Avaya Technology LLC

Lucent Technologies Inc.

At&t Bell Laboratories

Thomas S Fisher

Roy A Jensen

Martin Ira Reiman

Andrew Derek Flockhart

Eugene P Mathews

Joylee E Kohler

Robert Daniel Nalbone

Rodney Allen Thomson

Frank J Bogart

Paul Lawrence Richman

SuJeanne Foster

Marty I Reiman

Raechel Greschler

Martin R Losty

Edward L Smelko

Fatsing Chou

A system for using an under-utilized data channel for carrying additional data, in a network mode. One such channel is the D-channel in the ISDN system. In one implementation, a group of telephone call centers share data, using the D-channel, about the lengths of time incoming callers must wait before being answered. Using the shared data, the call centers collectively route incoming calls to call centers having smaller waiting times.

Ring network implemented by telephony switches and links

An automated transaction distribution system assigns an incoming transaction (call, text chat, email, fax, etc.) to an agent who is selected to handle the transaction. If the best agent to select is not available because he or she is handling another transaction, taking a break, in a meeting, or otherwise unavailable, the incoming transaction may still be assigned if the selected agent is expected to become available within an acceptable time period for that type of transaction.

Automated transaction distribution system and method implementing transaction distribution to unavailable agents

The system for automatically routing calls to call center agents in an agent surplus condition provides the call center administrator with an automatic agent assignment paradigm which functions to automatically increase the efficiency of assigning multiple skill agents to contacts. The presence of an agent surplus condition provides the present system with a plurality of choices in the assignment of the agent to process a presently received contact. Since the agents who staff the call center include multiple skill agents, the system must make a determination of not only which of the available agents is the best equipped to handle the present contact, but also how that assignment statistically effects the efficiency of successive assignments of agents to contacts next received, based upon the past performance of the agents and the call center. Since the traffic load presented to the call center tends to be highly variable and of content that is difficult to predict, the present system provides several automatic agent assignment paradigms that each have a statistically different impact on the performance of the call center, based upon the quality and quantity of the incoming calls.

System for automatically predicting call center agent work time in a multi-skilled agent environment

System for automatically routing calls to call center agents in an agent surplus condition based on service levels

The system for automatically routing calls to call center agents provides the call center administrator with an automatic agent assignment paradigm which functions to automatically increase the efficiency of assigning multiple skill agents to contacts. The presence of an agent surplus condition provides the present system with a plurality of choices in the assignment of the agent to process a presently received contact. Since the agents who staff the call center include multiple skill agents, the system must make a determination of not only which of the available agents is the best equipped to handle the present contact, but also how that assignment statistically effects the efficiency of successive assignments of agents to contacts next received, based upon the past performance of the agents and the call center. Since the traffic load presented to the call center tends to be highly variable and of content that is difficult to predict, the present system provides several automatic agent assignment paradigms that each have a statistically different impact on the performance of the call center, based upon the quality and quantity of the incoming calls.

System for automatically routing calls to call center agents in an agent surplus condition based on delay probabilities

System for automatically routing calls to call center agents in an agent surplus condition based on agent occupancy

In a skills-based ACD, an agent is selected to handle a call based on which available agent's handling of the call will produce the least deviation from the agent's target performance criteria, and a call is selected for handling by an agent based on which available call's handling will produce the least deviation from the agent's target performance criteria. Illustrative target performance criteria include target per-agent per-skill skill work time to staff time ratios. Moreover, the selected call is left waiting and the selected agent is left idle if handling of the call by the agent would increase deviation from the agent's target performance criteria. This serves to equalize the levels of service given to small skills (those staffed with few agents) and large skills (those staffed with many agents).

Arrangement for equalizing levels of service among skills

An arrangement for lookahead interflowing traffic among a plurality of serving sites of one customer. Incoming calls received at a site are queued if they cannot be served immediately. Queued calls are then examined periodically and if the call has not yet been served by a local agent and if the call is one of the oldest call in the queue, then the call is a candidate for lookahead interflow. A candidate for lookahead interflow causes a message to be sent to another switch requesting that the call be interflowed. If the other switch accepts the call, the call is routed to that other switch; if the other switch does not accept the interflowed call then the call remains in the queue of the requesting switch and is reexamined at the next period. All calls in the queue are completed to a local agent if a local agent is available.

Lookahead interflow of traffic among a plurality of serving sites of one

Transferring administration information from a switching system to a computer telephony integration (CTI) terminal via a standard telecommunication link by the CTI terminal executing a feature on the switching system. Advantageously, the information is transferred from the switching system to the CTI terminal utilizing standard display messages as would be displayed on a voice terminal having a display unit. Further, the user of the CTI terminal can request only subsets of the system administration information. Using a voice terminal having a display unit, the user can access individual segments of the administration information.

Telecommunication feature for exchange of translation information

A call-distribution function (150) of an ACD system (101) improves the equity of distribution of calls to agents (106-108) by basing the distribution on the agents' individual occupancies. Illustratively, determining an agent's occupancy involves either determining (304) how many calls the agent has handled within a predetermined time interval, or determining (305) how much time of a predetermined time interval the agent has spent on handling of calls. The occupancy is periodically re-determined, and a next call is allocated to the presently least-occupied one of agents who are available to take the call, or to an agent to whose occupancy the allocation will be most beneficial, such as an available agent to whom allocation of the call will maximize convergence of actual and target occupancies. A queue (135) of agents available is ordered in the inverse order of the agent's occupancies, and a newly-available agent is slotted (inserted) (306) into the queue in a position (202) that ensures the continued inverse ordering of the agent queue. The occupancies of agents are then re-determined (308) and the agents are re-enqueued (310) accordingly.

Call distribution based on agent occupancy

Subscribers (100-108) of an electronic mail system (1-2) service are divided into a plurality of subscriber communities (30-34). Subscribers in each community have common rights of access to one or more communication service--the sending and receiving of mail messages--which rights are generally different from those of subscribers in other communities. Permissions to send and receive messages between any two communities are specified on each mail system in a permissions matrix (40), wherein each row (41) represents a different sender community, each column (42) represents a different recipient community, and the value stored at their intersection (43) indicates the permission vis-a-vis the two communities. A function (50) is invoked on the sender's mail system (1,2) at message addressing, and on the sender's and recipients' mail systems (1,2) at message delivery, to enable or prevent (FIG. 3) message sending or delivery according to the matrix-specified permissions. Optionally, a message-associated permission (410) may be used to override matrix-specified permissions.

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Westminster, CO, United States of America

Thomas S Fisher