Method and system for managing interactive communications campaigns
View Patent ↗A web-based hosted solution through which business entities create and manage communications campaigns, such as interactive 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 hosted 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. Rather, preferably all information about the call center's performance during the campaign is derived from information (gathered by the hosted solution) about calls delivered, or attempted to be delivered, to the call center. In effect, the call center performance is inferred, and this performance is then exposed to the business entity customer through a web-based interface. In particular, 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 is programmed to take a given control action (e.g., campaign suspension, adjusting an outbound call rate, or the like) when a customer-configurable rule is triggered.
1. Apparatus, comprising:
a set of machines, each machine comprising a processor, and computer memory holding program instructions that are executed by the processor;
a web server executing on one of the machines and through which a business entity creates and manages an interactive communications campaign, the campaign including a set of one more rules that may be triggered during the campaign;
a telephony server executing on one of the machines to initiate outbound calls to recipients over a plurality of voice connections during the campaign, wherein a recipient of an outbound call initiated by the telephony server is afforded an option 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 is executed to infer a contact center performance metric, (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 the business entity information identifying the rule, together with a status of the campaign;
wherein the contact center performance metric is inferred without requiring a direct data connection from the third party contact center ACD.
2. The apparatus as described in claim 1 , wherein the application server also notifies the business entity that the rule has been triggered.
3. The apparatus as described in claim 1 , wherein the given action suspends the campaign when the rule is triggered.
4. The apparatus as described in claim 1 , wherein monitoring the voice connections through the telephony server identifies a hang-up rate and the rule is triggered when the hang-up rate reaches a configurable threshold.
5. The apparatus as described in claim 1 , wherein monitoring the voice connections through the telephony server identifies a bad number rate and the rule is triggered when the bad number rate reaches a configurable threshold.
6. The apparatus as described in claim 1 , wherein monitoring the voice connections through the telephony server identifies a connect rate and the rule is triggered when the connect rate reaches a configurable threshold.
7. The apparatus as described in claim 1 , wherein the given action adjusts an outbound call rate of the campaign when the rule is triggered.
8. The apparatus as described in claim 1 , wherein monitoring the voice connections through the telephony server identifies a hold time and the rule is triggered when the hold time reaches a configurable threshold.
9. The apparatus as described in claim 1 , wherein monitoring the voice connections through the telephony server identifies a contact abandoned rate and the rule is triggered when the contact abandoned rate reaches a configurable threshold.
10. The apparatus as described in claim 1 , wherein monitoring the voice connections through the telephony server identifies a no answer rate and the rule is triggered when the no answer rate reaches a configurable threshold.
11. The apparatus as described in claim 1 , wherein monitoring the voice connections through the telephony server identifies an error rate and the rule is triggered when the error rate reaches a configurable threshold.
12. The apparatus as described in claim 1 , wherein monitoring the voice connections through the telephony server identifies a busy rate and the rule is triggered when the busy rate reaches a configurable threshold.
13. The apparatus as described in claim 1 , wherein the status provided to the business entity is a display icon having at least first, second and third states.
14. The apparatus as described in claim 1 , wherein, with respect to the contact center performance metric, the first state indicates that a rule from the set of rules has not been triggered, the second state indicates that a rule has been triggered that has caused an adjustment to an outbound call rate of the campaign, and the third state indicates that a rule has been triggered that has caused the campaign to be suspended.
15. The apparatus as described in claim 1 , wherein the application server updates the information identifying the rule and the status of the campaign.
16. The apparatus as described in claim 1 wherein the campaign includes one or more sub-campaigns, wherein a sub-campaign comprises a single pass through a contact list.
17. The apparatus as described in claim 1 wherein the set of machines comprise a service provider infrastructure that is accessible as a web-based hosted solution.
18. The apparatus as described in claim 17 wherein the service provider infrastructure is shared by a plurality of business entities creating and managing distinct interactive communications campaigns.