Patent ID: 7526439

Claim:
A computer implemented method for engaging sales associates with customers over, through or in conjunction with the Internet, comprising: receiving session information from a website about customers' sessions on a website of the enterprise, the website being associated with a selected one of a plurality of enterprises and the session information comprising products the customers are searching; receiving any customer information on the customers from the selected enterprise; determining from the session information and any customer information whether each customer represents a sales opportunity, based on a set of rules of engagement for the selected enterprise and whether each customer wants or could use assistance from a sales associate; producing a ranked list of sales associates matched for each sales opportunity, the sales associates being independent from the plurality of enterprises; creating or updating a customer queue for each sales associate, the customer queue having sales opportunities matched with each sales associate; for a first sales associate, determining a number of sales opportunities to approach at one time in the first sales associate's customer queue by dividing a target number of engagements by an approach acceptance percentage and then multiplying by a safety percentage; automatically approaching the customers associated with each sales opportunity in the customer queue for the first sales associate and requesting whether the customer desires assistance from a sales associate until the number of sales opportunities to approach is reached or the customer contacted previously requested assistance from a sales associate; receiving responses from the customers; for a response from a customer desiring assistance, determining if the first sales associate is available to assist the customer desiring assistance; and passing the customer desiring assistance to the first sales associate, if the first sales associate is available.