Patent ID: 8565412

Claim:
A method comprising: (a) receiving one or more signals that indicate that: (i) a call C to a call center is queued for service, and (ii) a non-empty set of agents of said call center are currently serving respective calls that are estimated to be less valuable than said call C; (b) transmitting to each of said non-empty set of agents, in response to said one or more signals, a first signal that: (i) notifies the agent of said call C, and (ii) prompts the agent for an estimate of how much longer the agent will be serving their current call; and (c) selecting which of said non-empty set of agents will service said call C based on: (i) agent responses to said prompts, and (ii) for at least one of said non-empty set of agents, a measure of how closely prior agent responses compared to actual remaining service times.