Method and apparatus for distributed interactive voice processing

#The present invention relates generally to call centers or other call processing systems in which various types of communications, including voice messages, electronic mail messages, facsimiles, text messages, and Internet service requests, are distributed among a number of service agents for handling.

#Call centers distribute telephone calls and other types of communications to available customer service representatives, referred to herein as “agents,” using well-known automatic call distribution techniques. In a call surplus condition, where there are more incoming calls than agents available to process the incoming calls, the call center maintains one or more call queues to maintain the received incoming calls in an active state until an agent with the necessary skill becomes available to process the incoming call

#Call centers often employ interactive voice response (IVR) systems to efficiently provide callers with information in the form of recorded messages and to obtain information from callers using keypad or voice responses to recorded queries. The IVR systems are often referred to as “automated agents” or “virtual agents.” Existing call centers, such as the CONVERSANT® System for Interactive Voice Response, commercially available from Avaya Inc., are typically implemented as centralized server-based interactive customer service solutions. A number of IVR systems employ the Voice eXtensible Markup Language (VoiceXML) to create IVR scripts. Typically, a media server receives a call, obtains the appropriate VoiceXML page from a dedicated local or remote server and then executes the VoiceXML page for the caller

#FIG. 1 illustrates distributed interactive voice processing system accordance with the present invention;

#FIG. 2 is a sample record from an agent database incorporating features of the present invention;

#FIG. 3 is a flow chart describing an exemplary implementation of a distributed IVR management process incorporating features of the present invention; and

#FIG. 1 illustrates a distributed interactive voice processing system 100 in accordance with the present invention. As shown in FIG. 1, the distributed interactive voice processing system 100 includes a voiceXML application server 110, an Internet Protocol (IP) private branch exchange (PBX) 120, a call management system 130 and one or more agent terminals 160-1 through 160-N (hereinafter, collectively referred to as agent terminals 160), interconnected by a local area network (LAN) 150. According to one aspect of the present invention, each agent terminal 160 includes capabilities to support the traditional functions of a “live agent,” such as an IP Softphone process 170, as well as additional IVR capabilities to support the functions of an “automated agent.” An IP Softphone emulates a traditional telephone in a known manner It is noted that the IVR functions that are deployed on the agent terminal 160 of a given live agent may not be related to the work of the given live agent. It is further noted that while the exemplary embodiment employs voiceXML (VXML), other techniques that provide HTML-based support for IVR, such as Speech Application Language Tags (SALT), described, for example, in Speech Application Language Tags (SALT), Technical White Paper, downloadable from www.saltforum.org, could be employed, as would be apparent to a person of ordinary skill in the art, based on the disclosure herein. SALT is a speech interface markup language that extends existing markup languages to enable multi-modal and telephony access to the Internet

#The IVR application (including the IVR scripts) may be written, for example, in VoiceXML and stored on the central VoiceXML application server 110 The centralized VoiceXML application server 110 simplifies version control and distribution of the application software to the distributed agent terminals 160 without significant administrative overhead. As discussed further below in conjunction with FIG. 4, the VoiceXML application server 110 is presented with requests VXML pages in the exemplary embodiment from a VXML process 400 that supports the IVR capabilities of the automated IVR agent. The VoiceXML application server 110 creates a session with the VXML process 400, and returns the first page of the IVR application encoded in VXML script to the VXML process 400 on the agent terminal 160 for interpretation. For each subsequent request, the VoiceXML application server 110 will obtain or dynamically create (or both) subsequent documents to be sent to the requesting VXML process 400 for rendering. When the interaction with the caller is finished, the final VXML page sent from the VoiceXML application server 110 to the VXML process 400 will instruct the VXML process 400 to terminate or transfer the call to the appropriate call center agent or application The VoiceXML application server 110 may be embodied, for example, as a Microsoft Web server with Internet Information Services (IIS) package installed and enabled, commercially available from Microsoft Corp. of Redmond, Wash., as modified herein to carry out the features and functions of the present invention

#The IP PBX 120 includes an automatic call distribution process 300, discussed below in conjunction with FIG. 3, that manages the distributed IVR resources in accordance with the present invention Generally, the automatic call distribution process 300 monitors the availability status of all live and automated IVR agents in the distributed interactive voice processing system 100 using an agent database 200, discussed below in conjunction with FIG. 2, and distributes telephone calls and other types of communications to the appropriate agents. The IP PBX 120 can provide information to the call management system 130 regarding the availability of individual agents and other call center statistics, for the generation of appropriate reports and forecasts.