Patent ID: 6882723
Filing Date: 2005-04-19
Classification: G06Q,H04M

Abstract:
1. A method of quantifying an automation benefit of an automated call processing center as saved agent-time, a call from a caller to the automated call processing center including an interactive voice response (IVR) portion of the call, and, at the caller's option, an agent-caller dialog portion of the call, said method comprising the steps of: (i) gathering event-sequence data for a plurality of calls received by the call processing center; (ii) determining a task capable of being performed by the call processing center during the IVR portion of a call; (iii) calculating an amount of time the task would take if performed by an agent in the agent-caller dialog portion of a call instead of in the IVR portion of a call; (iv) examining the event-sequence data to determine whether the task, which is capable of being performed in the IVR portion of a call, actually was performed in the IVR portions of the plurality of calls; (v) determining an automation rate for the task by calculating what percentage of calls involving the task actually was performed in the IVR portions of those calls; and (vi) calculating an automation benefit by multiplying the automation rate by an amount of agent-time saved by performing the task in the IVR portion of a call instead of in the agent-caller dialog portion of a call, wherein the amount of agent-time saved corresponds to the amount of time the task would take if performed by an agent.