The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jun. 18, 1996
Filed:
Dec. 27, 1993
Marc P Kaplan, Aberdeen, NJ (US);
AT&T Corp., Murray Hill, NJ (US);
Abstract
A cooperative network/premises-based automatic call distributor system and method is provided which minimizes networking costs associated with distributing calls to telemarketing agents in multiple locations, minimizes delays in providing desired services to callers, and improves the efficiency of telemarketing agents. A call directed to a telemarketing complex arrives at the network. The caller automatic number identification (ANI) and an identifying tag are forwarded via a data connection to a telemarketing agent management system which identifies an available and desired agent to service the call, and launches a call to the network location associated with the original caller, thus completing the connection. The telemarketing agent management system selects an appropriate agent based on data received from the telemarketing complex and from the network. Interactive queuing may also be performed by the network to provide additional information to assist call distribution and telemarketing agent response. In a further embodiment, the telemarketing agent management system may retrieve caller profile information while the revertive call is launched to the network location associated with the caller. In addition, telemarketing agents may be strategically assigned a priori to network switch locations resulting in superior call setup characteristics for certain calls.