Patent ID: 8582752

Claim:
A method for determining a number of calls to generate in an automated contact center based upon a prediction of agent occupancy in a future time period, wherein the automated contact center comprises a dialer for dialing generated calls, a queue where successfully connected dialed calls await agent handling, and an agent pool where calls are handled by agents, the method comprising: collecting empirical data on agent handling times, wherein an agent handling time is a duration during which a call was in the agent pool; calculating an impact of the dialer, wherein the dialer impact is an estimated number of calls presently in the dialer that would be in the agent pool in the future time period, wherein each call presently in the dialer is associated with an in-dialer duration representing an amount of time that the call has been in the dialer, and wherein the calculation includes using the in-dialer duration associated with each call presently in the dialer and the collected empirical data on agent handling times; calculating an impact of the queue, wherein the queue impact is an estimated number of calls presently in the queue that would be in the agent pool in the future time period, and wherein the calculation includes using the collected empirical data on agent handling times; calculating an impact of the agent pool, wherein the agent pool impact is an estimated number of calls presently in the agent pool that would be in the agent pool in the future time period, wherein each call presently in the agent pool is associated with an in-agent-pool duration representing an amount of time that the call has been in the agent pool, and wherein the calculation includes using the in-agent-pool duration associated with each call presently in the agent pool and the collected empirical data on agent handling times; predicting a future agent occupancy in the future time period based upon the dialer impact, the queue impact, and the agent pool impact; determining the number of calls to generate in the automated contact center using the predicted future agent occupancy; and generating calls based upon the number of calls to generate.