Verizon Services Corporation

Sankar Subramanian

Mohammad Reza Shafiee

Establishing a conference between a customer at a customer terminal and a live agent at an agent station, by (a) accepting a call request from the customer terminal, (b) requesting that an available live agent take the call request, (c) when a live agent becomes available to take the call request, passing customer information to the agent station associated with the available live agent, and (d) establishing a conference from the agent station associated with the available live agent to the customer terminal. The conference may be an audio-video conference. The audio-video conference may be compliant with the H.323 standard. The call request may generated in response to an event sensed by an API which was previously downloaded to the customer terminal from a web server. The call request may be generated in response to a trigger event. The trigger event may be a customer request for a live agent, adding an item to a virtual shopping cart, adding items having a total purchase prices of more than a predetermined threshold to a virtual shopping cart, removing an item from a virtual shopping cart, dwelling at a certain web page for more than a predetermined length of time, rendering certain content, rendering a certain sequence of content, filling out a form, or issuing a particular command. The customer information may include an Internet protocol address of the customer terminal, a video capability of the customer terminal, and/or a browser type used by the customer terminal.

Methods and apparatus for providing live agent assistance

Establishing a (secure) synchronized (web) browsing session between a customer at a first terminal (such as a kiosk for example) and a live agent at an agent station. A session manager may be used to establish this session. The first terminal does not need to download an applet from the agent station. Typically, a call will have already been established between the customer and the live agent. The kiosk and/or the agent may control access to content based on locators to the content (e.g., URLs). The access control may be based on GO, No Go lists and/or rules.

Methods and apparatus for providing agent controlled synchronized browsing at a terminal

Establishing a (secure) synchronized (web) browsing session between a customer at a first terminal (such as a kiosk for example) and a live agent at an agent station. A session manager may be used to establish this session. The first terminal does not need to download an applet from the agent station. Typically, a call will have already been established between the customer and the live agent. The kiosk and/or the agent may control access to content based on locators to the content (e.g., URLs). The access control may be based on GO, NO GO lists and/or rules.

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Briarcliff Manor, NY, United States of America

Sankar Subramanian