Method and system for managing interactive communications campaign with reduced customer-to-agent connection latency
View Patent ↗A web-based hosted solution through which business entities create and manage communications campaigns is described. To reduce latency of customer-to-agent connections, the system implements an agent stay-on-line function by which a persistent telephony connection is established and maintained between the system infrastructure and an available agent. In this manner, the agent may handle multiple customers while avoiding an ACD hold queue. In addition, preferably a service-side hold queue also is established and maintained on the service-side of the infrastructure. This hold queue maintains calls that are waiting to be connected to available agents. It ensures that any customer abandons do not impair the connections being established and maintained to the agents.
1. Apparatus, comprising:
an Internet-accessible infrastructure operating at a service provider domain, the Internet-accessible infrastructure comprising at least one web server, an application server, a telephony server, and a database, the Internet-accessible infrastructure adapted to enable business entities to create and manage interactive communications campaigns, wherein a given campaign comprises one or more sub-campaigns, the infrastructure including at least one hardware element and being in communication with a contact center having a set of agents;
code associated with the web server to provision a sub-campaign;
code associated with the telephony server to establish and maintain a persistent telephony connection to an agent that has been associated with the sub-campaign;
code associated with the telephony server to initiate outbound calls to one or more customers during the sub-campaign;
code associated with the application server to determine whether a first customer should be connected to an agent at the contact center;
code associated with the application server to connect the first customer to the agent over the persistent telephony connection;
code associated with the application server to determine whether the first customer has terminated an interaction with the agent; and
code associated with the application server to enable a second customer to be connected to the agent over the persistent telephony connection if the first customer has terminated the interaction with the agent.
2. The apparatus as described in claim 1 wherein the second customer is connected to the agent after receipt of data indicating that the agent has entered and completed an after call work (ACW) state associated with the first customer call.
3. The apparatus as described in claim 1 wherein the Internet-accessible infrastructure includes an administrative server to provide an accounting function.
4. The apparatus as described in claim 1 wherein the Internet-accessible infrastructure includes a reporting server.
5. The apparatus as described in claim 1 wherein an interactive communications campaign is one of: an account renewal campaign, a balance transfer or consolidation offer campaign, a billing issue campaign, a credit card activation campaign, a fraud alert campaign, a payment or past due reminder campaign, a phone or customer survey campaign, a debt recovery campaign, a late payment with right party verification campaign, a payment reminder with direct connect to call center campaign, an appointment reminder campaign, a welcome call campaign, an account renewal campaign, an affinity cross-sell/rewards program campaign, a crisis management/disaster recovery campaign, a new product offer campaign, an inquiry/web follow-up campaign, a contract renewal campaign, a service availability notification campaign, a promotional offer campaign, and a service delivery confirmation campaign.