Accurate dispositioning of a telephone call by reconciling cause codes with in-band audio information

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9787839-B1
Application number	US-201615352732-A
Country	US
Kind code	B1
Filing date	Nov 16, 2016
Priority date	May 19, 2016
Publication date	Oct 10, 2017
Grant date	Oct 10, 2017

Abstract

A telephone call to a remote party may encounter a number of abnormal conditions, which prevents the call from being offered to the remote party's interface. These conditions may be indicated to the calling party using call progress information conveyed as out-of-band information, in the form of signaling elements and/or as in-band information, in the form of audio information. The audio information may include a special information tone and/or an intercept announcement. The call handler originating the outbound call may provide the audio information to a speech analytics component that analyzes the audio information. The analyzed audio information may be reconciled with the out-of-band information. Various rules can be applied to ascertain how to disposition the call in instances where the in-band and out-of-information are inconsistent. Once reconciled, accurate call disposition information can be recorded in the call record for that call.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A system for processing call related information, comprising:
a call handler configured to:
originate an outbound call to a telephone number associated with a called party,
receive a cause code over an interface from a communications network receiving the outbound call from the call handler,
receive audible call progress information provided in-band from the communications network,
receive call status information from a speech analytics component (“SAC”) derived from the SAC analyzing the audible call progress information,
ascertain a disposition code based on the cause code information and the call status information, and
store the disposition code in association with a call record of the outbound call; and

the speech analytics component configured to:
analyze audible call progress information provided in-band to the call handler on the outbound call, and
provide the call status information to the call handler.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the call handler originates the outbound call over the interface using an integrated services digital network (“ISDN”) signaling protocol.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein the call handler originates the outbound call over the interface using a session initiated protocol (“SIP”) signaling protocol.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein the audible call progress information comprises an intercept announcement.

5. The system of claim 1 , wherein the audible call progress information comprises a special information tone.

6. The system of claim 1 , wherein the call handler maintains a call leg to the SAC bridged onto the outbound call while the audible call progress information is received by the call handler.

7. The system of claim 1 , wherein the speech analytics component is further configured to:
receive the audible call progress information from a memory in the call handler storing an audio snippet comprising the audible call progress information.

8. A non-transitory computer readable medium storing instructions, that when executed, cause a computer processor to:
receive a first input from a speech analytics component providing call status information based on analyzing audible in-band call progress information on an outbound call originated from a call handler in a contact center;
receive a second input comprising out-of-band cause code information based on a cause code received from a communications network on an interface over which the outbound call originated from the call handler to the communications network; and
determine a disposition code based on the first input and the second input, wherein the disposition code reflects an outcome associated with the outbound call.

9. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 8 , wherein the audible in-band call progress information comprises an intercept announcement.

10. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 8 , wherein the interface comprises a voice over internet protocol (“VoIP”) interface using a session initiated protocol (“SIP”) to convey the cause code.

11. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 8 , wherein the in-band call progress information comprises a special information tone (“SIT”).

12. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 8 , wherein the audible in-band call progress information is retrieved from a memory and stored as audio data.

13. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 8 , further comprising instructions that cause the computer processor to:
store the disposition code in a call record comprising a telephone number to which the outbound call was directed.

14. A method for processing a telephone call, comprising:
originating an outbound telephone call by a call handler at a contact center to a remote interface of a called party;
receiving in-band call progress information comprising an intercept announcement at the call handler;
providing the intercept announcement to a speech analytics component;
receiving out-of-band call progress information at the call handler comprising a cause code having a cause code value reflecting a reason why the outbound telephone call was not completed to the remote interface;
analyzing the intercept announcement using the speech analytics component to generate call status content information;
providing the call status content information from the speech analytics component to a computer processor in the call handler;
determining a disposition code by the computer processor based on the cause code value and the call status content information; and
updating a call record associated with the outbound call by the call handler to reflect the disposition code.

15. The method of claim 14 , further comprising:
establishing a call leg from the call handler to the speech analytics component to convey the in-band call progress information to the speech analytics component.

16. The method of claim 15 , wherein an audio snippet comprising the in-band call progress information is cached and conveyed to the speech analytics component.

17. The method of claim 14 , wherein the in-band call progress information further comprises a special information tone.

18. The method of claim 17 , wherein the speech analytics component uses at least a plurality of frequencies of the special information tone to determine the call status content information.

19. The method of claim 14 , further comprising:
storing the in-band call progress information comprising the intercept announcement in a memory, wherein providing the intercept announcement to the speech analytics component further comprises retrieving the in-band call progress information from the memory.

20. The method of claim 14 , wherein the step of determining the disposition code by the computer processor based on the cause code value and the call status content information comprises:
determining the cause code value is inconsistent with the call status content information; and
selecting the disposition code using the call status content information.

Assignees

• Noble Systems Corp

Inventors

• Noble Jr James K
• Hitchcock Chad

Classifications

• H04M3/5158

  in combination with automated outdialling systems (devices for signalling identity of wanted subscriber H04M1/26) · CPC title

• H04M3/5175 Primary

  Call or contact centers supervision arrangements · CPC title

• H04M3/2218

  Call detail recording · CPC title

• H04M2207/08

  ISDN systems · CPC title

• H04M7/129

  Details of providing call progress tones or announcements · CPC title