US 8,831,207 B1Granted

Targeted issue routing

AssigneeAmazon Technologies, Inc.

InventorSaket Agarwal

Life of this patent

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Abstract

A contact received by a service center from a customer may be assigned to one of a plurality of agents or representatives based on any prior experience with the customer or with the contact, any preferences of the customer or any skills required in order to address the contact. Preferably, an agent who previously handled an issue on behalf of the customer may be identified, and the contact may be assigned to that agent. Alternatively, the contact may be assigned to an agent preferred by the customer, or to a particularly skilled agent. If no preferred agents or particularly skilled agents are available to respond to the contact, the contact may be assigned at random to one or more particular agents. The contact may be initiated by way of a reply to a message containing a response to a previous contact, and the message may include metadata that associates the reply with the previous contact.

Claims21

Dependent claims

A non-transitory computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions stored thereon,

wherein the instructions, when executed, cause a computer system having at least one computer processor and at least one data store to perform a method comprising:
receiving a first contact from a customer over a network, wherein the first contact identifies a first issue;
assigning the first issue to an original agent using the at least one computer processor;
identifying a response to the first issue generated by the original agent using the at least one computer processor;
transmitting an electronic message comprising the response to the first issue to the customer over the network, wherein the electronic message comprises an interactive feature;
receiving a selection of the interactive feature from the customer over the network;
identifying a second contact from the customer based at least in part on the selection of the interactive feature using the at least one computer processor, wherein the second contact identifies a second issue;
determining whether the original agent is available to address the second issue;
upon determining that the original agent is not available to address the second issue,
identifying at least one preferred agent associated with the customer using the at least one computer processor;
determining whether the at least one preferred agent is available to address the second issue;
and
upon determining that the at least one preferred agent is available to address the second issue,
assigning the second issue to the at least one preferred agent using the at least one computer processor.

11 more elements

A method for assigning issues to agents comprising:

receiving information identifying a first issue from a customer over a network;
assigning the first issue to an original agent using at least one computer processor;
receiving information identifying a second issue from the customer over the network;
determining whether the original agent is available to address the second issue;
upon determining that the original agent is available to address the second issue,
assigning the second issue to the original agent using the at least one computer processor;
upon determining that the original agent is not available to address the second issue;
identifying at least one preferred agent associated with at least one of the customer or the second issue;
determining whether the at least one preferred agent is available to address the second issue;
and
upon determining that the at least one preferred agent is available to address the second issue,
assigning the second issue to the at least one preferred agent.

9 more elements

A service center comprising:

a plurality of service agents, wherein each of the service agents is associated with a computing device;
and
at least one server connected to a communications network,
wherein the at least one server is in communication with each of the computing devices, and
wherein the at least one server is configured to:
receive information regarding a first contact from a customer over the communications network;
select a first one of the plurality of service agents to address the first contact;
assign the first contact to the first service agent;
identify a response to the first contact generated by the first service agent;
determine a probability that the customer will reply to the response to the first contact;
upon determining that the probability that the customer will reply to the response to the first contact exceeds a first threshold,
generate a set of metadata regarding the first contact;
generate a message comprising the response to the first contact generated by the first service agent and an interactive feature associated with the set of metadata regarding the first contact;
transmit the message to the customer over the communications network;
receive information regarding a second contact from the customer over the communications network, wherein the information regarding the second contact comprises a selection of the interactive feature;
select a second one of the plurality of service agents to address the second contact based at least in part on the metadata;
and
assign the second contact to the second service agent.

15 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.