Lucent Technologies Inc.

Avaya Technology LLC

Avaya Inc.

Gregory L Anderson

Andrew Derek Flockhart

Eugene P Mathews

Richard Baxter Hull

Bharat Kumar

Robin Harris Foster

Vinod Anupam

Lucinda M Sanders

Mark Landers

Robert W Donnelly

Kevin George Irwig

The present invention is directed to a method and system for routing contacts in a contact center based on a number of factors including the value or nature of items in an order of the customer associated with the contact. The invention is particularly useful in E-commerce web-sites in which electronic orders are generated by the customer.

Routing based on the contents of a shopping cart

Techniques are provided for use in accordance with such systems as web sites operating electronic commerce (e-commerce) applications, interactive voice response (IVR) systems and workflow systems for providing automated monitoring of user activity and personalized action taking based on such activity, in accordance with an on-line decision support mechanism which combines formal and heuristic reasoning. In a web-based system, for example, the on-line decision support provided in accordance with the invention can be used in a wide variety of e-commerce applications requiring automated, real-time, intelligent interventions, including targeted promotions and discounts, assisting with navigation through self-help material, supporting dynamic price negotiations, and even selecting large portions of page content.

Methods and apparatus for automated monitoring and action taking based on decision support mechanism

To improve the prediction of wait times of calls ( ) waiting to be processed, or to improve the prediction of completion times of calls that are presently being processed, in low-volume call centers ( ) or splits/skills ( ), additional data points are created&mdash;either manually or automatically&mdash;during the processing of each call that is presently being processed, for use in effecting wait-time estimates of the waiting calls. At each of the plurality of points in the processing of each of the plurality of calls, information about the call that is relevant to how long completion of the processing of the call is likely to take is obtained ( ). This information is applied to historical information about previously-processed calls to estimate ( ) how long completion of the processing of each of those calls is likely to take, i.e., how long it will be before the agents ( ) who are processing those calls become available to handle the waiting calls. The estimated times are then used ( ) as the predicted wait times of that plurality of the waiting calls. The technique is applicable to workflow management in general.

Estimation of a work item's wait-time from the present stages of processing of preceding work items

The present media independent communications processing system functions to provide business useful services to customers with the anymedia resources that are required to satisfy the customer's request. In particular, the system carries call information across the entirety of a transaction with the call being managed as an anymedia multi-transactional event. The model used for the present media independent communications processing system, as embodied in a call center, comprises a hallways and rooms paradigm that enables the customer to dynamically navigate their anymedia communications connection to a desired information providing source. As the customer's call is routed during the duration of the communication session, the call context information is stored and used by the rules-based call routing process to identify a source of information/services that is best adapted to serve the needs of this customer. The communication connection is viewed as one segment of a potentially long-term interaction between customer and service provider, with the present media independent communications processing system providing both the customer and serving agent with access to relevant customer and service provider data. In this example, the customer context information includes, but is not limited to: customer data, customer profile/preferences/history, environment data; while the corresponding agent context information includes, but is not limited to: agent skills and job function, agent queue length, fairness of call routing.

System for context based media independent communications processing

A method (200-520) and an apparatus (118) for presenting information to a call center agent in a context-sensitive manner involves monitoring (314, 504) activities--such as keyboard or pointer input from an agent and information being displayed to the agent--at an agent position (140, 150) of a call center, receiving (318, 508) a request for information--such as directory information or a list of wrapup codes--from the agent, in response analyzing (322, 324, 512) the request within the context of the monitored activities to determine a subset of the requested information--such as selected telephone numbers or a selected wrapup code--which is most relevant to the monitored activities, and then either presenting (404, 408)--displaying--only the subset to the agent in response to the request, or presenting (410, 514) the requested information in a manner that emphasizes the subset over the rest of the requested information--such as by highlighting the subset. Preferably, the monitoring also includes monitoring (202) with whom the agent is presently engaged in a telephone call and what the telephone call is about, and the analyzing also includes analyzing (208, 304) the monitored activities to determine whether non-requested information is relevant to the monitored activities or what actions should be undertaken with respect to the call, and then giving an indication (216, 312) of the determination to the agent.

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Colleyville, TX, United States of America

Gregory L Anderson