Adaptive Message Distribution via Thread Locking
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing communication systems face challenges in ensuring timely and exclusive coverage of customer interactions across multiple channels, such as text-based communications, voice telephony, and email, while preventing concurrent responses from agents tasked with coverage.
Innovation Solution
A system where a customer's thread is owned for routing purposes by a group of agents, with an adaptive rules engine managing incoming communications and using message locks to prevent concurrent responses, allowing dynamic and adaptive routing based on messaging history, interaction history, and agent actions.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a single agent is assigned to own a customer thread, then communication continuity and exclusivity are improved, but coverage and responsiveness to incoming requests deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the thread ownership concept into two distinct layers: (1) a primary owner agent who maintains communication continuity and exclusivity, and (2) a group of backup agents who provide coverage and can take over if needed. This segmentation allows the system to simultaneously achieve both continuous exclusive communication and high coverage responsiveness.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary actions by pre-assigning a group of backup agents to each thread before any communication issue arises. These backup agents are ready to take over immediately if the primary owner becomes unavailable, thus maintaining both continuity and coverage without conflict.
2Productivity
If multiple agents can respond to a customer thread, then coverage and responsiveness are improved, but concurrent responses and communication conflicts increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an intermediary mechanism - a lock manager component - that mediates between multiple backup agents and the customer thread. This lock manager coordinates access, allowing multiple agents to be notified and ready to respond, but ensuring only one agent can actually send a message at a time, thus maintaining high coverage while preventing harmful concurrent responses.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements feedback through real-time status monitoring of thread ownership and agent availability. When the primary owner is unavailable, the system provides feedback to backup agents, enabling them to take over. This feedback mechanism ensures coordinated responses without conflicts while maintaining high coverage.
3Adaptability or versatility
If thread ownership is dynamically transferred between agents, then flexibility and adaptability are improved, but system complexity and overhead increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements dynamic thread ownership where the primary owner agent can be automatically transferred to a backup agent based on real-time conditions such as availability, workload, and communication patterns. This dynamic adjustment provides flexibility and adaptability while the automated nature of the transfer minimizes the complexity overhead through rule-based decision making.
Data Source
AI summary
The problem of ensuring coverage for an inbound communication from a customer while also preventing concurrent responses from members of the agent group tasked with said coverage is solved by a system where a customer's thread is owned for routing purposes not by a single user but by a group of users, only one of whom is allowed to communicate with the customer until a timer expires or the thread is explicitly unlocked. Communication channels may include text messaging, voice telephony and email. In various embodiments, an adaptive rules engine is utilized to route incoming customer communications as well as outbound responses. A combination of communication/message locks and communication/messaging cache levels are used in some embodiments to provide communication/messaging coverage and to resolve competition between responding agents to address concurrency. Customer/agent communications which use multiple communication channels are threaded in an agent user interface.