Abstract: Derivative network profile is provided for determining a more complete picture of a customer on a social media website or websites for improved customer interactions. A customer may have a social media presence with any number of connections to other individuals, businesses, etc. As provided herein, the relevancy of those connections is determined within the context of a “seed” or business purpose. As a benefit, a customer who may share a substantial amount of information (e.g., funny videos, favorite sports teams, etc.) with a large pool of connections, may have a particular relationship identified (e.g., a more obscure relative who travels frequently) when a contact center is interacting with the customer with respect to the business purpose (e.g., providing travel-related services to the customer).

Abstract: Contact centers strive to match the demands and preferences of their customers with the skills and abilities of the agents who process work items associated with the customers (e.g., contacts). However, the preferred agent may be unavailable, non-existent, backlogged or otherwise ineligible to accept the work item. An agent who is non-preferred but still qualified may be utilized to process the work item, such as an agent with adequate skills with respect to a particular attribute of the work item. Reports for the selection of the non-preferred but qualified agents are provided herein. A contact center may then utilize such reporting to identify underserved areas of their customer base.

Abstract: Contact centers receive work items for processing by resources, such as human or automated agents. Social media has become a popular medium to receive work items and communicate with customers. Legal concerns, such as those focused on customer privacy, may limit gathering and/or storing of certain customer data on resources controlled by the contact center or require the deletion of data collected from a revoked prior authorization. Storing at least some data, such as a token, within a customer's social media website allows a contact center to maintain connections, transactions, or other information related to a customer or a specific transaction with a customer as long as the customer and/or social media website chose not to delete the token.

Abstract: Users may post issues and questions on public social media websites and other public forums. A business or product of the business may be the subject of the post. With a properly trained system the business can determined if another community member is likely provide and accurate, sufficient, and timely response to the post. If so, the business can avoid allocating resources to respond to such posts. However, if it is determined that an appropriate response is not likely, or not likely within an acceptable timeframe, the business may notify an agent to provide an appropriate response. As a benefit, the business may leverage a community of knowledgeable users to provide assistance to other users and thereby not expend resources unnecessarily.

Abstract: Correctly staffing retail settings is a challenge. While calendar based staffing decisions, such as increasing staffing for a holiday sale, may provide high-level staffing recommendations. The activities of customers may be monitored to provide a more granular staffing allocation. Customers who, for example, spend a certain duration of time within one portion of the retail setting may be determined to indicate a need for assistance and a staff member of the retail setting allocated to assist the customer or customers within an area with a spike in customer activity. Similarly, customers who indicate a desire to purchase an item requiring certain staff skills (e.g., verify customer identity, complete legal documents, lift heavy items, etc.) may be detected and an appropriate staff member allocated. As a result, the customer may receive assistance from staff members having the required skills to complete their purchase.

Abstract: Automated kiosks are often provided in retail settings to provide a convenient and cost-effective means to assist customers of the retail setting and as an alternative or supplement to human agents. Kiosks may work well for certain customers and actions, however, the customer and/or kiosk may fail to effectively interact with each other and leave the customer dissatisfied with the interaction. By determining a meta-meaning associated with a customer's actions with a kiosk, the kiosk may be able to determine whether an agent should be summoned to assist the customer. For example, a customer may be using the kiosk for an unusually long time. In response, an available agent may be notified and approach the customer to offer their assistance; without the customer explicitly requesting such assistance. As a benefit, the retail setting may appear more in-touch with the needs of the customer.

Abstract: Customer assistance is provided by leveraging certain contact center infrastructure components to a retail setting. Often contact centers have a wealth of information regarding individual products and services a retail setting may offer. The information, as provided herein, may then be delivered to the customer in the form of a dialogue. The dialogue may be based, in part, on a contact center dialogue for the same or similar item. The customer may then be instructed to perform an act, such as retrieving another item at a certain location. Unlike a contact center, the physical presence of the customer provides an opportunity to receive feedback in the form of monitor the customer's actions to determine if the customer complied with instructions. Optionally, a follow up activity may be imitated based on the customer's compliance.

Abstract: A server executing a social media identity and discovery application and method are provided that scan social networking sites for communications. The target content is found with content indicators when communications are put on a social networking site. The content is recorded and evaluated. If the identified content is contextually significant, the alias and the user account data and/or user data from public records are correlated based on keywords and/or events, and a notification of the correlation is sent to an agency, agent, or a contact center system. The agent or agency may verify that the identity of a poster has been accurately correlated with a customer record in the database or with user data from public records. The agent, the agency, or the system has the opportunity to respond to the communication, despite the anonymity of the poster on the social networking site.

Abstract: A social media network is monitored for postings of a control group. The control group is a group of one or more individuals that posts on a particular topic. The postings of the control group may cover all the postings of each member of the control group for a period of time. A first relative social media score is calculated for the postings of the control group on the social media network. A social media score is calculated for a social media posting of a user or entity on the social media network. The relative social media score for the control group is compared to the social media score for the user or entity to see if there is a significant difference. If there is a significant difference, an agent in a contact center to is identified respond to the social media posting of the user or entity.

Abstract: Handheld communication devices, such as smart phones, comprise a number of data gathering sensors. The sensors may be utilized to provide an agent of a contact center with situational information regarding the user of the handheld device. While global positioning systems (GPS) provides one means to locate a user of a communication device, GPS is not always available. However, by utilizing radio receivers, internal condition sensors, motion detectors, and other sensing components, a situation for a customer may be determined to supplement or substitute for GPS-determined location as well as to identify more relevant situations for the user beyond those provided by GPS provided location information.

Abstract: Businesses have long appreciated the advantages of anticipating potential customers' needs. Directing marketing activities towards non-customers, persons not having such a need, wastes resources of the business and may damage a business' reputation. By providing a location-based analysis of a user's activities, such as by an opt-in application for a mobile device carried by the user, subject matter relevant and timely information on goods and/or services of the business may be provided to the user.

Abstract: Contact centers often have a significant pool of troubleshooting information related to devices that a customer may own or have access to. Connecting the device to a resource of the contact center presents challenges as customers and device manufacturers are reluctant to provide direct connectivity from the device to a public network, such as the Internet. A customer communication device, such as a smart phone, with an application allows a user to broker a communication between a resource of a contact center and a device. As a benefit, the customer can see and control the types of communication occurring and approve or deny according to their comfort level. When the resource-device session is concluded, the link is terminated and cannot be resumed without again obtaining approval.

Abstract: A server executing a social media identity and discovery application and method are provided that scan social networking sites for communications. The target content is found with content indicators when communications are put on a social networking site. The content is recorded and evaluated. If the identified content is contextually significant, the alias and the private user data are correlated based on events, and a notification of the correlation is sent to an agent or a contact center system. The agent may verify that the identity of a poster has been accurately correlated with a customer record in the database. The agent or the system has the opportunity to respond to the communication, despite the anonymity of the poster on the social networking site.

Abstract: Contact centers handle contacts from any number of channels. One agent may be simultaneously handling several chats, emails, or other messages. Customers behind the contact often want to know how long of a wait time they are likely to experience before an agent begins to address their inquiry. Herein, techniques are provided whereby contacts currently, and/or enqueued, for one or more agents are examined to determine an estimated effort for each task. One message may represent a number of tasks each having an associated time estimate. Furthermore, messages from one channel may be more time consuming than messages from another channel. Such factors, and others, are considered and the customer may then be notified of an estimated wait time and, optionally, notified if another channel may provide a more expeditious option.

Abstract: Communications in a contact center may utilize one of a number of communications channels. Certain channels may operate at a lower cost or fewer resources while another channel is more secure and/or faster or otherwise better suited for a particular communication. A communication between an agent of a contact center and a customer may initially be on a first channel but during the communication a content indicator that the channel is inappropriate or less desirable than a second channel. Once such an event occurs, the communication on the first channel may be terminated and moved to a second communication channel.

Abstract: Social media websites occasionally experience a spike in activity known as a viral event or “going viral.” While some viral events are purely entertainment based, such as the latest cat video, other viral events can be specifically relevant to a domain, such as an industry or business. A social media event, such as a common thread of posts, may attract no more than the usual amount of interest or it may be about to “go viral.” As provided herein, social media events may be monitored and evaluated for virality. If an event indicates it will go viral, but has not yet done so, an affected party may be made aware of the event and take steps to curtail negative viral events or to leverage, or even promote, positive viral events.

Abstract: A contact center system can receive messages from social media sites or centers. The messages may include a problem encountered by a customer. The system can review messages to identify the problem and any solution provided in the social media. The system may then automatically retrieve, store, and repurpose the solution. Thus, the system uses the discovered solution to respond to future occurrences of the problem.

Abstract: Contact centers may incorporate automated agents to respond to inquiries. The inquiries may solicit a substantive response, for example, by providing a time when the inquiry asks for the departure time for a flight. Such responses omit the normal conversational subject matter used to embellish person-to-person conversations and appear are very machine-like. Herein, a source of user context, such as a social media website, customer database, or other data, is accessed. Certain aspects of the customer may then be identified and used to embellish the reply with additional and/or alternative content. As a result, the reply may be more conversational.

Abstract: An automated system for message analysis whereby messages within a given category may be identified and processed as a category connote. While a domain of messages may be monitored and processed in the due course of business, connote message are different. For example, a number of messages may fall into a domain of “poor airline food.” Such messages may be processed in the due course of business. However, a message with a different aspect, such as, “I found glass in my food,” may be initially identified as begin within the domain of “poor airline food,” and processed further to distinguish the message as being a connote with regard to the “poor airline food” category and warranting special handling.

Abstract: A dialog aggregator provided by a contact center communication system for text-based interaction chains is described along with various methods and mechanisms for administering the same. The dialog aggregator produces a summary, in real-time, of questions posed and existing answers in the interaction chain while identifying outstanding questions that have not been answered for display to an agent. The display includes any current answer the agent is working on as well as completed items and additionally executes rules based on the status of the remaining questions. The display in canonical form of the summary and outstanding question set enables a contact center agent or other observer of the interaction to quickly and efficiently assess the interaction history.