Dynamic Agent Weighting for Omni-Channel Contact Routing
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Solution Overview
Problem
Contact centers face challenges in load balancing, leading to excessive wait times and potential user disconnection during busy periods due to fluctuating demand, as existing technologies struggle to optimize resource allocation across multiple channels effectively.
Innovation Solution
A computer-implemented method in a contact center that assigns a weighting factor to agents based on their availability and channel capabilities, calculating an adjusted availability score to route incoming contacts to the most suitable agent across multiple channels, ensuring optimal resource utilization and reducing wait times.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of time
If contact center resources are increased to handle peak demand, then user wait times are reduced, but operational costs increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements dynamic resource allocation by continuously adjusting agent availability scores and weighting factors based on real-time channel occupancy and contact priorities. This allows the system to adapt resource distribution to fluctuating demand patterns across multiple channels, reducing wait times during peak periods without requiring permanent increases in overall resource levels.
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes the parameters of agent availability by introducing weighted scores that reflect both current occupancy and channel-specific importance. By dynamically adjusting these parameters based on demand patterns, the system optimizes resource utilization to match actual needs, avoiding the need to maintain excessive resources for all channels simultaneously.
2Productivity
If agents are assigned to handle multiple channels, then resource utilization improves, but service quality for specific channels may deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by assigning different weighting factors to different channels based on their specific service requirements and priorities. High-priority channels receive higher weights, ensuring that agents handling those channels maintain higher availability standards. This allows multi-channel agents to serve multiple functions while maintaining specialized service quality for each channel type.
Solution Approach 2:
The system dynamically adjusts the availability score parameters for agents based on their current channel occupancy and the priority weights of different channels. This ensures that even when agents handle multiple channels, the routing system can identify and direct high-priority contacts to agents with appropriate availability levels, maintaining service quality while maximizing resource utilization.
3Productivity
If load balancing is optimized across all channels, then overall system efficiency improves, but complexity of management increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a universal routing framework that handles multiple channels through a single integrated system. The availability score calculation and weighting mechanism serve as a multi-functional tool that can evaluate agent suitability across different channels while accounting for channel-specific priorities. This universal approach simplifies management by providing a unified method for load balancing across diverse channels rather than requiring separate systems for each.
Solution Approach 2:
The system manages complexity by dynamically adjusting parameters such as channel weights and agent availability scores based on current conditions. This parameter-driven approach allows the system to automatically adapt to changing demands and priorities without requiring complex manual intervention, achieving efficient multi-channel load balancing through automated parameter optimization.
Data Source
AI summary
Managing occupancy of agents in a multi-channel contact center includes receiving an incoming contact assignable to a plurality of agents of the contact center; determining a respective availability score for each of the plurality of agents according to an agent selection strategy; and associating a respective weighting factor with each of the plurality of agents. Additionally, a respective adjusted availability score is calculated for each of the plurality of agents based on the associated respective weighting factor and the respective availability score; and the incoming contact is routed to one of the plurality of agents based on the adjusted availability scores. The described weighting strategies are particularly beneficial when applying the weighting factor across multiple channels (or media types), where each channel has its own demands.