    Inventors: Ahmed Tewfik Bouzid, Pawel Harasimiuk, Aaron Wellman, Praphul Kumar, Herbert Willi Artur Ristock
  • Patent number: 9723133
    Abstract: A contact center dialing a telephone number to a destination party, such as a debtor, may discover that the number is subject to a prohibition of being autodialed. In other embodiments, a number that was subject to the prohibition of being autodialed is now discovered to no longer be subject to such prohibition. Various mechanisms may be defined to indicate how such a prohibition associated with the number may be indicated in a dialing list and how various contact center architectures may be used to process the dialing list. In one embodiment, separate sub-systems are used to dial separate dialing lists based on whether the number is to be manually dialed or dialed using an autodialer. In another embodiment, another architecture is used to process an integrated dialing list to determine whether a number is to be manually dialed or autodialed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 17, 2015
    Date of Patent: August 1, 2017
    Assignee: NOBLE SYSTEMS CORPORATION
    Inventors: Teresa Gudger, Karl H. Koster
  • Patent number: 9674364
    Abstract: A system and method for communicating with a customer via one or more communication modes includes a computer having a memory, and a processor configured by the memory to receive a batch notification that enables the computer to identify a batch of customer records in the computer, for communicating in the near future, and to receive an identity notification that enables the computer to identify a customer being contacted or to be contacted in the near future. At least one customer record associated with the identified customer is part of the batch. A central data server provides the batch notification that enables the computer to identify the batch of customer records, and provides the identity notification that enables the computer to identify the identified customer.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 25, 2015
    Date of Patent: June 6, 2017
    Assignee: Micro Macro Assets, LLC
    Inventor: Senraj Soundar
  • Patent number: 9106748
    Abstract: The methods, apparatus, and systems described herein facilitate optimizing routing decisions. The methods include retrieving and/or predicting a profile of a current customer and future customers, determining which agents are currently available and which agents are expected to be available, and providing a routing recommendation based on the profile retrieval or prediction for the current customer and the future customers, and the currently available agents' and expected available agents' proficiency at handling customers with the retrieved and/or predicted profiles.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 28, 2013
    Date of Patent: August 11, 2015
    Assignee: MATTERSIGHT CORPORATION
    Inventors: Kelly Conway, David Gustafson, Douglas Brown, Michael Glen Gates, William Duane Skeen, Brendan Joyce, Christopher Danson
  • Patent number: 9083799
    Abstract: A method, system and computer program product are provided for monitoring a communication session in a contact center. An agent follows a structured workflow while handling the communications session, and trigger events are defined which are associated with significant steps in the workflow other than (or additional to) the connection and disconnection of the agent with the session. When a trigger event is detected indicating that the agent has reached a predefined significant step in the workflow, an event notification issues to another system of the contact center, such as a statistics package, or a supervisor workstation, or an event aggregator which receives such notifications from many agent stations. In a preferred embodiment, these event notifications are used by an automated outbound dialler to more accurately predict the time to the end of a communications session, thereby providing a better outbound dialling algorithm.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 7, 2008
    Date of Patent: July 14, 2015
    Assignee: Avaya Inc.
    Inventors: Liam Loftus, Robin Power
  • Publication number: 20150086002
    Abstract: A method and system for managing a plurality of outbound interactions is provided. The system comprises an interaction management platform and a parallel predictive dialer. The parallel predictive dialer comprises multiple predictive dialers. The interaction management platform classifies multiple contacts into contact groups based on contact classification criteria and classifies multiple agents into agent groups based on agent classification criteria. Further, the interaction management platform, maps each the contacts in the contact groups to one or more the agent groups. The parallel predictive dialer assigns the predictive dialers to the agent groups and the predictive dialers place the outbound interactions to the contacts in the contact groups. The interaction management platform then determines available contacts from the contact groups and concurrently processes the answered interactions.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 25, 2013
    Publication date: March 26, 2015
    Applicant: DRISHTI-SOFT SOLUTIONS PVT, LTD.
    Inventors: Nayan JAIN, Prince Singh
  • Patent number: 8971518
    Abstract: Systems and methods for providing customer service are provided herein. The systems and methods provide techniques for providing a communication center comprising a plurality of representatives, receiving a request for communication from a first party, determining an available representative from the plurality of representatives and a representative available time period for the request for communication, preventing the available representative from communicating with a second party during the representative available time period, providing the first party with communication information, and connecting the first party to the available representative during the representative available time period.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 21, 2012
    Date of Patent: March 3, 2015
    Assignee: United Services Automobile Association (USAA)
    Inventor: Christopher A. Sandoval
  • Patent number: 8971521
    Abstract: A system for assuring agent connection for outbound calls placed in an automated outbound calling campaign includes an outbound dialing server, a digital data repository coupled to the outbound dialing server, the data repository storing outbound dialing records for automated outbound dialing, and software executing on the outbound dialing server from a non-transitory physical medium, the software providing a first function for determining for a specific outbound dialing record if the connection to a live agent must be an assured connection, a second function for dialing and engaging an agent via an internal call for reservation of the agent, and a third function for bridging the call connections forged between the system and the agent and the system and the outbound party upon answer of the outbound call.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 16, 2013
    Date of Patent: March 3, 2015
    Assignee: Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc
    Inventors: Stanislav V. Zgardovski, Oleksiy M. Kolomoyskyy
  • Patent number: 8948373
    Abstract: A method for determining a number of calls to generate for a specific outbound campaign in an automated contact center based upon a prediction of agent occupancy in a future time period, wherein the automated contact center processes one or more outbound campaigns. The estimates a total number of outbound agents available to the one or more outbound campaigns. By using the total number of outbound agents, an effective number of agents for the specific outbound campaign is determined according to a ratio. The effective number of agents is used to determine a number of outbound calls to generate for the specific outbound campaign according to a dialing method. Calls are then generated for the specific outbound campaign based upon the determined number of outbound calls to generate.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 20, 2014
    Date of Patent: February 3, 2015
    Assignee: Five9, Inc.
    Inventors: Nikolay Anisimov, Dmitry Spasibenko, Sam Shkrabov, David Van Everen
  • Patent number: 8934477
    Abstract: A method of providing access to a network of contact centers comprises providing contact links on one or more web pages which when activated initiate contacts to the contact centers. The network addresses associated with the links and to which the contacts are automatically directed are dynamically specified in the web pages and are obtained from a database. The database is dynamically updated in response to statistical updates received periodically or continually from the individual contact centers. In this way the contacts can be directed in advance to the most appropriate destination without having to evaluate each contact as it enters the contact center network, thereby reducing processing time and delays.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 2, 2009
    Date of Patent: January 13, 2015
    Assignee: Avaya Inc.
    Inventors: Tony McCormack, Paul D'Arcy, Patrick Hession
  • Patent number: 8935394
    Abstract: A routing system includes a router, a statistics server (Stat Server) coupled to the router, receiving, processing and storing statistics related to event handling, and providing information regarding the statistics for use by routing intelligence in the router, and a first proxy data server coupled to the Stat Server and to a second proxy data server at a remote contact center over a network. The system is characterized in that the Stat Server receives event statistics regarding the local queue, and through the coupled first and second proxy data servers, event statistics regarding the remote queue, provides information related to the statistics to the router, and the router determines to route incoming events to local queue or to the remote queue based on the information provided.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 4, 2013
    Date of Patent: January 13, 2015
    Assignee: Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc.
    Inventors: Herbert Willi Artur Ristock, Sergey I. Federov
  • Patent number: 8929533
    Abstract: A peer to peer contact center is provided by individual user terminals registering with a server which acts as a proxy to receive contacts from callers to the contact center. The server redirects the calls to individual terminals according to simple rules without subjecting the calls to any contact center treatment. The individual terminal receiving a call subjects the call to a contact center treatment while holding the call, and then determines from among the registered terminals the most suitable terminal for handling the call. The call is then transferred to the selected terminal. In this way the complex infrastructure of traditional contact centers is dispensed with and each individual terminal acts as a mini contact centre in respect of the calls distributed to it in a dumb or semi-dumb fashion by the server.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 27, 2006
    Date of Patent: January 6, 2015
    Assignee: Rockstar Consortium US LP
    Inventors: Tony McCormack, Neil O'Connor, Arik Elberse, Patrick Hession
  • Publication number: 20140355749
    Abstract: The methods, apparatus, and systems described herein facilitate optimizing routing decisions. The methods include retrieving and/or predicting a profile of a current customer and future customers, determining which agents are currently available and which agents are expected to be available, and providing a routing recommendation based on the profile retrieval or prediction for the current customer and the future customers, and the currently available agents' and expected available agents' proficiency at handling customers with the retrieved and/or predicted profiles.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 8, 2013
    Publication date: December 4, 2014
    Inventors: Kelly CONWAY, David GUSTAFSON, Douglas BROWN, Michael Glen GATES, William Duane SKEEN, Brendan JOYCE, Christopher DANSON
  • Publication number: 20140355748
    Abstract: The methods, apparatus, and systems described herein facilitate optimizing routing decisions. The methods include retrieving and/or predicting a profile of a current customer and future customers, determining which agents are currently available and which agents are expected to be available, and providing a routing recommendation based on the profile retrieval or prediction for the current customer and the future customers, and the currently available agents' and expected available agents' proficiency at handling customers with the retrieved and/or predicted profiles.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 28, 2013
    Publication date: December 4, 2014
    Inventors: Kelly CONWAY, David Gustafson, Douglas Brown, Michael Glen Gates, William Duane Skeen, Brendan Joyce, Christopher Danson
  • Patent number: 8903077
    Abstract: An assignment management apparatus includes: a traffic acquisition unit that acquires traffic per unit time; a storage unit that stores traffic per unit time when an operator is assigned, as traffic upon assignment, in association with the operator and an assignment sequence, and stores traffic per unit time when the assignment is canceled, as traffic upon cancellation; a processing capacity calculation unit that calculates difference between the traffic upon assignment of the operator and traffic upon assignment of an operator whose assignment sequence is next to the operator, as processable traffic of operators; and a determination unit that determines that it is timing to cancel assignment of an operator, in a case in which the traffic per unit time is decreased by the processable traffic calculated for the operator from the traffic upon cancellation.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 19, 2012
    Date of Patent: December 2, 2014
    Assignee: P&W Solutions Co., Ltd.
    Inventor: Toshiyuki Omiya
  • Patent number: 8879715
    Abstract: Method, system and program product, comprising obtaining agent performance data; ranking, agents based the agent performance data; dividing agents into agent performance ranges; partitioning callers based on criteria into a set of partitions; determining for each partition an outcome value for a first agent performance range and a second agent performance range; calculating for the partitions a respective outcome value difference indicator based on the outcome value for the first agent performance range and the outcome value for the second agent performance range for the partition; matching a respective agent to a respective caller in one of the partitions, based on the outcome value difference indicators for the partitions.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 15, 2013
    Date of Patent: November 4, 2014
    Assignee: Satmap International Holdings Limited
    Inventors: S. James P. Spottiswoode, Zia Chishti
  • Patent number: 8873737
    Abstract: A system for routing communication sessions between a contact and an agent of a contact center is disclosed. The system is arranged to simultaneously connect more than one contact to an agent of the contact center capable of simultaneously handling a plurality of contacts. Typically, the contacts comprise non-voice contacts The system is arranged to obtain a respective time-varying characteristic associated with the various agents indicating an intermediate level of activity for the agents between the agents being unoccupied and the agents being fully occupied with handling contacts. New contacts received at the contact center are routed to an agent based at least partially the time-varying characteristic for the agents.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 7, 2011
    Date of Patent: October 28, 2014
    Assignee: Avaya Inc.
    Inventors: Thomas Moran, David Murray, John Costello, Peter Flannery, Hugh Tynan, Enda Dooley
  • Patent number: 8861710
    Abstract: 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.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 19, 2010
    Date of Patent: October 14, 2014
    Assignee: Avaya Inc.
    Inventor: Krishna Nimmagadda
  • Publication number: 20140270134
    Abstract: The present disclosure is directed to methods including obtaining a location data of a source; obtaining at least one performance measure; correlating the location data and the at least one performance measure to obtain a correlation; and analyzing the correlation to obtain an analysis report. The present disclosure is further directed to systems that include a source related to a contact center, and a processor configured to: obtain a location data of the source; derive at least one performance measure; correlate the location data and the at least one performance measure to obtain a correlation; and analyze the correlation to obtain an analysis report.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 15, 2013
    Publication date: September 18, 2014
    Applicant: Avaya Inc.
    Inventor: Rodney A. Thomson
  • Publication number: 20140270133
    Abstract: The methods, apparatus, and systems described herein are designed to route customer communications to the best available agent. The methods include predicting a personality type of the customer, determining the occupancy level of agents to provide a list of available agents, providing a routing recommendation based on the predicted personality type of the customer and agent data such as proficiency in handling customers with the predicted personality type, and/or analyzing real-time customer-agent interactions.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 14, 2013
    Publication date: September 18, 2014
    Inventors: Kelly CONWAY, David Gustafson, Douglas Brown, Michael Glen Gates, William Duane Skeen, Brendan Joyce
  • Patent number: 8832307
    Abstract: When a connection control device determines that the connection control device is in a congested state, based on whether a usage of at least one of hardware resources necessary for call processing to establish a call connection is equal to or more than a predetermined threshold value, the CPU of the connection control device forcefully disconnects an established call connection after a connection available time elapses, and, when an INVITE message is transmitted from a terminal device, the CPU of the connection control device receives the INVITE message, calculates the wait time, creates and transmits a response message stating the wait time, and stores the message as a reserved call on a reservation list.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 15, 2007
    Date of Patent: September 9, 2014
    Assignee: Fujitsu Limited
    Inventors: Tomoyuki Furutono, Junji Tagane, Akio Koga, Ryuji Oda, Masahiro Tanaka, Kaori Chigusa, Minoru Nishida, Norimichi Hiroshige, Ryuji Fukuhara
  • Patent number: 8817962
    Abstract: A system for providing user support includes a setter configured to set up at least one communication service for a user including providing a unique communication identifier of character strings to access the communication services, and an accessor configured to access customer support including providing a unique customer support identifier character string to the user, the customer support identifier character string comprising at least a portion of the unique communication identifier character string.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 31, 2008
    Date of Patent: August 26, 2014
    Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I, L.P.
    Inventors: Stephen J. Griesmer, James Gordon Beattie, Jr.
  • Patent number: 8811598
    Abstract: When a customer communicates with a contact center, a history of the communication is stored. The communication from the customer can be in various media, such as a voice call, a video call, an email, an Instant Message (IM), a text message, and/or a blog posting. The history includes a context such as a reason for the communication and a time of the communication. The history of the communication is used to determine a pattern of the communication based on the context. Using the pattern, a time that the customer will communicate with the contact center is predicted. An agent associated with the customer is scheduled to be available at the predicted time. The predicted time can also be based on future events such as a product release or an event such as a political event, a sports event, and/or a convention.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 2, 2012
    Date of Patent: August 19, 2014
    Assignee: Avaya Inc.
    Inventor: Luciano Godoy Fagundes
  • Patent number: 8774389
    Abstract: A method and system to optimally route telephone calls between shared service centers is presented. Using a combination of service tiers, Agent Directory, Instant Messaging (IM), and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) provides optimal routing of incoming calls for assistance. The method utilizes different protocols during normal operations, transitional operations, and emergency operations, and addresses Shared Service Center (SSC) planning and management.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 13, 2005
    Date of Patent: July 8, 2014
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Steven M. Kagan, Sandeep Khanna, John Arthur Ricketts, William M. Thompson
  • Patent number: 8731178
    Abstract: A methods for routing callers to agents in a contact center, along with an intelligent routing system. One or more agents are graded on achieving an optimal interaction, such as increasing revenue, decreasing cost, or increasing customer satisfaction. Callers are then preferentially routed to a graded agent to obtain an increased chance at obtaining a chosen optimal interaction. In a more advanced embodiment, caller and agent demographic and psychographic characteristics can also be determined and used in a pattern matching algorithm to preferentially route a caller with certain characteristics to an agent with certain characteristics to increase the chance of an optimal interaction.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 14, 2012
    Date of Patent: May 20, 2014
    Assignee: Satmap International Holdings Limited
    Inventors: Zia Chishti, S. James P. Spottiswoode, Chris W. Jones
  • Patent number: 8718243
    Abstract: The present invention relates to telecommunications, and in particular, to systems and processes for processing telephone calls and providing telephony services. In one embodiment, a call processing system, compromises a first telephony interface configured to receive a call from a caller, a storage device configured to store a greeting, and a call answering system. The call answering system is configured to play the greeting in response to receiving the call, record a voice message from the caller, determine when the caller has completed recording the voice message, after determining that the caller has completed recording the voice message, play a prompt regarding the caller becoming a subscriber to call services provided by the call processing system, receive from the caller information used to establish a call services account, and establish a call services account for the caller.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 29, 2012
    Date of Patent: May 6, 2014
    Assignee: Callwave Communications, LLC
    Inventors: David Trandal, Robert Duva, Robert F. Smith, John R. Day
  • Patent number: 8718271
    Abstract: Systems and methods are disclosed for routing callers to agents in a contact center, along with an intelligent routing system. An exemplary method includes combining multiple output variables of a pattern matching algorithm (for matching callers and agents) into a single metric for use in the routing system. The pattern matching algorithm may include a neural network architecture, where the exemplary method combines output variables from multiple neural networks. The method may include determining a Z-score of the variable outputs and determining a linear combination of the determined Z-scores for a desired output. Callers may be routed to agents via the pattern matching algorithm to maximize the output value or score of the linear combination. The output variables may include revenue generation, cost, customer satisfaction performance, first call resolution, cancellation, or other variable outputs from the pattern matching algorithm of the system.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 29, 2008
    Date of Patent: May 6, 2014
    Assignee: Satmap International Holdings Limited
    Inventor: S. James P. Spottiswoode
  • Patent number: 8699699
    Abstract: A method for determining a number of calls to generate for a specific outbound campaign in an automated contact center based upon a prediction of agent occupancy in a future time period, wherein the automated contact center processes one or more outbound campaigns. The estimates a total number of outbound agents available to the one or more outbound campaigns. By using the total number of outbound agents, an effective number of agents for the specific outbound campaign is determined according to a ratio. The effective number of agents is used to determine a number of outbound calls to generate for the specific outbound campaign according to a dialing method. Calls are then generated for the specific outbound campaign based upon the determined number of outbound calls to generate.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 21, 2011
    Date of Patent: April 15, 2014
    Assignee: Five9, Inc.
    Inventors: Nikolay Anisimov, Dmitry Spasibenko, Sam Shkrabov, David Van Everen
  • Patent number: 8654963
    Abstract: In a contact center, a system for processing communication events has an interaction server for managing events waiting to be routed, a routing server for routing the events, a rules engine, and a gateway server executing rules invocation logic and interacting with the rules engine. The interaction server tracks incoming events, initiates and sends a routing request to the routing server, including a special routing object, for each event that requires conformance to business rules, the routing server, executing the routing object, sends an execution request to the gateway server, which upon receipt of the request prepares a business object model (BOM), being a set of facts upon which the rules engine executes rules appropriate to the facts, resulting in routing direction for the routing server to route the event.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 19, 2008
    Date of Patent: February 18, 2014
    Assignee: Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc.
    Inventors: Nikolay Anisimov, Yevgeniy Petrovykh, Mark Scott
  • Publication number: 20130329880
    Abstract: A method and system for increasing call yield and the productivity of agents in an environment such as a contact or call center, for example, is described. Attributes may be used to classify calls and contact information. A system may learn from collected data. Calculations may be performed to aid in forecasting such as probabilities, call yield, and expected call handle time. Such calculations may be used to determine the best time to call a contact to achieve a desired result.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 5, 2013
    Publication date: December 12, 2013
    Inventors: Warren Bentley, Roger Leblanc, Mark R. Stumpf
  • Patent number: 8605887
    Abstract: A web-based hosted solution through which business entities create and manage communications campaigns is described. To reduce latency of customer-to-agent connections, the system implements an agent stay-on-line function by which a persistent telephony connection is established and maintained between the system infrastructure and an available agent. In this manner, the agent may handle multiple customers while avoiding an ACD hold queue. In addition, preferably a service-side hold queue also is established and maintained on the service-side of the infrastructure. This hold queue maintains calls that are waiting to be connected to available agents. It ensures that any customer abandons do not impair the connections being established and maintained to the agents.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 15, 2012
    Date of Patent: December 10, 2013
    Assignee: Soundbite Communications, Inc.
    Inventors: Timothy R. Segall, Damon Weinstein
  • Patent number: 8594311
    Abstract: An expected wait time augmentation system generates an expected wait value representing a time duration expected to elapse before a subject client is connected to a resource for servicing. The expected wait time augmentation system comprises an interface to a work force management system for obtaining resource availability data and a wait time augmentation model for calculating an expected wait time value as a function of base expected wait time data and the resource availably data. The estimated wait time value is provided to the subject client. The resource availability data includes, but is not limited to, for a period of time: i) availability of resources; and ii) a scheduled change in the availability of resources. The scheduled change in the availability of resources may comprise a combination of data representing an effective time and a quantity of resources scheduled to be available at the effective time.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 2, 2005
    Date of Patent: November 26, 2013
    Assignee: Virtual Hold Technology, LLC
    Inventors: Mark Williams, Eric Camulli, James Pavlic, Ryszard Antonczyk