Method and system for managing interactive communications campaigns
View Patent ↗A web-based solution through which business entities create and manage communications campaigns, such as campaigns that afford target recipients an opportunity to be connected to a third party call center. A web interface is provided to enable a business entity customer to create a set of one or more rules that, when triggered during the campaign, cause the solution to take certain control actions in real-time, based on campaign performance. Preferably, this campaign performance is measured indirectly, i.e. without requiring a direct connection to an on-premises call center ACD. The interface provides the business entity customer with a convenient and easy-to-use display that identifies any rule that has been (or may be getting ready to be) triggered, together with a then current status of the campaign. The system takes a control action (e.g., campaign suspension, adjusting an outbound call rate, or the like) when a customer-configurable rule is triggered.
1. An apparatus comprising:
a set of machines each comprising a processor, and a memory holding program instructions that are executed by the processor;
one or more web servers executing on the machines and configured to enable a plurality of business entities to each create an interactive communications campaign, each campaign including a set of one more rules that may be triggered during the campaign;
a telephony server, executing on one of the machines, configured to initiate outbound calls to recipients over a plurality of voice connections during the campaign for a respective one of the business entities, and to offer an option to a recipient of an outbound call to connect, via a voice connection through the telephony server, to a third party contact center having an automatic call distributor (ACD); and
an application server executing on one of the machines (i) to monitor the voice connections through the telephony server as the campaign for a respective one of the business entities is executed to infer a contact center performance metric, wherein the contact center performance metric is inferred without requiring a direct data connection from the ACD of the third party contact center, (ii) to evaluate the contact center performance metric to determine whether a rule from the set of one or more rules has been triggered, (iii) to take a given action if the rule has been triggered, and (iv) to provide information identifying the rule, together with a status of the given campaign;
at least one of the web servers being further adapted to serve a web page to the respective business entity, the web page identifying the status of campaign as determined by the application server.
2. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the status is a display icon having at least first and second states.
3. The apparatus of claim 2 , wherein, with respect to a given contact center performance metric, the first state indicates that a rule from the set of rules has been triggered, and the second state indicates that a rule has been triggered that has caused an adjustment to the campaign.
4. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the application sever updates the information identifying the rule and the status of a campaign.
5. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the given action comprises adjusting a call rate for the campaign.
6. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the contact center performance metric comprises a call failure rate.
7. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the given action comprises suspending the campaign.
8. An apparatus comprising:
a processor; and
a memory coupled to the processor, wherein the memory stores instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to:
receive information regarding an interactive communications campaign, the information comprising a plurality rules that may be triggered during the interactive communications campaign;
initiate outbound calls to recipients of the interactive communications campaign over a plurality of voice connections during the interactive communications campaign;
offer an option to a recipient from among the recipients to connect, by way of a voice communication channel, to a third party contact center having an automatic call distributor (ACD);
monitor the voice connections to infer a contact center performance without requiring a direct data connection from the ACD of the third party contact center;
determine whether or not a rule from the plurality of rules is triggered based on the contact center performance;
take a given action in response to the rule being triggered; and
transmit a signal to display information identifying the rule and a status of the campaign on a display of a device accessible to an entity associated with the third party contact center.
9. The apparatus of claim 8 , wherein the status is a display icon having at least first and second states.
10. The apparatus of claim 9 , wherein the first state indicates that a rule from the set of rules has been triggered, and the second state indicates that a rule has been triggered that has caused an adjustment to the campaign.
11. The apparatus of claim 8 , wherein the instructions further cause the processor to update the information identifying the rule and the status of a campaign.
12. The apparatus of claim 8 , wherein the given action comprises adjusting a call rate for the campaign.
13. The apparatus of claim 8 , wherein the contact center performance metric comprises a call failure rate.
14. The apparatus of claim 8 , wherein the given action comprises suspending the campaign.
15. An method comprising:
receiving, by a processor, information regarding an interactive communications campaign, the information comprising a plurality rules that may be triggered during the interactive communications campaign;
initiating, by the processor, outbound calls to recipients of the interactive communications campaign over a plurality of voice connections during the interactive communications campaign;
offering, by the processor, an option to a recipient from among the recipients to connect, by way of a voice communication channel, to a third party contact center having an automatic call distributor (ACD);
monitoring, by the processor, the voice connections to infer a contact center performance without requiring a direct data connection from the ACD of the third party contact center;
determining, by the processor, whether or not a rule from the plurality of rules is triggered based on the contact center performance;
taking, by the processor, a given action in response to the rule being triggered; and
transmitting, by the processor, a signal to display information identifying the rule and a status of the campaign on a display of a device accessible to an entity associated with the third party contact center.
16. The method of claim 15 , wherein the status is a display icon having at least first and second states, wherein the first state indicates that a rule from the set of rules has been triggered, and the second state indicates that a rule has been triggered that has caused an adjustment to the campaign.
17. The method of claim 8 , wherein the instructions further cause the processor to update the information identifying the rule and the status of a campaign.
18. The method of claim 8 , wherein the given action comprises adjusting a call rate for the campaign.
19. The method of claim 8 , wherein the contact center performance metric comprises a call failure rate.
20. The method of claim 8 , wherein the given action comprises suspending the campaign.