Abstract:
A contact center work assignment engine communication system hosts a multi-functional contact advocate to manage communications and history for customers, including the ability to report issues, provide updates, identify and solve problems, store history, interface with contact center components, including agents and experts, creating a proactive automatic assistant for contact center customers.

Description:
FIELD OF THE DISCLOSURE 
       [0001]    The present disclosure is generally directed toward communications and more specifically toward contact centers. 
       BACKGROUND 
       [0002]    In typical contact centers today, there exists a universal identifier (ID) for each customer. The ID joins data which may come into the contact center system from multiple sources. The sources might include on-line order information, system information, contact information, or other personal information, email, texts, interaction logs, etc. Contact centers employ agents to manage all ID information and history, handle orders, and resolve issues. Often servicing a contact requires looking through the contact&#39;s ID information and history of interactions with the company. Aggregating or correlating the ID and other data can be done automatically or by agents. 
         [0003]    In current models, a system component and/or an agent reactively works to solve issues, concerns, or queries for a contact that comes into the contact center. Interactive Voice Response systems (IVRs) are typically used to preserve some agent resources by handling some contact needs through automated servicing. Some slightly more sophisticated systems also provide supplemental and/or related information to contacts (e.g., a company provides a weather report when the contact is traveling). Most companies live with reactive models of customer service that don&#39;t find and solve problems without agent intervention. Reactive models are inefficient since agents must review ID data and history and may not be aware of other activities in the contact center. 
       SUMMARY 
       [0004]    These and other needs are addressed by the various aspects, embodiments, and/or configurations of the present disclosure. The present disclosure is directed to a contact advocate that can proactively manage issues and retain ID data and history for a contact center customer, thereby enabling a new level of efficiency for issue preemption and resolution. A contact advocate module is proposed herein that is capable of creating and deploying contact advocates operable to work proactively on behalf of the contact. 
         [0005]    Contact centers look to preserve precious and expensive resources in all operational areas. Once resource area that tends to be expensive is the use of a live agent to react to customer queries and/or problems. One way to preserve agent resources as part of a reactive solution is the use of an IVR which automates interactions with callers. When an agent has to get involved with a work item that is beyond the help of the IVR, he or she may need to review the ID data and history of a contact. He or she may have to speak to the contact to determine the nature of the problem. This is time-consuming and inefficient, especially when an intelligent, proactive contact advocate can do this automatically. The contact advocate can work as a personal assistant on behalf of a contact within the contact center. 
         [0006]    The model of the contact advocate is the inverse of what occurs today. The contact advocate that represents a contact can proactively look in a contact center communication system to find a solution to a problem. The contact advocate has access to all customer interactions, allowing the contact advocate to actively use system resources to meet the contact&#39;s needs. Like a noSQL model, the contact advocate also has data that stays with the contact advocate for the customer, including but not limited to communication and order history. Effectively, the contact advocate owns and stores all of the contact&#39;s history and adds to the history with subsequent engagements. Once invoked, the contact advocate can query and scan to see if there is any information that the contact advocate should proactively send out to the contact. 
         [0007]    Every transaction can be recorded and maintained by the contact advocate through an object-oriented database. The data maintained by the contact advocate can be continuously updated by the contact advocate module. For new customers that have issues and/or queries, a default or basic advocate can be created in response to an first communication that has a specific and/or common purpose (e.g., an order bot). The object for the contact advocate is always available in the background, and the contact advocate can be activated by triggers for specific events and/or event types. Very much like a simulation, the contact advocate can respond to stimulus by running simple programs and returning information. All components of a contact center communication system can be in contact with the contact advocate, including but not limited to agents, experts, reporting systems, ticketing systems, and ordering systems. The contact advocate can function as a virtual customer that is owned and managed by the contact center on behalf of the contact. The contact advocate can also function as a proxy for a contact, managing any communication media and/or channel, including but not limited to web, cellular, email, telephone, voicemail, text, and chat. 
         [0008]    A common question that comes into the contact center communication system is, “What is the status of my order?” The contact advocate would query for status information on the contact&#39;s order based on the contact&#39;s ID. For example, the contact advocate might return a message, “The Bluetooth headset model X order has been processed and the tracking number is X73GH4009.” The contact advocate can also log the interaction in the contact&#39;s history. The contact advocate might also proactively email an expert and ask if there have been any issues related to the headset in the order (e.g., Do you know of any Bluetooth issues with model X?). The contact advocate can send out information and/or known solutions derived from other interactions within the contact center, information from previous interactions, and provide information from the expert. The contact advocate is operable to provide the information to the contact in the form of reports, emails, alerts, texts, etc. For example, a text message might be sent by the contact advocate, “The Bluetooth headset has been known to drop calls when mute is activated. Please contact us when you receive the headset so that we can give you a fix for the issue. We apologize for the inconvenience.” 
         [0009]    Another embodiment might include policies of how long to keep the contact advocate and what policies are enforced for the contact ID and other data, including temporal lifecycle and archiving parameters and thresholds. 
         [0010]    These and other advantages will be apparent from the disclosure. In some embodiments a method is provided which generally comprises: 
         [0011]    receiving a communication from a customer of a contact center; 
         [0012]    based on the received communication, invoking a contact center advocate on behalf of the customer; 
         [0013]    subscribing, by the contact center advocate, to one or more contact center events based on at least one of (i) information contained in the received communication and (ii) information known within the contact center about the customer; 
         [0014]    receiving information regarding the one or more contact center events at the contact center advocate, wherein the information is received at the contact center advocate based on the contact center advocate subscribing to the one or more contact center events; and 
         [0015]    performing a function on the received information with the contact center advocate. 
         [0016]    The term “automatic” and variations thereof, as used herein, refers to any process or operation done without material human input when the process or operation is performed. However, a process or operation can be automatic, even though performance of the process or operation uses material or immaterial human input, if the input is received before performance of the process or operation. Human input is deemed to be material if such input influences how the process or operation will be performed. Human input that consents to the performance of the process or operation is not deemed to be “material.” 
         [0017]    The term “computer-readable medium” as used herein refers to any storage and/or transmission medium that participate in providing instructions to a processor for execution. Such a medium is commonly tangible and non-transient and can take many forms, including but not limited to, non-volatile media, volatile media, and transmission media and includes without limitation random access memory (“RAM”), read only memory (“ROM”), and the like. Non-volatile media includes, for example, NVRAM, or magnetic or optical disks. Volatile media includes dynamic memory, such as main memory. Common forms of computer-readable media include, for example, a floppy disk (including without limitation a Bernoulli cartridge, ZIP drive, and JAZ drive), a flexible disk, hard disk, magnetic tape or cassettes, or any other magnetic medium, magneto-optical medium, a digital video disk (such as CD-ROM), any other optical medium, punch cards, paper tape, any other physical medium with patterns of holes, a RAM, a PROM, and EPROM, a FLASH-EPROM, a solid state medium like a memory card, any other memory chip or cartridge, a carrier wave as described hereinafter, or any other medium from which a computer can read. A digital file attachment to e-mail or other self-contained information archive or set of archives is considered a distribution medium equivalent to a tangible storage medium. When the computer-readable media is configured as a database, it is to be understood that the database may be any type of database, such as relational, hierarchical, object-oriented, and/or the like. Accordingly, the disclosure is considered to include a tangible storage medium or distribution medium and prior art-recognized equivalents and successor media, in which the software implementations of the present disclosure are stored. Computer-readable storage medium commonly excludes transient storage media, particularly electrical, magnetic, electromagnetic, optical, magneto-optical signals. 
         [0018]    The phrase “Call Management System (CMS)” as used herein refers to an Avaya application that includes database, administration, and reporting features to help businesses identify and take action on operational issues. 
         [0019]    The term “advocate” or phrase “contact advocate” as used herein refers to software including machine instructions, source code, and/or artificial intelligence. The contact advocate may consist of but is not limited to a program, application, procedures, high-level language, functions, data, and documentation. 
         [0020]    The term “user,” “customer,” or “client” denotes a party patronizing, serviced by, or otherwise doing business with a contact center or other type of enterprise. 
         [0021]    The terms “determine,” “calculate,” and “compute,” and variations thereof as used herein, are used interchangeably and include any type of methodology, process, mathematical operation or technique. 
         [0022]    The term “means” as used herein shall be given its broadest possible interpretation in accordance with 35 U.S.C., Section 112, Paragraph 6. Accordingly, a claim incorporating the term “means” shall cover all structures, materials, or acts set forth herein, and all of the equivalents thereof. Further, the structures, materials or acts and the equivalents thereof shall include all those described in the summary of the invention, brief description of the drawings, detailed description, abstract, and claims themselves. 
         [0023]    The term “module” as used herein refers to any known or later developed hardware, software, firmware, artificial intelligence, fuzzy logic, or combination of hardware and software that is capable of performing the functionality associated with that element. Also, while the disclosure is presented in terms of exemplary embodiments, it should be appreciated that individual aspects of the disclosure can be separately claimed. 
         [0024]    The preceding is a simplified summary of the disclosure to provide an understanding of some aspects of the disclosure. This summary is neither an extensive nor exhaustive overview of the disclosure and its various aspects, embodiments, and/or configurations. It is intended neither to identify key or critical elements of the disclosure nor to delineate the scope of the disclosure but to present selected concepts of the disclosure in a simplified form as an introduction to the more detailed description presented below. As will be appreciated, other aspects, embodiments, and/or configurations of the disclosure are possible utilizing, alone or in combination, one or more of the features set forth above or described in detail below. 
     
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         [0025]      FIG. 1  is a block diagram of a communication system in accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure; 
           [0026]      FIG. 2  is an example of contact advocate communication in accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure; 
           [0027]      FIG. 3  is a flow diagram for a method of creation of a contact center advocate in accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure; and 
           [0028]      FIG. 4  is a flow diagram for a method for contact advocate subscription notification and invocation in accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure. 
       
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
       [0029]      FIG. 1  depicts a communication system  100  in accordance with at least some embodiments of the present disclosure. The communication system  100  may be a distributed system and, in some embodiments, comprises a communication network  104  connecting one or more customer communication devices  108  to a work assignment mechanism  116 , which may be owned and operated by an enterprise administering a contact center in which a plurality of resources  112  are distributed to handle incoming work items from the customer communication devices  108 . 
         [0030]    In accordance with at least some embodiments of the present disclosure, the communication network  104  may comprise any type of known communication medium or collection of communication media and may use any type of protocols to transport messages between endpoints. The communication network  104  may include wired and/or wireless communication technologies. The Internet is an example of the communication network  104  that constitutes an Internet Protocol (IP) network consisting of many computers, computing networks, and other communication devices located all over the world, which are connected through many telephone systems and other means. Other examples of the communication network  104  include, without limitation, a standard Plain Old Telephone System (POTS), an Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN), the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), a Local Area Network (LAN), a Wide Area Network (WAN), a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) network, a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) network, a cellular network, and any other type of packet-switched or circuit-switched network known in the art. In addition, it can be appreciated that the communication network  104  need not be limited to any one network type, and instead may be comprised of a number of different networks and/or network types. As one example, embodiments of the present disclosure may be utilized to increase the efficiency of a grid-based contact center. Examples of a grid-based contact center are more fully described in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2010/0296417, the entire contents of which are hereby incorporated herein by reference. Moreover, the communication network  104  may comprise a number of different communication media such as coaxial cable, copper cable/wire, fiber-optic cable, antennas for transmitting/receiving wireless messages, and combinations thereof. 
         [0031]    The communication devices  108  may correspond to customer communication devices. In accordance with at least some embodiments of the present disclosure, a customer may utilize their communication device  108  to initiate a work item, which is generally a request for a processing resource  112 . Exemplary work items include, but are not limited to, a contact directed toward and received at a contact center, a web page request directed toward and received at a server farm (e.g., collection of servers), a media request, an application request (e.g., a request for application resources location on a remote application server, such as a SIP application server), and the like. The work item may be in the form of a message or collection of messages transmitted over the communication network  104 . For example, the work item may be transmitted as a telephone call, a packet or collection of packets (e.g., IP packets transmitted over an IP network), an email message, an Instant Message, an SMS message, a fax, and combinations thereof. In some embodiments, the communication may not necessarily be directed at the work assignment mechanism  116 , but rather may be on some other server in the communication network  104  where it is harvested by the work assignment mechanism  116 , which generates a work item for the harvested communication. An example of such a harvested communication includes a social media communication that is harvested by the work assignment mechanism  116  from a social media network or server. Exemplary architectures for harvesting social media communications and generating work items based thereon are described in U.S. Patent Application Publication Nos. 2010/0235218, 2011/0125826, and 2011/0125793, each of which are hereby incorporated herein by reference in their entirety. 
         [0032]    The work assignment mechanism  116  may employ any queue-based or queueless work assignment algorithm. Examples of queue-based work assignment skill-based algorithms include, without limitation, a fairness algorithm, pacing algorithm (which inserts rests into the agents work queue), value-based algorithms, limited algorithms (such as Business Advocate™ by Avaya, Inc.), and outsourcing algorithms. Other algorithms may consider other types of data inputs and/or may treat certain data inputs differently. 
         [0033]    The format of the work item may depend upon the capabilities of the communication device  108  and the format of the communication. In particular, work items are logical representations within a contact center of work to be performed in connection with servicing a communication received at the contact center (and more specifically the work assignment mechanism  116 ). The communication may be received and maintained at the work assignment mechanism  116 , a switch or server connected to the work assignment mechanism  116 , or the like until a resource  112  is assigned to the work item representing that communication at which point the work assignment mechanism  116  passes the work item to a routing engine  124  to connect the communication device  108  to the assigned resource  112 . 
         [0034]    Although the routing engine  124  is depicted as being separate from the work assignment mechanism  116 , the routing engine  124  may be incorporated into the work assignment mechanism  116  or its functionality may be executed by the work assignment engine  120 . 
         [0035]    In accordance with at least some embodiments of the present disclosure, the customer communication devices  108  may comprise any type of known communication equipment or collection of communication equipment. Examples of a suitable communication device  108  include, but are not limited to, a personal computer, laptop, tablet, cellular phone, smartphone, telephone, or combinations thereof. In general, each communication device  108  may be adapted to support video, audio, text, and/or data communications with other communication devices  108  as well as the processing resources  112 . The type of medium used by the communication device  108  to communicate with other communication devices  108  or processing resources  112  may depend upon communication applications available on the communication device  108 . 
         [0036]    In accordance with at least some embodiments of the present disclosure, the work item is sent toward a collection of processing resources  112  via the combined efforts of the work assignment mechanism  116  and routing engine  124 . The resources  112  can either be completely automated resources (e.g., Interactive Voice Response (IVR) units, processors, servers, or the like), human resources utilizing communication devices (e.g., human agents utilizing a computer, telephone, laptop, etc.), or any other resource known to be used in contact centers. 
         [0037]    As discussed above, the work assignment mechanism  116  and resources  112  may be owned and operated by a common entity in a contact center format. In some embodiments, the work assignment mechanism  116  may be administered by multiple enterprises, each of which has their own dedicated resources  112   a - n  connected to the work assignment mechanism  116 . 
         [0038]    In some embodiments, the work assignment mechanism  116  comprises a work assignment engine  120  which enables the work assignment mechanism  116  to make intelligent routing decisions for work items and/or a contact advocate module  128 . In some embodiments, the work assignment engine  120  is configured to administer and make work assignment decisions in a queueless contact center, as is described in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2011/0255683, the entire contents of which are hereby incorporated herein by reference. 
         [0039]    More specifically, the work assignment engine  120  can determine which of the plurality of processing resources  112  is qualified and/or eligible to receive the work item and further determine which of the plurality of processing resources  112  is best suited (or is the optimal processing resource) to handle the processing needs of the work item. In situations of work item surplus, the work assignment engine  120  can also make the opposite determination (i.e., determine optimal assignment of a work item resource to a resource). In some embodiments, the work assignment engine  120  is configured to achieve true one-to-one matching by utilizing bitmaps/tables and other data structures. 
         [0040]    The work assignment mechanism  116  can communicate with the contact advocate module  128  which may provide communication between a contact and contact center components. The work assignment mechanism  116  can communicate with a Call Management System (CMS)  132  which may provide integrated analysis and reporting on the performance of one agent, a group of agents, a single contact center site, or multiple contact center sites. The contact advocate module  128  may additionally integrate CMS  132 , component, and application data for display on a user interface of the customer communication device  108  and/or an agent workstation. Components and applications may work in conjunction with the contact advocate module  128 , providing both native functionality and third-party functionality provided by an API. 
         [0041]      FIG. 2  depicts contact advocate communication  200  in accordance with at least some embodiments of the present disclosure. A contact advocate  208  may reside in any type of known server and/or hardware running host and content management software that allows database access, communication services, and a user interface, including but not limited to a server as shown in  FIG. 2 . 
         [0042]    A customer  204  may communicate with a contact advocate  208  using one or more communication channels. The channels might include email  212 , text  216 , social media pages  220 , and telephone calls  224 . The customer  204  may send or receive communication to and from the contact advocate  208  over any or all of the channels. The contact advocate  208  is operable to communicate with components of the contact center communication system  100  on behalf of the customer  204 . The contact advocate  208  may send or receive information over any available communication channel to contact center components including, but not limited to, an order fulfillment component  228 , an expert  232 , an agent  236 , a CMS  132 , and a ticketing system component  240 . Additionally, the contact advocate  208  may be optionally configured to communicate with components in a distributed system or with components outside of the contact center communication system  100 . 
         [0043]    In a non-limiting example, a customer Sarah  204  may post a question on a social media website  220  managed by a company called Cool Wraps. Sarah  204  posts a question regarding when the new wrap that has a design from her favorite show Over the Wall will be available. Sarah&#39;s friend Mark told her that the alpaca wool wrap that was featured on the first few episodes of Over the Wall and worn by character Steren Teague will soon be available from the company and Sarah  204  is anxious to buy one. 
         [0044]    Since Sarah  204  has ordered products from Cool Wraps in the past, Sarah  204  already has a contact advocate  208  that keeps track of her history, manages communications with Cool Wraps, and proactively finds information that may be of use to her. Sarah&#39;s contact advocate  208  receives an event notification that a post from Sarah has been detected. The contact center communication system  100  creates a work item in the ticketing system  240 . The contact advocate  208  runs an analysis on her social media post, detecting that the question is one that the contact advocate  208  can handle. The contact advocate  208  accepts the work item and queries an order fulfillment component  228  to find a date of release for the Steren Teague wrap. The contact advocate  208  also runs a scan to see if any related products are available or if there are any known issues. Once the contact advocate  208  is provided the date of availability from the order fulfillment component  228 , the contact advocate  208  posts a message to Sarah  204  on Cool Wrap&#39;s social media page  220  letting her know that the wraps can be ordered a week from now for $45.00 plus shipping costs. The contact advocate  208  also sends a separate email  212  to Sarah  204 , thanking her for the question and also including the information regarding availability of the Steren Teague wrap and suggesting the purchase of a matching set of gloves for $15.00 plus shipping costs. By answering the social media post  220  question using both media channels (social media  220  and email  212 ), the contact advocate  208  allows other customers to see the release date of the wrap and provides Sarah  204  with an answer and a proactive, personal communication that includes an opportunity for the company to suggest an upsell during a potential sale. Once the social media post  220  and the email  212  have been sent, the contact advocate  208  notifies the ticketing system  240  that the work item has been completed, and the work item is closed. 
         [0045]    By using the contact advocate  208  as a proactive resource for customer Sarah  204 , the agent  236  and the expert  232  remain free to handle more sophisticated issues or issues requiring human intervention and/or analysis. Had the contact advocate  208  been unable to detect an answer to Sarah&#39;s query, the contact advocate  208  could have contacted the agent  236  and/or the expert  232  for assistance via text or email. 
         [0046]    The method  300  for creation of a contact center advocate in accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure is shown in  FIG. 3 . Generally, the method  300  begins with a start operation  304  and concludes with an end operation  340 . While a general order for the steps of the method  300  are shown in  FIG. 3 , the method  300  can include more or fewer steps or the order of the steps can be arranged differently than those shown in  FIG. 3 . The method  300  can be executed as a set of computer-executable instructions executed by a computer system and encoded or stored on a computer readable medium. Further, the method may also be embodied by a set of gates or other structures in an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), or other configurable hardware component, module, or system. Hereinafter, the method  300  shall be explained with reference to systems, components, modules, software, data structures, etc. described in conjunction with  FIGS. 1-2 . 
         [0047]    Generally, the method begins at step  304 . The method continues when a customer  204  initiates a request or sends a query to a contact center and the request or the query is received, in step  308 . Customer interaction may generate a message to initiate the creation of a contact advocate  208  by a contact advocate module  128 , in step  312 . 
         [0048]    For example, a first-time customer John  204  may contact the company to order an above-ground pool. The contact advocate  208  may be created for John  204  as a generic or simple contact advocate  208  for John&#39;s first customer interaction, potentially capable of handling a simple query from John  204  (i.e., helping with an order). In step  316 , the newly created contact advocate  208  may review a request or query from John  204  which is handled as a work item. In step  320 , the contact advocate  208  may research the work item. The contact advocate  208  may search all contact center communication system records, files, applications, logs, databases, and other resources to assess what is needed to bring the work item to resolution. In step  324 , an analysis may be conducted to determine if the work item can be handled by the contact advocate  208  for the customer  204 . In the example, the contact advocate  208  may query and receive information including price, availability, and shipping information for the pool from the order fulfillment component  228 . The contact advocate  208  may access additional pool information from one or more resources in the contact center communication system  100  such as CMS  132 , an expert  232 , an agent  236 , and a ticketing system  240 . If the answer to the question is yes, the contact advocate  208  can handle the work item (i.e., provide all of the information needed for a pool purchase), the contact advocate  208  accepts the work item and sends the information to John. The contact advocate may complete the work item (step  328 ) without any agent assistance and/or intervention. The contact advocate  208  may send information back to John via email  212 , text  216 , social media  220 , a call  224 , or any other communication channel or channels. Once the work item has been completed, the method ends (step  340 ). If the answer to the question in step  324  is no, the contact advocate  208  can alert an agent  236  to take the work item in step  332  and optionally provide information on the pool from the analysis and queries. Examples of appropriate agent intervention might include a work item where the customer John  204  asks for live agent assistance and for subjective analysis of the pool choices. In step  336 , the agent  236  may address the work item, which may consist of but is not limited to, working the work item and contacting the customer directly and/or working the work item and giving the information to the contact advocate  208  to send back to John  204 . Once the agent  236  has completed the work item, the method ends (step  340 ). 
         [0049]    The method  400  for contact advocate subscription notification and contact advocate invocation in accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure is shown in  FIG. 4 . Generally, the method  400  begins with a start operation  404  and concludes with an end operation  436 . While a general order for the steps of the method  400  are shown in  FIG. 4 , the method  400  can include more or fewer steps or the order of the steps can be arranged differently than those shown in  FIG. 4 . The method  400  can be executed as a set of computer-executable instructions executed by a computer system and encoded or stored on a computer readable medium. Further, the method may also be embodied by a set of gates or other structures in an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), or other configurable hardware component, module, or system. Hereinafter, the method  400  shall be explained with reference to systems, components, modules, software, and data structures, described in conjunction with  FIGS. 1-3 . 
         [0050]    The method  400  begins at step  404  and continues when a communication from a customer  204  is received by a contact center. The receipt of the communication may trigger a notification event that the communication from the customer  204  has been received, in step  408 . A contact advocate  208  may be awakened, or invoked, by the receipt of the notification event based on an existing subscription for an event type and for the customer  204  with a particular ID or other identifying data. In step  412 , the contact advocate  208  may initiate a scan and/or analysis based on the event created from the communication from the customer  204 . In addition to subscription-based monitoring of incoming and/or available data, the contact advocate  208  may also be available on demand from the agent  236 . While the scan is running in step  412 , the agent  236  may send an alert and/or signal of some kind to the contact advocate  208 , requesting assistance. The contact advocate module  128  may provide results of the analysis and/or scan to the contact advocate  208  to answer the question as to whether or not there exists an item of interest to the customer  204  or an agent assistance request, in step  416 . If no work item is created and there are no items of interest for the contact advocate  208  or agent  236  to provide to the customer  204 , the method ends in step  420 . If a work item is created or an agent  236  needs a response, the contact advocate  208  may respond to the customer  204  in a form including, but not limited to, an email  212 , a text  216 , a social media post  220 , or a call  224  and/or respond directly to the agent  236  (step  424 ). If additional information is required as determined by the contact advocate  208 , an agent  236  may be alerted, in step  428 . Once the agent  236  has been alerted, he or she may accept the work item. The work item may be completed by the contact advocate  208 , the agent  236 , or a combination of effort by the two, in step  432 . The ticketing system  240  can be updated when the work item is completed (step  432 ). Once the contact advocate  208  or the agent  236  completes the work item, the method ends, in step  436 . 
         [0051]    With each communication from a customer to a company, a new contact advocate  208  may be created or an existing contact advocate  208  may be invoked by subscriptions to particular events. The event-based, persistent contact advocate  208  can employ known methods, including event detection, event notification, speech analytics, scheduling, querying, etc. to manage transactions, policies, and notifications. 
         [0052]    The contact advocate  208  can reside in the contact center indefinitely, or alternately the contact advocate  208  can expire after a fixed time and/or a period of inactivity specified by an administrator. Additional policies can be enforced or removed for lifecycle and archiving. 
         [0053]    In an additional embodiment, additional modules can be created to provide new contact advocate  208  behaviors, including proactive notification to customers using mechanisms beyond subscriptions and to hook to additional events, customer and agent alerts, and other information mechanisms to provide services to agents and customers. 
         [0054]    Although the present disclosure describes components and functions implemented in the aspects, embodiments, and/or configurations with reference to particular standards and protocols, the aspects, embodiments, and/or configurations are not limited to such standards and protocols. Other similar standards and protocols not mentioned herein are in existence and are considered to be included in the present disclosure. Moreover, the standards and protocols mentioned herein and other similar standards and protocols not mentioned herein are periodically superseded by faster or more effective equivalents having essentially the same functions. Such replacement standards and protocols having the same functions are considered equivalents included in the present disclosure. 
         [0055]    The foregoing discussion has been presented for purposes of illustration and description. The foregoing is not intended to limit the disclosure to the form or forms disclosed herein. In the foregoing Detailed Description for example, various features of the disclosure are grouped together in one or more aspects, embodiments, and/or configurations for the purpose of streamlining the disclosure. The features of the aspects, embodiments, and/or configurations of the disclosure may be combined in alternate aspects, embodiments, and/or configurations other than those discussed above. This method of disclosure is not to be interpreted as reflecting an intention that the claims require more features than are expressly recited in each claim. Rather, as the following claims reflect, inventive aspects lie in less than all features of a single foregoing disclosed aspect, embodiment, and/or configuration. Thus, the following claims are hereby incorporated into this Detailed Description, with each claim standing on its own as a separate preferred embodiment of the disclosure.