Customer-enabled evaluation and control of communication center agent contact
View Patent ↗A communication center has agents operating at workstations and enabled to interact with customers, a router for routing incoming transactions from customers to agents, and routing rule sets associated with specific customers. Individual ones of the rule sets include one or more contact constraints set by the customer associated with the rule set.
1. A communication center comprising:
a processor; and
a memory coupled to the processor, wherein the memory has stored thereon instructions that, when executed by the processor, causes the processor to:
identify a particular customer in response to an incoming transaction;
identify a preference of the particular customer to be routed or avoid being routed to a particular agent; and
in response to the particular agent being identified as an only available agent, and further in response to the preference of the particular customer being set as desiring to avoid being routed to the particular agent, transmit a notification to the particular customer of an opportunity for a later transaction when another agent is available.
2. The communication center of claim 1 , further comprising:
a router coupled to the processor, the router configured to route the later transaction to the other agent in response to the other agent being identified as being available.
3. The communication center of claim 1 , wherein the preference is set after a previous transaction between the particular customer and the particular agent.
4. The communication center of claim 1 , wherein the preference is set through interaction between the particular customer and an interactive voice response server (IVR).
5. The communication center of claim 1 , wherein the preference is set through interaction between the particular customer and a web site.
6. The communication center of claim 1 , wherein the incoming transaction is a live transaction.
7. The communication center of claim 6 , wherein the live transaction is a real-time voice transaction.
8. The communication center of claim 6 , wherein the live transaction is a real-time text transaction.
9. A method for managing a contact preference in a communication center, the method comprising:
identifying, by a processor, a particular customer in response to an incoming transaction;
identifying, by the processor, a preference of the particular customer to be routed or avoid being routed to a particular agent; and
in response to the particular agent being identified as an only available agent, and further in response to the preference of the particular customer being set as desiring to avoid being routed to the particular agent, transmitting, by the processor, a notification to the particular customer of an opportunity for a later transaction when another agent is available.
10. The method of claim 9 , further comprising:
routing, by a router coupled to the processor, the later transaction to the other agent in response to the other agent being identified as being available.
11. The method of claim 9 , wherein the preference is set after a previous transaction between the particular customer and the particular agent.
12. The method of claim 9 , wherein the preference is set through interaction between the particular customer and an interactive voice response server (IVR).
13. The method of claim 9 , wherein the preference is set through interaction between the particular customer and a web site.
14. The method of claim 9 , wherein the incoming transaction is a live transaction and the live transaction is a real-time voice transaction.
15. The method of claim 9 , wherein the incoming transaction is a live transaction and the live transaction is a real-time text transaction.
16. A router for routing transactions to agents in a communication center, wherein the router is configured to:
identify a customer upon receiving a transaction to route;
access stored rule sets associated with a plurality of customers; and
find a stored rule set associated with the customer who initiated the transaction, and apply the rule set in routing the transaction,
wherein individual ones of the rule sets include one or more constraints created and/or edited by the customer associated with the rule set, said one or more constraints including at least a preference for contact or for avoiding contact with a particular agent of the agents in the communication center, wherein if the particular agent is an only agent of the agents available at a time of a live transaction from the customer, routing the transaction to the particular agent if the constraint is set for contact and notifying the customer if the constraint is set for avoiding contact and offering the customer an opportunity to call back when the constraint can be met.
17. The router of claim 16 , wherein rule sets are initiated or edited by the customer during or after interaction with the particular agent of the communication center.
18. The router of claim 17 , wherein a mechanism for initiating or editing is an interactive voice response server with functionality for interacting with the customer.
19. The router of claim 17 , wherein a mechanism for initiating or editing a rule set is a web site.
20. The router of claim 16 , wherein the live transaction is a real-time voice transaction or text transaction.