Virtualization of one or more sets of physical contact center resources for use by one or more virtual contact centers
View Patent ↗A system for virtual representation of physical contact center resources includes a server coupled to a wide-area-network (WAN), a digital medium accessible to the server, and a resource virtualization application executable from the digital medium to run on the server, characterized in that at least one physical contact center having physical resources has access to the server over the network wherein the resource virtualization application categorizes and represents the physical resources in an abstract way for access by customers of one or more virtual contact centers.
1. A system for virtual representation of physical contact center resources comprising:
a server coupled to a wide-area-network (WAN);
a digital medium accessible to the server; and
a resource virtualization application executable from the digital medium to run on the server;
wherein at least one physical contact center having physical resources has access to the server over the network, and wherein the resource virtualization application categorizes and represents the physical resources in an abstract way for access by customers of one or more virtual contact centers, and wherein a virtual representation of a contact center resource is exposed only to a virtual contact center that requires the resource and can use the resource to transact business.
2. The system of claim 1 wherein the WAN is the Internet network including any connected sub networks.
3. The system of claim 1 wherein physical contact center resources are configured for representation as available virtual resources using a client portion of the resource virtualization application.
4. The system of claim 1 wherein the one or more virtual contact centers utilize the resources of one or more physical contact centers.
5. The system of claim 1 wherein a physical contact center resource is an automated system.
6. The system of claim 1 wherein a physical contact center resource is a live agent or a group of live agents.
7. The system of claim 1 wherein a virtual contact center may expose training materials and support information to one or more physical contact centers using a client portion of the virtualization application.
8. The system of claim 1 wherein the virtualization application includes an interaction management layer for virtually representing and tracking active interactions being processed by the available physical resources.
9. The system of claim 1 wherein the virtualization application includes a business management layer for keeping track of the business transacted through one or more virtual contact centers.
10. The system of claim 1 wherein the virtualization application includes a resource management layer for exposing resources and for providing reportable statistics about the use of and general states of those exposed resources.
11. A method for virtually representing a physical contact center resource to a specific customer base of a virtual contact center comprising the steps:
(a) providing one or more access points including contact data to the customer base;
(b) locating and qualifying the contact center resource for use by the customer base;
(c) representing the resource of step (b) as an abstract entity in a software interface accessible to a human operator authorized to provide services to the customer base;
(d) mapping the contact data provided to the customer base to the contact data of the contact center resource during routing; and
(e) exposing a virtual representation of a contact center resource only to a virtual contact center that requires the resource and can use the resource to transact business.
12. The method of claim 11 wherein in step (a) the one or more access points include a telephone switch and or a Web page.
13. The method of claim 11 wherein in the virtual contact center is visible through a client interface running on a computing device having a user display.
14. The method of claim 11 wherein in step (b) a directory is used to locate available resources and qualification thereof determined by matching capabilities with service requirements for resource utilization.
15. The method of claim 11 wherein in step (c) the resource is represented by one or more queue icons.
16. The method of claim 15 wherein the one or more queue icons represent an agent queue, a queue for an automated service, or a queue for a group of agents.
17. The method of claim 11 further including a step (e) for creating virtual interaction events and for tracking progress of the interactions through the virtual contact center.
18. The method of claim 11 wherein in step (b) physical resources may be added or removed based on current needs of the virtual contact center.