Telephone call handling system

A system for automatically handling incoming telephone calls comprising

• means for receiving an incoming call arriving at an incoming line,
• means for receiving telephony information about said incoming call,
• means for assigning said incoming call to be controlled by one of a plurality of possible application programs based upon said telephony information, each said application program including a set of user defined steps for handling an incoming call, said means for assigning including a call discrimination subsystem that is separate and distinct from said application programs, and
• input means for a user to enter telephony digit patterns that are associated with respective said application programs, said digit patterns including patterns for plural fields corresponding to different types of telephony information,
• wherein said call discrimination subsystem compares said telephony information with said digit patterns when assigning said incoming call.

A system for automatically handling incoming telephone calls comprising

• means for receiving an incoming call,
• means for maintaining a list of quantitative agent performance values for possible agents for receiving said incoming call, said agent performance values relating to the performance of respective, individual said agents in achieving performance goals relating to success of a business,
• input means for a user to enter data describing the success of an agent in achieving said business performance goals on incoming calls,
• means for monitoring respective performances of said individual agents based upon said data describing success and updating said performance values, and
• means for selecting one of said possible agents to receive said incoming call based upon said performance values.

A system for automatically handling incoming telephone calls comprising

• means for receiving an incoming call,
• means for maintaining a list of quantitative agent selection values for possible agents for receiving said incoming call, said quantitative agent selection values relating to respective, individual said agents,
• means for modifying said selection values for individual agents based upon respective offset values assigned to said agent selection values, and
• means for selecting one of said possible agents to receive said incoming call based upon said selection values in the list.

A system for automatically handling incoming telephone calls comprising

• means for receiving an incoming call,
• means for maintaining a plurality of lists of quantitative agent selection values for possible agents for receiving said incoming call, said quantitative agent selection values relating to respective, individual said agents,
• each said list corresponding to a different criteria of agent selection,
• input means for a user to select which said list is to be employed in selecting an agent for said call, and
• means for selecting one of said possible agents to receive said incoming call based upon said selection values in the list selected via said input means.

A system for automatically handling incoming telephone calls comprising

• means for receiving an incoming call,
• means for selecting one agent of a plurality of possible agents to receive said incoming call,
• means for providing a command regarding the handling of said incoming call, and
• means for counting the number of incoming calls in order to select a percentage of incoming calls out of the total number of incoming calls and for providing a command for handling the selected percentage of incoming calls in a different manner than the remainder of the incoming calls.

A system for automatically handling incoming telephone calls comprising

• means for receiving an incoming call,
• means for selecting one agent of a plurality of possible agents to receive said incoming call,
• means for providing a command regarding the handling of said incoming call, and
• means for counting the number of incoming calls that have reached a specified step in the handling of said incoming calls in order to select a percentage of incoming calls out of the total number of incoming calls that have reached said specified step and for providing a command for handling the selected percentage of incoming calls in a different manner than the remainder of the incoming calls.