Method and system for managing interactive communications campaigns with call pacing
View Patent ↗A web-based hosted solution (a managed service or system) through which business entities create and manage communications campaigns, such as interactive campaigns that afford target recipients an opportunity to be connected to a contact center. The managed service carries out a communications campaign on behalf of a client. A “campaign” refers to a series of calls to a contact list using one or more sub-campaigns. A sub-campaign associates a list of contacts, a script, and a timeframe. An “agent” typically is a contact center operator. A “skill group” is a set of agents that are trained to handle a given script. Call pacing enhancements are implemented to allow simultaneous progress on multiple sub-campaigns under a skill group. The techniques enable control over the pacing of individual sub-campaigns when multiple sub-campaigns are running under a single skill group. The service also provides a framework by which a set of “pluggable” pacing models are provisioned and managed, preferably on a per-model basis.
1. Apparatus for managing interactive communications campaigns, wherein a given campaign comprises one or more sub-campaigns, the apparatus comprising a processor, and computer memory holding computer program instructions executed by the processor to perform a method comprising:
(a) determining a number of agents that have been requested for a skill group;
(b) based on the determination and a number of running passes in each sub-campaign, offering use of all or a portion of the agents to the running passes in each sub-campaign;
(c) projecting a use requirement for each sub-campaign; and
(d) setting a rate for each pass at a rate to maintain busy either a number of agents projected by the pass, or a number of agents offered to the pass, whichever is smaller;
wherein steps (a)-(d) are repeated periodically or as a result of given system events.
2. The apparatus as described in claim 1 wherein the method further includes the steps of:
determining if a first pass needs to use all agents offered to it;
if the first pass does not need to use all agents offered to it, offering at least some of the agents to a second pass that had previously been offered fewer agents than the second pass had projected it would use.
3. The apparatus as described in claim 1 wherein the given system events include one of: starting a new sub-campaign, and pausing a sub-campaign.
4. The apparatus as described in claim 1 wherein the projecting step uses data from at least one of: use requirements from another sub-campaign, an average of use requirements from a currently running sub-campaign, and use requirements as evidenced by recent activity in the sub-campaign for which the projection is being done.
5. The apparatus as described in claim 1 wherein a given sub-campaign has associated therewith a priority.
6. The apparatus as described in claim 5 wherein step (b) is based on the determination of the number of agents, the priority of the given sub-campaign, and a number of running passes in each sub-campaign.
7. The apparatus as described in claim 1 wherein the method further includes adjusting the rate.
8. The apparatus as described in claim 7 wherein the rate is adjusted at a sub-campaign level.
9. The apparatus as described in claim 7 wherein the rate is adjusted at a skill group level.
10. Apparatus for managing interactive communications campaigns, wherein a given campaign comprises one or more sub-campaigns, the apparatus comprising a processor, and computer memory holding computer program instructions executed by the processor to perform a method comprising:
pacing individual sub-campaigns of a set of multiple sub-campaigns running under a skill group such that concurrent progress is made on the multiple sub-campaigns; and
selectively adjusting an intensity of a rate of an individual sub-campaign under the skill group.
11. The apparatus as described in claim 10 wherein a given sub-campaign in the set of multiple sub-campaigns has a priority associated therewith.
12. The apparatus as described in claim 11 wherein the priority is a weight selected from a set of weights.
13. The apparatus as described in claim 12 wherein the weight determines a number of agents offered to a given sub-campaign for a given pass.
14. An apparatus for managing interactive communications campaigns within a data processing system, wherein a given campaign comprises one or more sub-campaigns, the apparatus comprising:
a processor;
a computer memory holding computer program instructions that when executed by the processor perform a method comprising:
pacing individual sub-campaigns of a set of multiple sub-campaigns running under a skill group such that concurrent progress is made on the multiple sub-campaigns.
15. The apparatus as described in claim 14 wherein the method further includes:
selectively adjusting an intensity of a rate of an individual sub-campaign under the skill group.
16. The apparatus as described in claim 14 wherein the method further includes:
associating a priority to a given sub-campaign; and
based on the priority, determining a number of agents offered to a given sub-campaign for a given pass.
17. The apparatus as described in claim 1 wherein the given campaign is a multi-channel campaign.
18. The apparatus as described in claim 10 wherein the given campaign is a multi-channel campaign and at least one individual sub-campaign is associated with a communications channel that differs from a communications channel associated with another sub-campaign.
19. The apparatus as described in claim 10 wherein an individual campaign is paced according to a pacing model selected from a set of pacing models.
20. The apparatus as described in claim 14 wherein an individual campaign is paced according to a pacing model selected from a set of pacing models.