Customer service call routing
AssigneeEchoStar Technologies L.L.C.
InventorWilliam Michael Beals
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Customer service calls to media service providers are addressed by remotely monitoring and diagnosing the customer's installed equipment. Such remote diagnosis decreases the need for assistance from customer service representatives and on-site repair technicians. In a method of operating a customer service routing system for a media service provider, subscriber equipment is first identified and then data specific to the subscriber equipment is collected. Relevant data can be maintained as an equipment health history in a database that is updated periodically by automatic monitoring. The database can be located within a remote server. Equipment data can be extracted automatically and relayed directly to the subscriber, thereby bypassing interaction with a customer service representative.
Claims18
A customer service routing system, comprising:
- a content receiver;
- an interactive response system communicatively coupled to a telephone network and a data network;
- and
- a health server selectively communicatively coupled to the content receiver and the interactive response system, the health server including:
- a database control circuit;
- a database communication port coupled to the database control circuit;
- and
- a non-transitory database memory communicatively coupled to the database control circuit, having computer-executable instructions stored thereon that cause one or more microprocessors to:
- receive a status query signal from the interactive response system;
- and
- in response to the status query signal transmit status information stored in the health server database to the interactive response system.
A computer-implemented method of operating a customer service routing system, the method comprising:
- receiving an inquiry via a network interface;
- identifying, using a microprocessor, equipment logically associated with a subscriber in a health server database that stores subscriber equipment status information;
- transmitting, by an electronic communication path, a status query to the health server database;
- receiving one or more electronic status messages from the health server database;
- and
- communicating the electronic status message to a subscriber via an interactive response system.
An interactive response system, comprising:
- a network interface configured to receive customer inquiries and transfer the inquiries for processing according to an interactive response script;
- a data network interface;
- a microprocessor;
- and
- a non-transitory database memory communicatively coupled to the microprocessor, the database memory having computer-executable instructions stored thereon that cause the microprocessor to:
- send a status query signal for equipment status information to an equipment health server;
- receive the status information from the health server;
- and
- communicate the status information to the customer via the interactive response script.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.