Patent ID: 7693735

Claim:
An apparatus for managing appointments between a customer and a service provider comprising a plurality of individuals, said apparatus comprising: a communication gateway configured to receive and deliver communications; a microprocessor configured to determine the estimated time of arrival or performance of a service appointment; and a statistics engine, wherein a statistical determination of a performance of the service provider is based on at least one of: historical performance patterns, a type of service requested during a requested appointment, geographic location of the customer or the service provider, time of day, time of year, weather, skills of at least one individual of the service provider, or automobile traffic conditions, wherein the microprocessor is configured to determine if a delay occurs in a schedule of appointments and determines if the delay will propagate to affect other appointments, wherein the determination if a delay will propagate is based on at least one of a type of appointment of the requested appointment, a type of delay of the delay, and a statistical determination of delay propagation based on historical information related to the requested appointment, wherein said microprocessor is configured to monitor performance of each of said plurality of individuals so as to provide a continuously updated statistical evaluation for each of said plurality of individuals, wherein the microprocessor is configured to maintain a self-calibrating repository of personal performance patterns for each individual based on at least one of skills, customer location and historical performance patterns, configured to store a hierarchy of individuals in a database based on performance, and configured to select an individual from said plurality of individuals for an appointment based on at least one of skills, customer location, and historical performance patterns of the plurality of individuals, wherein the microprocessor is configured to schedule said service appointment based on at least one of said estimated time of arrival or performance, a communication from a customer, business rules of a service provider and the statistical determination of performance of the service provider, wherein said microprocessor is configured to determine the estimated time of arrival or performance of a service appointment based on an individual's learned historical performance patterns, and wherein the microprocessor is configured to determine the estimated time of arrival or performance of the service appointment further based on real time service delivery data.