International Business Machines Corporation

Todd A Mueller

Jeffrey Alan Schmidt

Dennis D Koski

Gary R Brophy

Doyle J McCoy

Adam D Braham

Approaches presented herein enable assignment of translated work to an agent in a support environment based on a confidence factor that measures accuracy of translation and an agent's language skill. Specifically, agent proficiencies in a set of natural languages are measured and scored. An incoming communication is translated into one or more natural languages and each language translation is assigned a translation score based on a confidence of translation. The skill score and translation score are utilized to calculate a confidence factor for each language. In one approach, the communication is assigned to an agent that has a confidence factor greater than a predetermined threshold confidence factor. In another approach, the communication is only assigned if a rule optimizing agent availability and risk of constrained resources is satisfied.

Language translation and work assignment optimization in a customer support environment

An approach to control workflow so that a relatively high priority work item can sometimes be automatically controlled by software to interrupt work being performed, by one or more resource unit(s), on a relatively lower priority work item. The analysis for deciding whether or not an interruption occurs depends upon interruptibility scalars (that is, interruptibility quotients and/or factors) and interruptibility threshold(s).

Dynamically altering selection of already-utilized resources

Approaches presented herein enable assignment of translated work to an agent in a customer support environment based on a confidence factor that measures accuracy of translation and an agent's language skill. Specifically, agent proficiencies in a set of natural languages are measured and scored. An incoming customer communication is translated into one or more natural languages and each language translation is assigned a translation score based on a confidence of translation. The skill score and translation score are utilized to calculate a confidence factor for each language. In one approach, the customer communication is assigned to an agent that has a confidence factor greater than a predetermined threshold confidence factor. In another approach, the communication is only assigned if a rule optimizing agent availability and risk of constrained resources is satisfied.

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Rochester, MN, United States of America

Todd A Mueller