| Patent Number |
Title Of Patent |
Date Issued |
| 7500241 |
Method and apparatus for scheduling tasks |
March 3, 2009 |
| A scheduler system for use in connection with a resource allocation system is provided. According to the present invention, a plurality of queues are provided for scheduling the delivery of tasks or events to a resource. Each of the provided queues may have a different threshold time |
| 6999579 |
Method and apparatus for the efficient utilization of trunk bandwidth in a global enterprise |
February 14, 2006 |
| The present invention relates to the operation of interconnected switches or call centers. In particular, the present invention allows communication bandwidth to be conserved, by providing audible feedback from a switch that is relatively local to a caller, even though a call center |
| 6947543 |
Computer-telephony integration that uses features of an automatic call distribution system |
September 20, 2005 |
| In a computer-telephony integrated (CTI) contact center, a CTI adjunct (160) enqueues contacts in contact queues (184) of the CTI adjunct, but also causes contacts that are calls (168) to be enqueued as ACD calls in ACD call queues (120) of an ACD system (101), whereby the ACD system and |
| 6820260 |
Customized applet-on-hold arrangement |
November 16, 2004 |
| When a call to a call center is enqueued to await an agent or placed on hold by an agent, an applet customized to satisfy an in-queue experience selected by the caller is downloaded to and executed on the caller's terminal. The applet presents information to the caller, and may also |
| 6766014 |
Customer service by batch |
July 20, 2004 |
| In a customer contact center (100), a plurality of customers' communications are serviced simultaneously by one resource (120-128) (agent or port). A conferencing function (136) connects the plurality of customers (110-118) to the one resource and/or to each other. When a resource be |
| 6766013 |
Timely shut-down of a real-time work center |
July 20, 2004 |
| A call center (100) rejects further calls when the sum of the present time, the anticipated call in-queue wait time (112), and the anticipated call service time (114) for this type (106-108) of call exceeds the closing time of the call center. The call center may redirect the rejected ca |
| 6754333 |
Wait time prediction arrangement for non-real-time customer contacts |
June 22, 2004 |
| The present invention is directed to a contact center and methodology for servicing non-real-time contacts. The advance time for the non-real-time contacts is determined by subtracting the time of service for an earlier item from the time of service for a later item. Items that are servi |
| 6748073 |
Uninterrupted automatic call distribution during failure and recovery of computer-telephony inte |
June 8, 2004 |
| In a computer integrated telephony call center where an adjunct host (160) normally controls enqueuing of calls (168) in call queues (120) of an ACD system (101) and corresponding call queues (120') of the adjunct host and assigning of the enqueued calls to agents, the ACD system assumes |
| 6741699 |
Arrangement for controlling the volume and type of contacts in an internet call center |
May 25, 2004 |
| The present invention provides a method and system for controlling call volume into a call center. The method and system provides the contacting entity with a file of information for viewing that encourages or discourages continuance of the contact or initiation of another contact wi |
| 6707903 |
Automated workflow method for assigning work items to resources |
March 16, 2004 |
| An automated method for servicing a plurality of work items within committed times. A workflow including two or more work activities is assigned for each of the plurality of work items and a commitment is assigned either to each workflow or to each work item in each workflow. Queued |
| 6694009 |
Estimation of a work item's wait-time from the present stages of processing of preceding work it |
February 17, 2004 |
| To improve the prediction of wait times of calls (23) waiting to be processed, or to improve the prediction of completion times of calls that are presently being processed, in low-volume call centers (10) or splits/skills (21), additional data points are created--either manually or a |
| 6678371 |
Direct customer control of a network router |
January 13, 2004 |
| An entity of a private communications network (24, 26, 28), such as a controller (70) of an ACD system (24), controls the operation of a network router (30) of a public communications network (12, 14, 16), thereby eliminating the need in a network-routing system to send sensitive event |
| 6463346 |
Workflow-scheduling optimization driven by target completion time |
October 8, 2002 |
| The flow of work items (40) through a workflow process (50) is optimized by repeatedly reordering (FIG. 3) work items enqueued in inbox queues (21) of workflow process tasks (500) to maximize results according to a given business strategy expressed through target times. Each enqueued wor |
| 6366668 |
Method of routing calls in an automatic call distribution network |
April 2, 2002 |
| The alternate destination redirection (ADR) feature (102) of telephone switching systems (101) or an equivalent is used to implement a "post-route" routing architecture having the benefits of a "pre-route" routing architecture in a network ACD (FIG. 1). The ADR feature is administere |
| 6295353 |
Arrangement for efficiently updating status information of a network call-routing system |
September 25, 2001 |
| Call centers (143-145) use an event-driven scheme (207) with a filter (366) to send status updates to an associated network call-routing system (150). The filter ensures that only minimal status changes are not reported to the network call-routing system. Each call center records (310) t |
| 6192122 |
Call center agent selection that optimizes call wait times |
February 20, 2001 |
| Selection of a suitable call-center agent (106-108) to handle a call is based on which available suitable agent's handling of the call will tend to optimize call wait times. When a call needing a particular skill becomes available (200), all skills of agents in the agent queue (131-139) |
| 6173053 |
Optimizing call-center performance by using predictive data to distribute calls among agents |
January 9, 2001 |
| Selection of a call-center agent (106-108) to handle a call is based on which available agent's handling of the call will tend to optimize call-center performance criteria such as efficiency (e.g., minimize per-call handling time) or derived benefit (e.g., maximize revenue). Each age |
| 6163607 |
Optimizing call-center performance by using predictive data to distribute agents among calls |
December 19, 2000 |
| Selection of a call for handling by a call-center agent (106-108) is based on which call's handling by the available agent will tend to optimize call-center performance criteria such as efficiency (e.g., minimize per-call handling time) or derived benefit (e.g., maximize revenue). Each |
| 6088441 |
Arrangement for equalizing levels of service among skills |
July 11, 2000 |
| In a skills-based ACD, an available agent is reserved and assigned to handle calls needing a "rare" skill of the agent and is prevented from handling calls needing a "common" skill of the agent even if calls needing the common skill are waiting to be handled, if not reserving the agent f |
| 6064731 |
Arrangement for improving retention of call center's customers |
May 16, 2000 |
| In a call center (100) of a business, if it is determined (314-318 or 320) during the handling of a call involving a party who is a customer of the business that the party is at risk of being lost as a customer to the business, an identifier of the party, such as ANI, is captured (300) a |
| 5982873 |
Waiting-call selection based on objectives |
November 9, 1999 |
| Call-center (FIG. 1) performance is improved by assigning different service-time objectives (222) to different types of calls or to call queues (21) for different types of calls, and then selecting (212), for an agent (25) who has just become available (200) to handle a call, a waiting |
| 5905793 |
Waiting-call selection based on anticipated wait times |
May 18, 1999 |
| The maximum wait time for callers in a call center (FIG. 10) is lowered by selecting, for an agent (25) who has just become available to handle a call, a highest-priority waiting call that would most likely wait the longest if it were not selected at this time. Anticipated wait times are |
| 5828747 |
Call distribution based on agent occupancy |
October 27, 1998 |
| 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 cal |
| 5506898 |
Expected wait-time indication arrangement |
April 9, 1996 |
| In an automatic call distribution (ACD) system, an improved estimated waiting time arrangement derives a more accurate estimate of how long a call that is or may be enqueued in a particular queue will have to wait before being serviced by an agent, by using the average rate of advance of |
