Patent ID: 8565411

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for converting interactions from a call channel to any of a chat channel, a self-service channel, and an assisted self-service channel, or for preventing interactions at said call channel by offering a chat channel, a self-service channel, and an assisted self-service channel, comprising the steps of: for a user call received from a call channel in a multi-channel system comprising each of a call channel, a chat channel, a self-service channel, and an assisted self-service channel, providing, by a call deflection processor, a call deflection strategy, said call deflection strategy automatically, and without involving an agent, causing said user on said call channel to be switched to any of said chat channel, self-service channel, and assisted self-service channel when said call deflection strategy is successful, wherein said call deflection strategy comprises: applying, by said call deflection processor, an application of one or more statistical model to identify distributions for call arrival, call wait time, and call abandon time and using the distributions thereof to determine when to play a message during a customer's wait time; performing with said call deflection processor a design of experiments to understand behavior of a customer during a wait time of the customer; using, by said call deflection processor, attributes from a customer profile to determine how said attributes affect customer behavior when a message is played and subsequently determining when and what message is played for said customer during said customer's wait, wherein said attributes comprise any of customer history of issues, demographics, and geography; and managing, by said call deflection processor, buffer capacity provided by proactive chat for said Web containment strategy; and, in coordination therewith for a user on a particular Web page in said multi-channel system, providing, by a Web containment processor, a Web containment strategy, said Web containment strategy automatically, with or without involving an agent, causing said user on said particular Web page to stay on said Web page and not switch to a call channel when said Web containment strategy is successful, said causing being effected by any of inviting the user to said chat channel, presenting the user with self-service opportunities on said self-service channel, and presenting the user with assisted self-service opportunities on said assisted self-service channel, wherein said Web containment strategy comprises: identifying, by said Web containment processor, top call driver pages; identifying, by said Web containment processor, Web journeys that correspond to each call driver page; computing, by said Web containment processor, Web traffic on the call driver pages and on the pages of the corresponding Web journey; and based in part on said computed Web traffic, computing by said Web containment processor an estimation of chat volume.