Contact Center Routing for Personal Agent Wait Management
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Solution Overview
Problem
Contact centers face challenges in quickly connecting customers to agents with the required skills while minimizing wait times and network resource utilization, especially when personal agents are unavailable, leading to customer dissatisfaction and inefficient resource allocation.
Innovation Solution
The system identifies personal agents for customers and, if unavailable, offers wait options or connects to alternate agents, utilizing secondary routing information to manage communications effectively, reducing wait times and optimizing resource usage.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the system connects customers to agents with required skills, then service quality is improved, but wait time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces automated agents (bots) and interactive voice response (IVR) systems as intermediaries between customers and human agents. These intermediaries perform initial work item assessment, information gathering, and routing decisions, enabling faster customer connection while preserving the ability to transfer to skilled human agents when needed.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary actions by using automated agents to gather work item information, assess customer needs, and determine routing requirements before connecting to human agents. This preliminary assessment reduces the time needed for human agents to evaluate situations and enables more efficient routing decisions.
2Loss of time
If the system prioritizes quick connection to available agents, then wait time is reduced, but service quality deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements dynamic routing that adjusts connection priorities based on real-time conditions. The system evaluates work item complexity, customer preferences, agent availability, and skill requirements to dynamically determine whether to connect customers to available agents immediately or route them to more suitable agents, balancing speed with service quality.
Solution Approach 2:
The system segments the agent population into different categories (e.g., specialized skill agents, generalists, available now, becoming available soon) and segments routing decisions into multiple stages. This segmentation allows the system to quickly connect simple work items to available agents while reserving specialized agents for complex issues requiring specific skills.
3Ease of operation
If the system maintains calls on hold for personal agents, then customer satisfaction is improved, but network resource utilization deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The system implements periodic checking of personal agent availability rather than maintaining continuous hold connections. The routing system periodically queries agent status and proactively reconnects customers when their preferred agents become available, eliminating the need for sustained on-hold states and reducing network resource consumption.
Solution Approach 2:
The system allows customers to skip the wait for personal agents by offering alternative routing options. When personal agents are unavailable, customers can be immediately connected to available agents or alternative contacts, bypassing the time-consuming hold period while preserving the option to transfer to the personal agent later if needed.
Data Source
AI summary
Customers of a contact center are subject to a high level of processing in order to best match the customer's needs with an agent qualified to address those needs. However, such processing is often unwarranted, such as when the customer wishes to speak with their personal agent. When a customer is willing to forgo quickly being connected to the next available agent in favor of waiting to be connected with their designated personal agent, even if such a connection occurs at a later time, demands on processing and network resources is decreased. The customer, such as in a second communication, is connected with their personal agent to address the customer's needs.