Method and apparatus for reserving zero-wait time agent interactions

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10990906-B2
Application number	US-201615289911-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 10, 2016
Priority date	Oct 13, 2015
Publication date	Apr 27, 2021
Grant date	Apr 27, 2021

Abstract

A computer-implemented method and an apparatus reserve agents for enabling zero-waiting time agent interactions for customers requiring agent assistance. The method includes determining if a customer requires agent assistance. If it is determined that the customer requires agent assistance, then it is determined whether an agent associated with relevant skill is capable of being reserved for providing assistance to the customer. The determination of reservation of the agent is performed, at least in part, by generating a data structure representation. The agent is reserved for assisting the customer if it is determined that the agent is capable of being reserved for providing assistance to the customer. An offer for assistance is provisioned to the customer on at least one enterprise related interaction channel subsequent to the reservation of the agent. The reservation of the agent provides wait-less customer interaction with the agent upon customer acceptance of the offer.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:
receiving, by a processor, information corresponding to customer activity on at least one enterprise related interaction channel;
determining, by the processor, if a customer associated with the customer activity requires agent assistance based on the received information;
if it is determined that the customer requires agent assistance, determining, by the processor, whether an agent from among a plurality of agents is capable of being reserved for providing assistance to the customer, wherein the agent is associated with at least one relevant skill for providing assistance to the customer, and wherein the determination of reservation of the agent is performed, at least in part, by:
assigning the plurality of agents into a first available agent data structure and a second reserved agent data structure, wherein the agent is a member of first available agent data structure or the second reserved agent data structure but not both,
generating the first available agent data structure representing a plurality of available skills, a plurality of available agents, and for each skill in the plurality of available skills the agent capable of providing the skill, and the second reserved agent data structure representing a plurality of reserved agents, a plurality of skills associated with the plurality of reserved agents and a skill for which each agent in the plurality of reserved agents is reserved,
reducing a computation time of determining if the agent can be reserved by:
initially checking using the first available agent data structure including the plurality of available agents to determine whether the at least one relevant skill is contained in the plurality of available skills, without checking the plurality of reserved agents, and
upon determining that the first available agent data structure contains the at least one relevant skill, removing the agent associated with the at least one relevant skill and skills associated with the agent from the first available agent data structure, and
representing the agent and the skills associated with the agent in the second reserved agent data structure,
checking the second reserved agent data structure upon determining that the first available agent data structure does not contain the at least one relevant skill,
reserving the agent from the second reserved agent data structure upon determining that the agent from the second reserved agent data structure has the at least one relevant skill; and

provisioning, by the processor, an offer for assistance to the customer on the at least one enterprise related interaction channel subsequent to the reservation of the agent, wherein the reservation of the agent provides wait-less customer interaction with the agent upon customer acceptance of the offer.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
receiving, by the processor, information related to:
one or more skills associated with each agent from among the plurality of agents; and

a current reservation status for the each agent.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein the current reservation status for the each agent is indicative of whether the agent is free, reserved, or currently engaged in a customer interaction.

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein the second reserved agent data structure comprises a network of nodes and edges for dynamically mapping reservations of currently reserved agents from among the plurality of agents.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein each node in the second reserved agent data structure corresponds to a skill of a currently reserved agent, wherein each edge in the second reserved agent data structure is configured to a connect a node corresponding to the skill of the currently reserved agent is reserved to one or more nodes associated with remaining skills of the currently reserved agent, and wherein each edge is annotated with respective agent identification.

6. The method of claim 4 , wherein each node in the second reserved agent data structure corresponds to a currently reserved agent and each edge in the second reserved agent data structure represents a skill of the currently reserved agent.

7. The method of claim 4 , wherein determining whether the agent is capable of being reserved comprises:
determining, by the processor, if a free agent from among the plurality of agents is associated with the at least one relevant skill required for providing assistance to the customer, wherein the free agent is reserved for assisting the customer if the free agent is associated with the at least one relevant skill.

8. The method of claim 7 , further comprising:
configuring, by the processor, a set comprising one or more set elements representing skills of one or more free agents from among the plurality of agents, wherein each set element corresponds to a skill of one free agent from among the one or more free agents, and wherein the determination of whether the free agent is associated with the at least one relevant skill is performed by checking the one or more set elements in the set.

9. The method of claim 7 , further comprising:
determining, by the processor, whether a currently reserved agent from among the plurality of agents is associated with the at least one relevant skill required for providing assistance to the customer if no free agent from among the plurality of agents is associated with the at least one relevant skill;
determining, by the processor, whether a reservation of the currently reserved agent is capable of being swapped with the free agent from among the plurality of agents if the currently reserved agent is determined to be associated with the at least one relevant skill; and
swapping, by the processor the reservation associated with the currently reserved agent to the free agent and reserving the currently reserved agent for assisting the customer.

10. The method of claim 9 , further comprising:
updating, by the processor, the first available agents and second reserved agents data structure to reflect the swapping of the reservation associated with the currently reserved agent to the free agent and the reservation of the currently reserved agent for assisting the customer.

11. The method of claim 9 , further comprising:
traversing nodes and the edges in the second reserved agent data structure to determine whether the reservation of the currently reserved agent is capable of being swapped with the free agent.

12. The method of claim 11 , further comprising:
upon traversing the nodes and the edges in the second reserved agent data structure, determining, by the processor, that the agent from among the plurality of agents is not capable of being reserved for providing assistance to the customer if the reservation of the currently reserved agent is not capable of being swapped with the free agent.

13. The method of claim 12 , wherein the offer for assistance is not provisioned to the customer if it is determined that the agent is not capable of being reserved for providing assistance to the customer.

14. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
predicting, by the processor, at least one intention of the customer based on the received information; and
performing the determination of requirement of agent assistance for the customer based on the predicted at least one intention.

15. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
performing the determination of requirement of agent assistance for the customer based on enterprise objectives.

16. The method of claim 1 , wherein the offer for assistance comprises an offer

Assignees

• [24]7 Ai Inc

Inventors

• Bodell Michael
• Jandhyala Vijay Kumar
• REDDY Yellu Madhusudhan

Classifications

• G06Q10/063114

  Status monitoring or status determination for a person or group · CPC title

• G06Q30/016

  After-sales · CPC title

• G06Q10/02 Primary

  Reservations, e.g. for tickets, services or events · CPC title