Patent ID: 8718270

Claim:
Apparatus, comprising: an Internet-accessible infrastructure operating at a service provider domain, the Internet-accessible infrastructure comprising at least one web server, an application server, a telephony server, and a database, the Internet-accessible infrastructure adapted to enable business entities to create and manage interactive communications campaigns, wherein a given campaign comprises one or more sub-campaigns, the infrastructure including at least one hardware element and being in communication with a contact center having a set of agents; code associated with the web server to provision a sub-campaign; code associated with the telephony server to establish and maintain a persistent telephony connection to an agent that has been associated with the sub-campaign; code associated with the telephony server to initiate outbound calls to one or more customers during the sub-campaign; code associated with the application server to determine whether a first customer should be connected to an agent at the contact center; code associated with the application server to connect the first customer to the agent over the persistent telephony connection; code associated with the application server to determine whether the first customer has terminated an interaction with the agent; and code associated with the application server to enable a second customer to be connected to the agent over the persistent telephony connection if the first customer has terminated the interaction with the agent.