Contact Center Queue Management with Dropped-Call Wait Credit
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing contact center systems fail to account for previous disconnections in customer wait time calculations, leading to unfair treatment and increased frustration when customers are forced to restart their queue position after a call is dropped.
Innovation Solution
The customer queue manager system tracks and accumulates wait times from previous calls using unique customer identifiers, adjusting the total queue time to maintain a fair position in the queue based on previous and present wait times.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If customers are placed in queue based on first-come-first-served basis for each call separately, then the queue management is simple, but customers experience unfair treatment and frustration when calls are dropped
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by tracking and storing customer wait time information in a database before the customer experiences the problem. When a customer calls back after a dropped call, the system has already prepared the wait time credit mechanism, automatically retrieving and applying the previous wait time without requiring customer intervention or complex manual processes.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements feedback by continuously monitoring call status and automatically adjusting queue position based on previous wait times. When a call is dropped or completed, the system feeds back this information to the queue management system, which then modifies the customer's position in subsequent queues, creating a closed-loop system that adapts to customer experiences.
2Reliability
If the system tracks and accumulates wait times from multiple calls, then customer fairness is improved, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system introduces a database as an intermediary component that stores customer wait time information. This mediator separates the complexity of tracking and accumulating data from the queue management logic, allowing the queue system to simply retrieve and apply pre-stored wait time credits without implementing complex tracking algorithms directly.
Solution Approach 2:
The system creates a copy of the customer's wait time information and stores it in the database under their identifier. This copy mechanism allows the system to preserve and transfer wait time data across multiple calls without requiring the original call context to be maintained, simplifying the data persistence and retrieval process.
3Object-affected harmful factors
If previous wait times are credited to current queue position, then customer frustration is reduced, but calculation complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system changes the parameter used for queue positioning from simple call arrival time to an adjusted parameter that incorporates cumulative wait time credits. By modifying the queue position calculation to include this additional parameter (previous wait time), the system reduces customer frustration while maintaining relatively simple calculation logic through straightforward time addition and weighting.
Data Source
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AI summary
A method for managing a queue in a contact center that includes: receiving a previous call from a first customer and determining a unique identifier; tracking a previous queue time; detecting the previous call ending without being connected to an agent; determining the previous wait time accrued; saving in a database a previous call record that includes the previous queue time and the unique identifier; receiving a present call from the first customer and determining a unique identifier; tracking a present queue time; using the unique identifier to check the database to determine the related previous call record; determining the previous queue time; calculating an adjusted total queue time that is the present queue time plus previous queue time; and positioning the first customer in the queue based on the adjusted total queue time.