Patent ID: 9680997
Date: 2017-06-13
CPC Classifications: H04M

Claim:
1. A method for handling contacts and agents in a contact center system comprising: identifying, by at least one computer processor communicatively coupled to and configured to operate in the contact center system, a plurality of available agents ordered for assignment for a contact queue; determining, by the at least one computer processor, an expected duration for handling a first contact that arrives at the contact queue for each of the plurality of available agents based on a model of information about the first contact and information about each of the plurality of available agents; identifying, by the at least one computer processor, a first out-of-order agent from the plurality of available agents having a higher expected duration than the expected duration of a first in-order agent of the plurality of available agents; and assigning, by the at least one computer processor, the identified first out-of-order agent from the plurality of available agents to the first contact for connection through the contact center system to optimize performance of the contact center system without necessarily optimizing performance of each contact-agent connection assignment.