System and Method for Pre-Authentication of Customer Support Calls

Abstract

To provide a system and a method that leverage multi-factor authentication features of a service provider and intelligent call routing so as to increase security and efficiency at a customer call center.SOLUTION: In a CRM service 900: incoming calls are forwarded to a pre-authentication filter; pre-authentication filter stores pre-authentication numbers received from an authorization server; incoming calls which have not been pre-authenticated are forwarded to an authentication queue 904; authentication logic 906 retrieves incoming calls from the authentication queue and cooperates with an authentication server to validate clients using any combination of authentication methods; and, once authenticated, calls are forwarded to a queue 908. Pre-authenticated incoming calls are forwarded directly from the pre-authentication filter to the queue, and the pre-authentication number is deleted from the pre-authentication filter. The queue stores authenticated calls assigned to agents 920-924 for handling by an agent assignment unit 910 in accordance with resource loading.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 9