Persistent Agent Telephony Connection for Call Latency Reduction
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing communication campaign management systems experience high latency and inefficient agent utilization due to reliance on automated call distributors (ACDs) and separate agent connections, leading to long hold queues and abandoned calls.
Innovation Solution
A web-based hosted solution that implements a 'stay-on-line' function, maintaining a persistent telephony connection between the system infrastructure and available agents, and a service-side hold queue to manage calls, allowing agents to handle multiple customers without ACD hold queues and ensuring connections are not impaired by abandoned calls.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If a traditional ACD hold queue system is used to manage customer-to-agent connections, then call management is simplified through centralized routing, but customer latency increases and agent utilization decreases due to long hold queues and abandoned calls
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments the call management function into two independent components: the ACD hold queue for centralized routing control and the service-side hold queue for local connection management. This segmentation allows the ACD to focus on routing while the service-side queue handles agent connection persistence, reducing customer latency without sacrificing centralized management capabilities.
Solution Approach 2:
The service-side hold queue acts as an intermediary between the ACD system and agents. It maintains persistent connections locally, serving as a buffer that decouples the ACD's centralized routing function from the actual agent connection management, thereby reducing the time customers spend in hold queues while preserving ACD control.
2Ease of operation
If agents disconnect after each call to maintain clear separation between calls, then call privacy and agent workflow are simplified, but agent utilization decreases due to idle time between calls
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary action by pre-establishing and maintaining persistent telephony connections with agents before customers need to be connected. Agents remain in a ready state on the service-side hold queue, eliminating the need to re-establish connections after each call and reducing idle time between calls while maintaining call privacy through controlled connection bridging.
Solution Approach 2:
The persistent connection mechanism enables continuity of useful action by keeping agents continuously available and connected to the system infrastructure. Instead of disconnecting and reconnecting between calls, agents maintain an ongoing connection that allows immediate acceptance of new customers, thereby increasing agent utilization without compromising workflow clarity.
3Ease of operation
If the system establishes separate agent connections for each customer call, then call privacy and connection management are simplified, but system complexity increases and connection establishment time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system merges the connection establishment function into the persistent service-side hold queue, eliminating the need for separate connection setups for each call. The ACD's centralized routing and the service-side queue's persistent connections work together as an integrated system, reducing overall complexity while maintaining privacy through controlled bridging of the persistent connection to customers.
Data Source
AI summary
A web-based hosted solution through which business entities create and manage communications campaigns is described. To reduce latency of customer-to-agent connections, the system implements an agent stay-on-line function by which a persistent telephony connection is established and maintained between the system infrastructure and an available agent. In this manner, the agent may handle multiple customers while avoiding an ACD hold queue. In addition, preferably a service-side hold queue also is established and maintained on the service-side of the infrastructure. This hold queue maintains calls that are waiting to be connected to available agents. It ensures that any customer abandons do not impair the connections being established and maintained to the agents.