Patent ID: 8737598

Claim:
A customer support system comprising: a telephone switch for receiving incoming telephone calls for customer service from customers through a public switched telephone network; a computer telephony integration (CTI) component for accommodating customer interactions with the customer support system occurring through telephony devices that use phone numbers and through Internet devices that use Internet Protocol addresses; a routing server for: during an interactive customer service session between one of the customers and the customer support system, routing a customer from a phone, chat, or email based communication to a different virtual world communication without terminating the interactive customer service session, wherein the routing server utilizes the computer telephony integration component to route the phone, chat, or email based communication to the different virtual world communication; a web user interface for interacting with a customer through the web during the interactive session; a customer support server for providing support to the customer through the web user interface of the different virtual world communication and through an interface of the phone, chat, or email based communication during the interactive customer service session; a virtual world component associated with the customer support server for enhancing the interaction between the customer and the customer support server during the interactive customer service session with virtual world features; and one or more customer support clients, which are computing devices enabling one or more human agents to provide customer service to the customer during the interactive customer service session, wherein the one or more customer support clients enable the one or more human agents to interact by voice or text for the phone, chat, or email based communications and to interact as an avatar during the virtual world communication using the virtual world component.