Abstract:
In a call center ( 106 ) associated with a World-Wide Web site whose pages ( 121, 122 ) provide a call-request capability ( 115 ), the call center receives notifications of page hits and call requests from the Web server ( 103 ) and uses these notifications to determine a historical page hits-to-call requests ratio. It then uses the ratio along with current page-hit notifications to predict a volume of calls that will soon need to be handled by the call center and staffing the call center in anticipation of the predicted call volume. The notifications are further used in conjunction with knowledge of information about the content of the Web pages to predict what agent skills will be needed to handle the calls, and to staff agent splits accordingly.

Description:
TECHNICAL FIELD 
     This invention relates to communications networks and to call centers. 
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     Call centers that handle inbound calls have traditionally been managed in a reactive mode: call center supervisors staffed and released agents and moved agents between splits in response to peaks and valleys in call volumes as reflected in the lengths of queues of incoming calls waiting to be handled. This is undesirable, because the inherent delay in responding to changing call volumes and types causes the responses to lag behind the changing conditions. Therefore, proactive call-center management information systems have been developed which try to anticipate call volumes and types, and changes therein, and thereby try to eliminate the delay between changing conditions and responses thereto. An example of such a system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,185,780. Such proactive systems typically use historical data from previous days or other time periods to predict agent staffing and agent skill needs. However, it is difficult to anticipate short-term changes in call volumes and types accurately from such data e.g., intra-hour or even shorter fluctuations in calling volumes and types. 
     Recently, call centers have come into existence that are able to interact with users of the Internet. They usually work as follows. An Internet user uses a browser on his or her Internet terminal to contact a World-Wide Web page of a call-center customer on a Web server, in a conventional manner. The page may have a virtual button or some other software-based indicator by means of which the user may indicate a desire to speak with a representative of the customer. If the user makes use of the indicator, the user is prompted to enter his or her telephone number. This number is conveyed to the server, which in turn sends it to the customer&#39;s call center. The call center then uses the supplied telephone number to place a standard outbound call to the user&#39;s telephone. An illustrative example of such a call center is disclosed in “Rockwell Teams with Dialogic to Build Groupware Servers for Small Centers”,  Computer Telephony , Vol. 4, Issue 4 (April 1996), p.112. 
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     Applicants have realized that numbers of hits on the World-Wide Web page or pages (that is, the number of accesses to the Web page or pages) of a call center client serve as an indicator, or predictor, of the volume or type of calls that the call center will soon have to handle, and therefore these numbers can be used to anticipate call volumes and types and to react proactively to changing conditions at the call center before they occur. 
     Therefore, according to one aspect of the invention, in a communications system that comprises a server for a client-server data network (e.g., the Word-Wide Web) that includes the server and a plurality of clients of the server and wherein the server provides the clients with items of information (e.g., Web pages) requested by the clients, and that further comprises a call center for handling calls relating to the items of information received from the clients via a telephone network, the server is communicatively connected with the call center and the server responds to receipt of requests from clients for items of information by sending notifications of the requests to the call center, and the call center (e.g., an information management system thereof) responds to receipt of the notifications by storing the received notifications for use in predicting a volume of calls (and/or callback requests) that will soon need to be handled by the call center and staffing the call center in anticipation of the predicted volume of calls. Illustratively, this information can be used either manually or as input into an expert system to suggest to the call-center supervisor what staffing or assignment changes should be anticipated before the calls or callback requests actually arrive. 
     This information can also be used in conjunction with knowledge of information about the content of the Web pages to select agent skills that are most appropriate for the types of calls likely to be arriving. Accordingly, each notification preferably identifies the requested item of information, and the call center stores the identification generally for use in predicting types of calls to be handled by the call center and staffing agent splits of the call center in anticipation of the predicted types, and specifically for use in predicting agent skills needed to handle the predicted call volume and staffing the call center with agents having the predicted skills in anticipation of the predicted call volume. 
     By being able to anticipate calls before they occur, a supervisor (or an expert system working on his or her behalf) can make staffing changes in advance to better align the call center&#39;s agents to answer calls (or service the callback requests). Similarly, if the data show that the number of calls from the data network clients will be decreasing, agents can be moved to handle other calls within the call center. Since the data network clients must always have at least one page hit before engaging an agent or requesting a callback (and, more typically, they will browse through several pages on the Web site before making a call request), the page hits can be used as a preindication of call activity that will eventually arrive at the call center. 
     Call centers can, over time, record the ratio of page hits to call or callback requests and can apply this ratio to anticipate the calls that are likely to arrive in the future. Accordingly, the clients selectively indicate to the server requests for calls to the call center (e.g., by actuating a “call” virtual button associated with a received Web page). Preferably, the server responds to receipt of such requests by sending notifications thereof to the call center, and the call center responds to receipt of such notifications by storing the received notifications for use in predicting the volume of calls to be handled by the call center and staffing the call center in anticipation of the predicted call volume. Specifically, the received item-request notifications are used together with the call-request notifications to determine a historical ratio of item requests-to-calls, and this ratio is then used to predict from recent item-request notifications the volume of calls to be handled by the call center. This ratio can be applied to Web hits in real time and can create threshold alerts to a call center supervisor if the agent pool is insufficient to handle the anticipated call volume. 
     An automated version of this feature uses expert system technology. An expert system collects the appropriate data, applies the historical ratios, and suggests staffing changes within the call center that the supervisor can confirm. Or it can run in a fully-automated mode and simply execute the staffing changes that it predicts. 
     A server for a client-server data network communicates with clients over the data network to receive requests for items of information (e.g., page hits) from the clients and to send the requested items to the requesting clients. According to another aspect of the invention, this server further responds to the received requests by sending notifications of the requests (page hits) to a call center that handles calls relating to the requested items. The server preferably also receives requests for calls to the call center from the clients and effects the requested calls and further responds to the received call requests by sending notifications of the requests to the call center. 
     A call center for handles calls relating to items of information provided by a server to clients who request the items of information in a client-server data network. According to a further aspect of the invention, the call center further communicates with the server to receive therefrom notifications of requests (e.g., page hits) received by the server from the clients for items of information, and stores the received notifications for use in predicting a volume of calls to be handled by the call center and staffing the call center in anticipation of the predicted call volume. The call center preferably also receives from the server notifications of requests for calls to the call center received by the server from the clients and also stores these received notifications for use in predicting the call volume. 
     According to yet another aspect of the invention, communications methods corresponding to the apparatus functions characterized above are effected. 
     These and other advantages and features of the invention will become more apparent from the following description of an illustrative embodiment of the invention considered together with the drawing. 
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING 
     FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a communications network that implements an illustrative embodiment of the invention; and 
     FIG. 2 is a block diagram of operations of units of the communications network of FIG. 1 that implement the illustrative embodiment of the invention. 
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
     FIG. 1 shows a combined data-and-telephony communications network. The data portion of the network comprises at least one client machine, such as a personal computer, referred to as a caller  100 , interconnected with at least one World-Wide Web server machine, such as a computer, referred to as a Web server  103 , by the Internet data communications network, referred to as the Internet  102 . Together, elements  100 - 103  form a client-server data network. Caller  100  is equipped either with an Internet phone  99  or with a standard telephone or a computer-implemented “soft phone” 98 , and also executes a World-Wide Web browser program, referred to as a Web browser  101 . The telephony portion of the communications network of FIG. 1 comprises the public telephone system  105 , a conventional call center  106  connected to telephone system  105 , and telephone  98  connected to telephone system  105 . 
     Call center  106  conventionally includes an automatic call distributor (ACD)  107  and call management system (CMS)  114  connected to and serving a plurality of call center agent positions  109 - 110 . Each agent position  109 - 110  includes a telephone  111  connected to ACD  107  for receiving voice calls, and a data terminal  112  connected by a local area network (LAN)  113  for receiving data, such as caller&#39;s records from a host computer  108 . Alternatively, the telephone and data terminal are combined into a single instrument, such as a display telephone or a personal computer equipped with a “soft phone”. ACD  107  and CMS  114  are interconnected by LAN  113  so that CMS  114  can collect information on the operation of call center  106  from ACD  107 , in a conventional manner. 
     ACD  107  and Internet  102  are interconnected by an Internet telephony gateway (ITG)  104  which converts Internet voice calls from Internet phone  99  to telephone calls and vice versa. Telephony gateway  104  is illustratively the Lucent Technologies Inc. Internet Telephony Gateway, or a modified version of the Lucent Technologies Inc. Definity ® Enterprise Communications Server. ACD  107  is illustratively a Lucent Technologies Inc. Definity Enterprise Communications Server ACD, and CMS  114  is illustratively the Lucent Technologies Inc. Centre Vu Call Management System. Illustratively, ITG  104  and call center  106  comprise the Lucent Technologies Inc. Internet call center. 
     Web server  103  includes a Web home page  121  and zero or more additional Web pages  122  for a client of call center  106 , which may be accessed by caller  100  via Web browser  101  over Internet  102 , in a conventional manner. Home page  121  and zero or more pages  122  each has a conventional hypertext markup language (HTML) capability—such as a “call” virtual button  115 —by means of which a user of Web browser  101  can indicate a request to speak to an agent of call center  106 . 
     As described so far, the communications system of FIG. 1 is conventional. 
     According to the invention, CMS  114  is connected by a data link  120  through Internet network  102  to Web server  103 , by means of which connection Web server  103  reports Web page “hits” and call requests to CMS  114 . Each of the call-center client&#39;s Web pages  121 ,  122  that has a “call” virtual button  115  includes a Common Gateway Interface (CGI) script  123  that is invoked each time a caller  100  accesses the page and also each time a caller  100  actuates “call” button  115  of that page. Execution of script  123  causes Web server  103  to report to CMS  114  either that the corresponding page has been accessed or that the corresponding page&#39;s button  115  was actuated. Button  115  may function as a “call-back” button whose actuation results in a callback request being sent to ITG  104  or ACD  107 . A call is then automatically placed back from ACD  107  to caller  100 . Alternatively, button may function as a “make call” button whose actuation results in a call from caller  100  being extended to ACD  107 , illustratively in the manner disclosed in a patent application of J. E. Coffman et al., entitled “Extending Internet Calls to a Telephony Call Center”, U.S. Ser. No. 08/749298, filed on Nov. 14, 1996, which is hereby incorporated herein by reference. Therefore, as used herein, the term “calls” includes call-back requests. 
     The reports sent by Web server  103  to CMS  114  are substantially real-time indications of each page  121 ,  122  hit and “call” button  115  actuation. The interactions between Web server  103 , caller  100 , and CMS  114  that effect supplying call center  106  and its supervisors with information predictive of anticipated call volume and call types are shown in FIG.  2 . When Web browser  101  of caller  100  sends a Web page request to Web server  103 , at step  200 , Web server  103  detects the request (a page “hit”), at step  202 , and sends the requested Web page  121 ,  122  to caller  100 , at step  204 . Caller  100  receives the Web page and displays it, at step  206 . Meanwhile, Web server  103  also executes script  123  associated with the requested page  121 ,  122 . This causes Web server  103  to compose a message identifying the accessed (requested and sent) Web page  121 ,  122 , at step  208 , and to send this message to CMS  114  via Internet network  102  and data link  120 , at step  210 . 
     CMS  114  receives the message, at step  230 , and checks whether it indicates actuation of a “call” button  115 , at step  222 . The message sent at step  210  does not indicate actuation of a button  115 , so CMS  114  merely stores the message data, e.g., the Web page identifier and the time when the message was sent, at step  250 . 
     When Web browser  101  of caller  100  detects actuation by a user of “call” button  115  of the Web page that it received at step  206 , at step  212 , it sends a call-request message indicative of that actuation to Web server  103 , at step  214 . Web server  103  receives the call-request message, at step  216 , and processes it, at step  218 , as necessary to effect establishment of a call between caller  100  and call center  106 . Web server  103  also executes script  123  associated with the Web page  121 ,  122  whose button  115  was actuated. This causes Web server  103  to compose a message identifying that Web page  121 ,  122  and the vector directory number (VDN) that is associated with the actuated button  115 , at step  220 , and to send this message to CMS  114 , at step  222 . 
     CMS  114  receives the message again at step  230 , and checks whether it indicates a button  115  actuation, at step  222 . The message sent at step  222  does indicate a button  115  actuation, so CMS  114  determines the estimated wait time (EWT) of the call established as a consequence of step  218 , at step  234 . The EWT is illustratively determined in the manner disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,506,898 which is hereby incorporated herein by reference. CMS  114  then composes a message indicating the determined EWT, at step  236 , and sends it to Web server  103  via data link  120  and Internet network  102 , at step  238 . Web server  103  receives the message, at step  240 , composes a new message indicating the EWT, at step  242 , and sends the new message to caller  100 , at step  244 . Caller  100  receives it, at step  246 , and displays the EWT, at step  248 . 
     Alternatively, steps  232 - 248  may be eliminated. 
     Meanwhile, CMS  114  stores the message contents of the message which it received at step  230 , e.g., the Web page identifier, the VDN, and the time when the message was sent, at step  250 . CMS  114  uses this stored data along with other, conventional, call center  106  data to generate reports for the call center supervisors, at step  252 , including reports on historical ratios of numbers of hits and numbers of calls resulting from those hits. A supervisor of call center  106  can use reports on current (recent) numbers of hits on the client&#39;s pages along with the historical ratios of page hits to calls (“call” button  115  actuations) as a predictor of the volume of calls that call center  106  will soon have to handle, and make corresponding agent staffing changes in anticipation thereof. Also, from knowing either the identity of accessed pages or the VDNs to which calls are being placed or the types of agent skills that are typically needed by calls initiated from a particular page, the supervisor of call center  106  can use reports on current numbers of hits on individual pages  121  and  212 , along with the historical ratios of page hits to calls for the individual pages, as a predictor of the types of skills that will be needed to handle the anticipated calls and assign various agents to various call center splits accordingly. 
     Additionally, call center  106  may include a scheduling and adherence expert-system program, executing either on CMS  114  or on some other unit of call center  106 , which automatically computes present and future call center and split agent-staffing and agent-skill needs and agent schedules. In that case, call center  106  supplies the data that it has collected and stored to this program, at step  254 , so that the program can compute anticipated staffing changes for call center  106 . 
     Of course, various changes and modifications to the illustrative embodiment described above will be apparent to those skilled in the art. For example, the information reported by the Web server to the call center may include information to general Web-site traffic flows, e.g., patterns of hits, etc. Such changes and modifications can be made without departing from the spirit and the scope of the invention and without diminishing its attendant advantages. It is therefore intended that such changes and modifications be covered by the following claims.