Queueless Contact Center Matching Using Attribute-Based Bitmaps
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Solution Overview
Problem
Traditional contact centers rely on queues to manage work distribution, leading to suboptimal routing and increased administrative costs due to the need for frequent reassignment of agents across multiple queues, which becomes impractical as the number of queues grows, limiting efficiency gains.
Innovation Solution
A queueless contact center system that uses ultra-fast mapping through qualification, eligibility, and suitability determinations, employing bitmaps to optimize the assignment of work items to agents without pre-organizing them into specific buckets, allowing for one-to-one optimal matching and reducing the complexity and cost associated with managing numerous queues.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If traditional queue-based routing is used to manage work distribution, then work can be organized and assigned to agents, but the routing becomes suboptimal and agents are not assigned to work items they are most qualified to handle
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the queue structure from the routing system entirely, replacing it with a direct attribute-based matching mechanism. Work items and agents are no longer organized into queues but are instead matched based on comparing work item attributes with agent skill sets, eliminating the suboptimal routing inherent in queue-based systems.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces the mechanical queue-based assignment system with an automated attribute-comparison algorithm. Instead of manually or mechanically moving work items through queues to find matching agents, the system uses computational comparison of attributes to directly identify the optimal agent for each work item.
2Manufacturing precision
If work items and agents are segmented into many queues to improve efficiency, then routing can be more precise, but the complexity of configuring, managing, and monitoring queues increases significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates a universal attribute-comparison mechanism that replaces multiple specialized queues. Instead of having separate queue structures for different work types, skills, or categories, the system uses a single framework that compares work item attributes against agent skill sets, achieving the same routing precision without the complexity of multiple queue systems.
Solution Approach 2:
Instead of organizing work items into queues and finding matching agents (traditional approach), the patent inverts the process by organizing both work items and agents around shared attributes and directly matching them based on attribute compatibility. This reversal eliminates the need for complex queue hierarchies while maintaining routing precision.
3Adaptability or versatility
If agents are reassigned to multiple queues as they gain new skills, then routing flexibility improves, but the administrative cost and time required to update queue assignments increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs preliminary organization of both work items and agents by their attributes before matching is needed. Work items are tagged with attributes describing the required skills, and agents are tagged with attributes describing their skill sets. This preliminary attribute organization enables immediate matching when new work arrives or agents become available, eliminating the need for time-consuming reassignment updates.
Solution Approach 2:
The system enables automatic attribute-based matching without requiring manual administrative intervention. When agents gain new skills or work item requirements change, the system automatically recalculates matches based on the updated attributes, eliminating the need for administrators to manually reassign agents to queues.
4Productivity
If the number of queues is increased to segment work further and improve efficiency, then more granular control is achieved, but the system becomes impractical to manage due to the sheer number of queues
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces the need for numerous specialized queues with a single universal attribute-comparison system. This system can handle any level of work segmentation by comparing work item attributes with agent skill sets, providing granular control without requiring granular queue structures. The universal system scales to handle any number of work categories or skill types without increasing operational complexity.
Data Source
AI summary
A queueless contact center is described along with various methods and mechanisms for administering the same. The contact center proposed herein provides the ability to, among other things, achieve true one-to-one matching. Solutions are also provided for managing data structures utilized by the queueless contact center. Furthermore, mechanisms for generating traditional queue-based performance views and metrics for the queueless contact center are proposed to help facilitate a smooth transition from traditional queue-based contact centers to the next generation contact centers described herein.