Patent ID: 8718264

Claim:
A system for automatically detecting status of an agent of a plurality of agents in a call center comprising: a call center management system; a plurality of agent workstations coupled to said call center management system; a plurality of telephones associated with said plurality of agent workstations; a switch for automatically connecting calls to said plurality of telephones; a communication management server connected to said plurality of telephones and connected to a communication network; an off-hook detector, located in said communication management server, automatically detecting a manually connected status of at least one of said telephones, wherein said manually connected status indicates said agent at said at least one of said telephones has made an independently initiated call that is outside of control of said switch, wherein said off-hook detector signals said switch that said agent at said at least one of said telephones is not connected to a call through said switch, but is unavailable, wherein said switch will not automatically connect a call to said agent; wherein said off-hook detector further comprises: a telephone status detection device, detecting a current status of said at least one of said telephone, wherein said current status is either available or unavailable; a status memory, storing a connected status of automatically connected calls to said at least one of said telephones by said switch wherein said connected status is either connected or not connected; a status comparator, comparing said current status with said connected status for each of said telephones and determining the following: said current status of available and said connected status of not connected indicating said at least one of said telephones is not in use; said current status of unavailable and said connected status of connected indicating said at least one of said telephones is handling a call connected by said switch; and said current status of unavailable and said connected status of not connected indicating said at least one of said telephones is handling a call that was manually initiated by said agent of said at least one of said telephones indicating said manually connected status; an alerting device, notifying a workstation of a supervisor when said off-hook detector detects said manually connected status; notifying said supervisor of a duration of said manually connected status exceeding a predetermined time limit; and removing a telephone of an agent associated with said manually connected status from one of an automatic call distribution queue and a predictive dialer campaign.