Patent Document

FIELD OF THE DISCLOSURE 
       [0001]    The present disclosure is generally directed toward communications and more specifically toward contact centers. 
       BACKGROUND 
       [0002]    Contact centers can provide numerous services to customers. The customers expect all contact center services to be provided efficiently and correctly. If there are issues on calls and/or with particular agents, the issues may create a serious liability for the contact center. A contact center manager is responsible for addressing and correcting the issues before the issues become expensive and/or create customer dissatisfaction. Once the contact center manager identifies a problem with a particular call and/or agent, action needs to be taken to rectify the problem as soon as possible. Examples of issues on calls might include calls that have been waiting too long, leaving calls on hold too long, the agent getting angry, etc. 
         [0003]    Common methods for the contact center manager to monitor the agent include the use of a reporting system that utilizes threshold checks, system-wide audits, speech analytics, and watchdog timers to take snapshots of the system, capture issues, and generate reports and alerts. The reports and the alerts currently rely on the contact center manager&#39;s proactive, diligent monitoring and availability to take corrective action. Though reports, alerts, and other types of audits are common and useful tools, most contact centers just live with the limitations created by manual follow-up. 
       SUMMARY 
       [0004]    These and other needs are addressed by the various aspects, embodiments, and/or configurations of the present disclosure. The present disclosure is directed to a bot agent solution that can detect problem calls for a contact center manager, thereby enabling a new level of efficiency for issue resolution. A bot agent module is proposed herein that is capable of deploying bot agents as readying agents with flexible strategy and matching features. 
         [0005]    When contact centers were first created, the contact centers were typically small operations that were in one location, servicing one company. Contact centers at the time were relatively easy to manage, where managers could reasonably keep an eye on agents and agent performance. The manager could walk around, check on or listen in on calls, and chat with agents about issues and challenges. As contact centers have grown in complexity, the number of tasks that must be handled have increased exponentially, creating significantly greater management challenges. 
         [0006]    Today&#39;s contact centers are often distributed, with multiple locations and networks, typically configured to use a Call Management System (CMS) and an Automatic Call Distributor (ACD) to manage routing, goals, statistics, etc. This distributed architecture can often reduce or eliminate the manager&#39;s ability to walk around and check on agents and problems and the large number of work items makes it virtually impossible for managers to watch every single transaction. 
         [0007]    To address the growing management challenges of complexity and distribution and to automate certain functions, bot agents may be employed in accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure. Bot agents, in one embodiment, are real call and/or readying agents put into service by the contact center manager. Bot agents can be injected into the contact center to be matched to a problem agent and/or selected calls. Scheduled bots have the ability to go ready like actual calls and/or agents and reschedule themselves to go ready again once they have completed a task. In some embodiments, bot agents can adjust scheduling time depending upon the series of matches that are made or not made between the bot agent and a call and/or agent. 
         [0008]    In some embodiments, bot agents are provided with customized matching strategies. Customized matching strategies can allow for variable rescheduling and can specifically allow the bot agent to seek out certain types of agents and/or calls (inactive, problemed, stuck, etc). When the scheduled bot agents are matched to agents and/or calls, the scheduled bot agents may mark the agents and/or calls with a high priority so that the manager can get involved. Properties on the marked agent and/or marked call can be updated and can optionally trigger the marked agent or call to initiate or schedule his or her own matching event. The scheduled bot agent may also change properties on the call and/or the agent and trigger a match scan. Additionally, the scheduled bot agents can initiate new events (e.g., additional work items, calendar items for a manager, tasks for an agent, training for an agent, training for a manager, etc.) to help resurrect problems as programmed by the scheduled bot agent&#39;s strategy. The scheduled bot agent, in some embodiments, can change its own matching strategy so that a series of auditing strategies can be executed by a single scheduled bot agent. 
         [0009]    When the manager makes a bot agent call or becomes a readying agent, he or she can indicate the type of matching strategy that he or she wants for that call and/or agent. For example, a manager could make a call with the strategy to match for inactive agents greater than 5 minutes, or the manager could be a readying agent and use a matching strategy for work that has been queued for one hour or longer. When the manager uses the bot agent to match to an agent and/or a call, he or she can talk with the caller and/or the agent that has been selected according to the matching strategy defined by the manager. 
         [0010]    In some embodiments, a bot agent may or may not be connected to or associated with a real person. Another feature with scheduled or real-time bot agents is that they can go automatically ready again (after the matched call or agent hangs up) and attempt to match again on another call and/or agent without requiring additional input from a manager or system administrator. If there are no matches, then the bot agents can reschedule to re-ready again and rescan for a match at a later time. Bots agents can adjust their reschedule time, change their own strategies, and update the matching call or agent without connecting voice paths. Thus, in some embodiments, there would be no need for administration changes to manage wayward calls and/or agents when the bot agents are actively monitoring and automatically adjusting and marking within the system. 
         [0011]    In a non-limiting example, a bot agent would assist with Service Observing (SO) for active calls affecting a threshold condition. The manager can use a bot agent that scans work that has already matched to agents with a defined criteria or criterion of handling duration exceeding norms. The bot agent may be represented in the contact center and administered like a normal agent, but may possess a special matching strategy. In some embodiments, the manager can log in as the bot agent and match (and/or conference) into the active call that has a long handling duration, allowing the manager to see if the agent requires additional assistance and/or support to complete the call. Once the manager completes participation or determines that the agent doesn&#39;t need help, the manger may release himself or herself from the call and re-ready himself or herself to scan for the next longest duration call to provide support and/or assistance. 
         [0012]    Another aspect of the present disclosure is to enable a bot agent to be administered such that the bot agent auto-readies itself without being associated with a specific terminal or agent work station. This particular type of bot agent may be referred to as a phantom bot agent and the phantom bot agent may be configured to exist in the work assignment engine, continuously scanning for work items. When matching, the bot agent can conference in other agents and/or supervisors. To remove this bot agent, the administrator would administer the removal/disable of the bot agent, or another bot agent call could be initiated to match to this bot agent thereby removing the phantom bot agent. 
         [0013]    These and other advantages will be apparent from the disclosure. In some embodiments a method is provided which generally comprises: 
         [0014]    configuring a bot agent with a matching criteria that enables the bot agent to be matched with at least one of an agent and work item within a contact center; 
         [0015]    scanning, with a work assignment engine, at least one of a work pool and agent pool of a contact center to determine attributes for at least one of work items and agent within the contact center; 
         [0016]    selecting, with the work assignment engine, at least one of a work item and agent that comprises a set of attributes satisfying the matching criteria; and 
         [0017]    assigning the bot agent to the selected at least one of a work item and agent such that the bot agent is enabled to interact with the selected at least one of a work item and agent. 
         [0018]    The term “automatic” and variations thereof, as used herein, refers to any process or operation done without material human input when the process or operation is performed. However, a process or operation can be automatic, even though performance of the process or operation uses material or immaterial human input, if the input is received before performance of the process or operation. Human input is deemed to be material if such input influences how the process or operation will be performed. Human input that consents to the performance of the process or operation is not deemed to be “material.” 
         [0019]    The term “computer-readable medium” as used herein refers to any storage and/or transmission medium that participate in providing instructions to a processor for execution. Such a medium is commonly tangible and non-transient and can take many forms, including but not limited to, non-volatile media, volatile media, and transmission media and includes without limitation random access memory (“RAM”), read only memory (“ROM”), and the like. Non-volatile media includes, for example, NVRAM, or magnetic or optical disks. Volatile media includes dynamic memory, such as main memory. Common forms of computer-readable media include, for example, a floppy disk (including without limitation a Bernoulli cartridge, ZIP drive, and JAZ drive), a flexible disk, hard disk, magnetic tape or cassettes, or any other magnetic medium, magneto-optical medium, a digital video disk (such as CD-ROM), any other optical medium, punch cards, paper tape, any other physical medium with patterns of holes, a RAM, a PROM, and EPROM, a FLASH-EPROM, a solid state medium like a memory card, any other memory chip or cartridge, a carrier wave as described hereinafter, or any other medium from which a computer can read. A digital file attachment to e-mail or other self-contained information archive or set of archives is considered a distribution medium equivalent to a tangible storage medium. When the computer-readable media is configured as a database, it is to be understood that the database may be any type of database, such as relational, hierarchical, object-oriented, and/or the like. Accordingly, the disclosure is considered to include a tangible storage medium or distribution medium and prior art-recognized equivalents and successor media, in which the software implementations of the present disclosure are stored. Computer-readable storage medium commonly excludes transient storage media, particularly electrical, magnetic, electromagnetic, optical, magneto-optical signals. 
         [0020]    The phrase “go ready” as used herein refers to an agent&#39;s action of logging in and being available to take calls. A ready state refers to an agent&#39;s telephone, computer, and/or other communication devices in a workstation that are in service and may be matched to work items. 
         [0021]    The term “terminal” as used herein refers to a device for communicating over a line. Examples of terminals include, but are not limited to, telephones, fax machines, computer terminals, network devices, printers, workstations, mobile telephones, laptops, tablets, and other business and customer devices. 
         [0022]    The phrase “Call Management System (CMS)” as used herein refers to an Avaya application that includes database, administration, and reporting features to help businesses identify and take action on operational issues. 
         [0023]    The phrase “Automatic Call Distributor (ACD)” as used herein refers to a system or device that routes incoming calls to agents. 
         [0024]    The phrase “Service Observing (SO)” as used herein refers to a common method for a supervisor to monitor an agent by call monitoring, recording, and flagging for later review. A typical SO feature allows the supervisor to listen in and possibly participate on calls routed to the agent or group of agents, to a particular agent station, or calls that come into a particular directory number. The service observer can listen in for a portion of a call or for an entire call. 
         [0025]    The term “user,” “customer,” or “client” denotes a party patronizing, serviced by, or otherwise doing business with a contact center or other type of enterprise. 
         [0026]    The terms “determine,” “calculate,” and “compute,” and variations thereof as used herein, are used interchangeably and include any type of methodology, process, mathematical operation or technique. 
         [0027]    The term “means” as used herein shall be given its broadest possible interpretation in accordance with 35 U.S.C., Section 112, Paragraph 6. Accordingly, a claim incorporating the term “means” shall cover all structures, materials, or acts set forth herein, and all of the equivalents thereof. Further, the structures, materials or acts and the equivalents thereof shall include all those described in the summary of the invention, brief description of the drawings, detailed description, abstract, and claims themselves. 
         [0028]    The term “module” as used herein refers to any known or later developed hardware, software, firmware, artificial intelligence, fuzzy logic, or combination of hardware and software that is capable of performing the functionality associated with that element. Also, while the disclosure is presented in terms of exemplary embodiments, it should be appreciated that individual aspects of the disclosure can be separately claimed. 
         [0029]    The preceding is a simplified summary of the disclosure to provide an understanding of some aspects of the disclosure. This summary is neither an extensive nor exhaustive overview of the disclosure and its various aspects, embodiments, and/or configurations. It is intended neither to identify key or critical elements of the disclosure nor to delineate the scope of the disclosure but to present selected concepts of the disclosure in a simplified form as an introduction to the more detailed description presented below. As will be appreciated, other aspects, embodiments, and/or configurations of the disclosure are possible utilizing, alone or in combination, one or more of the features set forth above or described in detail below. 
     
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         [0030]      FIG. 1  is a block diagram of a communication system in accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure; 
           [0031]      FIG. 2  is an example of a contact center floor in accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure; 
           [0032]      FIG. 3  depicts a bot agent interaction with a user interface in accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure; and 
           [0033]      FIG. 4  depicts a flow diagram for a method for bot agent assistance in accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure. 
       
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
       [0034]      FIG. 1  depicts a communication system  100  in accordance with at least some embodiments of the present disclosure. The communication system  100  may be a distributed system and, in some embodiments, comprises a communication network  104  connecting one or more customer communication devices  108  to a work assignment mechanism  116 , which may be owned and operated by an enterprise administering a contact center in which a plurality of resources  112  are distributed to handle incoming work items from the customer communication devices  108 . 
         [0035]    In accordance with at least some embodiments of the present disclosure, the communication network  104  may comprise any type of known communication medium or collection of communication media and may use any type of protocols to transport messages between endpoints. The communication network  104  may include wired and/or wireless communication technologies. The Internet is an example of the communication network  104  that constitutes an Internet Protocol (IP) network consisting of many computers, computing networks, and other communication devices located all over the world, which are connected through many telephone systems and other means. Other examples of the communication network  104  include, without limitation, a standard Plain Old Telephone System (POTS), an Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN), the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), a Local Area Network (LAN), a Wide Area Network (WAN), a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) network, a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) network, a cellular network, and any other type of packet-switched or circuit-switched network known in the art. In addition, it can be appreciated that the communication network  104  need not be limited to any one network type, and instead may be comprised of a number of different networks and/or network types. As one example, embodiments of the present disclosure may be utilized to increase the efficiency of a grid-based contact center. Examples of a grid-based contact center are more fully described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/469,523, the entire contents of which are hereby incorporated herein by reference. Moreover, the communication network  104  may comprise a number of different communication media such as coaxial cable, copper cable/wire, fiber-optic cable, antennas for transmitting/receiving wireless messages, and combinations thereof. 
         [0036]    The communication devices  108  may correspond to customer communication devices. In accordance with at least some embodiments of the present disclosure, a customer may utilize their communication device  108  to initiate a work item, which is generally a request for a processing resource  112 . Exemplary work items include, but are not limited to, a contact directed toward and received at a contact center, a web page request directed toward and received at a server farm (e.g., collection of servers), a media request, an application request (e.g., a request for application resources location on a remote application server, such as a SIP application server), and the like. The work item may be in the form of a message or collection of messages transmitted over the communication network  104 . For example, the work item may be transmitted as a telephone call, a packet or collection of packets (e.g., IP packets transmitted over an IP network), an email message, an Instant Message, an SMS message, a fax, and combinations thereof. In some embodiments, the communication may not necessarily be directed at the work assignment mechanism  116 , but rather may be on some other server in the communication network  104  where it is harvested by the work assignment mechanism  116 , which generates a work item for the harvested communication. An example of such a harvested communication includes a social media communication that is harvested by the work assignment mechanism  116  from a social media network or server. Exemplary architectures for harvesting social media communications and generating work items based thereon are described in U.S. patent application Ser. Nos. 12/784,369, 12/706,942, and 12/707,277, each of which are hereby incorporated herein by reference in their entirety. 
         [0037]    The supervisor communication device  128  may correspond to a communication device or collection of devices operated and/or controlled by a contact center supervisor or manager. In accordance with at least some embodiments of the present disclosure, a supervisor may utilize the communication device  128  to evaluate or help the servicing of a work item by a resource  112 . The supervisor may utilize the communication device  128  to initiate or respond to interaction regarding work items with the work assignment mechanism  116 , a bot agent module  132 , elements within or outside of the communication network  104 , and to processing resources  112 . In some embodiments, the supervisor communication device  128  may correspond to a resource  112  and/or be connected within a contact center rather than being connected to a contact center via the communication network  104 . 
         [0038]    The work assignment mechanism  116  may employ any queue-based or queueless work assignment algorithm. Examples of queue-based work assignment skill-based algorithms include, without limitation, a fairness algorithm, pacing algorithm (which inserts rests into the agents work queue), value-based algorithms, limited algorithms (such as Business Advocate™ by Avaya, Inc.), and outsourcing algorithms. Other algorithms may consider other types of data inputs and/or may treat certain data inputs differently. 
         [0039]    The format of the work item may depend upon the capabilities of the communication device  108  and the format of the communication. In particular, work items are logical representations within a contact center of work to be performed in connection with servicing a communication received at the contact center (and more specifically the work assignment mechanism  116 ). The communication may be received and maintained at the work assignment mechanism  116 , a switch or server connected to the work assignment mechanism  116 , or the like until a resource  112  is assigned to the work item representing that communication at which point the work assignment mechanism  116  passes the work item to a routing engine  124  to connect the communication device  108  to the assigned resource  112 . 
         [0040]    Although the routing engine  124  is depicted as being separate from the work assignment mechanism  116 , the routing engine  124  may be incorporated into the work assignment mechanism  116  or its functionality may be executed by the work assignment engine  120 . 
         [0041]    In accordance with at least some embodiments of the present disclosure, the customer communication devices  108  and the supervisor communication device(s)  128  may comprise any type of known communication equipment or collection of communication equipment. Examples of a suitable communication device  108 ,  128  include, but are not limited to, a personal computer, laptop, tablet, cellular phone, smartphone, telephone, or combinations thereof. In general, each communication device  108 ,  128  may be adapted to support video, audio, text, and/or data communications with other communication devices  108 ,  128  as well as the processing resources  112 . The type of medium used by the communication device  108 ,  128  to communicate with other communication devices  108 ,  128  or processing resources  112  may depend upon the communication applications available on the communication device  108 ,  128 . 
         [0042]    In accordance with at least some embodiments of the present disclosure, the work item is sent toward a collection of processing resources  112  via the combined efforts of the work assignment mechanism  116  and routing engine  124 . The resources  112  can either be completely automated resources (e.g., Interactive Voice Response (IVR) units, processors, servers, or the like), human resources utilizing communication devices (e.g., human agents utilizing a computer, telephone, laptop, etc.), or any other resource known to be used in contact centers. 
         [0043]    As discussed above, the work assignment mechanism  116  and resources  112  may be owned and operated by a common entity in a contact center format. In some embodiments, the work assignment mechanism  116  may be administered by multiple enterprises, each of which has their own dedicated resources  112   a - n  connected to the work assignment mechanism  116 . 
         [0044]    In some embodiments, the work assignment mechanism  116  comprises a work assignment engine  120  which enables the work assignment mechanism  116  to make intelligent routing decisions for work items and/or bot agents  132 . In some embodiments, the work assignment engine  120  is configured to administer and make work assignment decisions in a queueless contact center, as is described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/882,950, the entire contents of which are hereby incorporated herein by reference. 
         [0045]    More specifically, the work assignment engine  120  can determine which of the plurality of processing resources  112  is qualified and/or eligible to receive the work item and further determine which of the plurality of processing resources  112  is best suited (or is the optimal processing resource) to handle the processing needs of the work item. In situations of work item surplus, the work assignment engine  120  can also make the opposite determination (i.e., determine optimal assignment of a work item resource to a resource). In some embodiments, the work assignment engine  120  is configured to achieve true one-to-one matching by utilizing bitmaps/tables and other data structures. 
         [0046]    The work assignment mechanism  116  can communicate with the bot agent module  132  which may provide contact center manager assistance, including Service Observing (SO), active call matching, scanning, and other features. The work assignment mechanism  116  can communicate with a Call Management System (CMS)  136  which may provide integrated analysis and reporting on the performance of one agent, a group of agents, a single contact center site, or multiple contact center sites. The bot agent module  132  may additionally integrate CMS  136  data and application data for display and use on a user interface of the communication device  128 . Applications may work in conjunction with the bot agent module  132 , providing both native functionality and third-party functionality provided by an Application Programming Interface (API). 
         [0047]      FIG. 2  depicts another view of a contact center  200  in accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure. The phrase “contact center” as used herein refers to a company that manages client correspondence through a variety of mediums, including telephone, fax, email, mail, chat, text, etc. A contact center “floor”  204  typically contains resources  112 , one or more supervisors  212 , and one or more displays  208  (e.g., wall-mounted Light Emitting Diode (LED) displays). 
         [0048]    The contact center floor  204  can contain one or more large, wall-mounted displays, commonly referred to as wallboards  208 , operable to integrate with data sources. The wallboard  208  may display many types of information, including but not limited to, RSS feed data, statistics (e.g., Key Performance Indicators—KPIs), metrics, graphs, images, announcements, alerts, thresholds, and messages. The contact center  200  can include more or fewer elements, and elements of the contact center  200  can be arranged differently and interact differently than those shown in  FIG. 2 . 
         [0049]    Contact center resources  112  may be agents at workstations and may be seated with a view of one or more wallboards  208 . For example, Elizabeth  112   a , Lani  112   b , and Josh  112   c  may be resources  112  for the contact center  200 , operable to receive and complete work items. Generally, the agent  112  can have a workstation that includes a telephone, a computer, a smart device, and other communication devices inside the facility or remote from the contact center floor  204 . As can be appreciated, the contact center floor  204  and the agent  112  workstations may comprise more or fewer of the elements listed. One or more supervisors  212  may be available to monitor activities on the contact center floor  204  and to assist, restrain, and train agents  112 . Omar  212 , for example, may have a workstation inside the facility or remote from the contact center floor  204 . The supervisor workstation may include a land-line telephone  220 , a computer  216 , a smart device  128 , or other communication devices. 
         [0050]    In one embodiment, the supervisor  212  may have a communication device  128 . One non-limiting example of the device  128  is a mobile or cordless device that is connected to other contact center components via wireless connections (e.g., 802.11N)/3G/4G/etc., and capable of browsing, telephony, and/or location. The device  128  may be a telephone or a tablet. More specifically, the supervisor communication device  128  may be a telephone or tablet, operable to run applications related to the supervision of the contact center floor  204 . The supervisor communication device  128  may be operable to receive calls, short message service (SMS) texts, pop-ups, and data and operable to communicate with a bot agent module  132  and other elements. 
         [0051]      FIG. 3  depicts a bot agent interaction with a supervisor workstation  300  in accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure. One or more bot agents, operable through the bot agent module  132 , are operable to monitor, receive, alert, transfer, pull, push, and aggregate data and calls from multiple sources to a supervisor workstation  216  and/or the supervisor communication device  128 . The bot agent  132  may monitor and/or join calls in progress  304 . The bot agent  132  may also monitor statistics, metrics, goals, and other administrable values. The bot agent module may provide the information to the supervisor workstation, and the data may be presented at a user interface, including at a computer  216 , and/or on a smart communication device  128 , a wallboard  208 , or any other device capable of presenting the display. 
         [0052]    As a non-limiting example, Omar  212 , the supervisor, may be in charge of a group of agents  112   a - g , responsible for new sales and service calls for a satellite broadcasting service. Omar  212  also takes calls, emails, and instant messages as an individual contributor to the team, so Omar  212  finds it difficult to actively monitor all of the agents  112   a - g  all of the time. The administrator of the communication system  100  has installed a new bot agent module  132  that Omar  212  is really excited to try. The bot agent  132  is configured to assist Omar  212  in actively monitoring the activities of the agents  112   a - g . Omar  212  and the administrator set goals, thresholds, metrics and other particulars of the contact center to display on his supervisor workstation computer  216  and smartphone  128 . Once invoked, the bot agent  132  may be configured to work immediately, looking for issues, anomalies, problems, opportunities, etc. based on programming specifically requested by Omar  212 . 
         [0053]    The bot agent  132  receives an alert from the communication system  100  that an agent  112   a  on a call  304   a , has been on a service call over the five minute threshold set by the administrator for Omar  212 . The bot agent  132  automatically joins the call based on the alert to begin an analysis. One purpose of the analysis is to determine whether or not the agent  112   a  needs help. The customer on the call  304   a  with the agent  112   a  is screaming and using profanity. The communication system  100  is operable to detect, via voice analytics, that the customer has become unacceptably hostile. The bot agent  132  determines that it would be helpful to have the supervisor, Omar  212 , join the call. The bot agent  132  marks the call and sends an alert to Omar  212 . The supervisor Omar  212  gets a pop-up alert letting him know that agent  112   a  needs help. Omar  212  pushes a button on his display, requesting that the bot agent  132  connect Omar  212  to the call  304   a . Omar  212  has had special training to deal with particularly nasty customers, and Omar  212  doesn&#39;t appreciate the customer attacking one of his agents  112   a . Omar  212  sends an instant message to the agent  112   a  letting the agent know that he is joining. The agent  112   a  acquiesces and Omar  212  joins the call. Omar  212  uses his training to calm the customer down. Once the issues are resolved, Omar  212 , the agent  112   a , and the bot agent  132  leave the call. 
         [0054]    Meanwhile, the bot agent  132  gets an alert from agent  112   f  on call  304   b . The agent  112   f  asks for assistance, and the bot agent  132  responds. The agent  112   f  asks for an inventory check and a shipping estimate for three products while entering programming information for the customer. The bot agent  132  is operable to help find this information and doesn&#39;t need to get Omar  212  involved. The bot agent  132  queries for this information and returns the quantities and dates to the agent  112   f . The agent  112   f  gives the information to the customer on call  304   b . Once the order is complete, the bot agent  132  and the agent  112   f  terminate the call. While the bot agent  132  was helping the agent  112   f , Omar  212  was able to run reports and email them off to his boss, Ivan. Efficiencies are maintained, and the agents  112   a - g , Omar  212 , and Ivan are happy. 
         [0055]    The method  400  for bot agent assistance in accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure is shown in  FIG. 4 . Generally, the method  400  begins with a start operation  404  and runs as a continuous loop. While a general order for the steps of the method  400  are shown in  FIG. 4 , the method  400  can include more or fewer steps or the order of the steps can be arranged differently than those shown in  FIG. 4 . The method  400  can be executed as a set of computer-executable instructions executed by a computer system and encoded or stored on a computer readable medium. Further, the method may also be embodied by a set of gates or other structures in an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), or other configurable hardware component, module, or system. Hereinafter, the method  400  shall be explained with reference to the systems, components, modules, software, data structures, etc. described in conjunction with  FIGS. 1-3 . 
         [0056]    The method  400  begins at step  404  and continues when a contact center agent, human or bot, logs in, the agent becomes available to process work items (step  408 ). When the contact center agent, human  112  or bot  132 , has completed processing a work item, the agent  112 ,  132  will once again be ready to have a new work item assigned thereto. This change of availability is known as going ready. Typically, a bot agent  132  at step  408  can go ready and initiate a monitoring process. The bot agent  132  may go ready without being associated with a terminal. The phantom bot agent  132  may live in the matching portion of the work assignment engine  120 , scanning work. When matching, the bot agent  132  is operable to conference in agents  112  and supervisors  212 . 
         [0057]    The bot agent  132  may also monitor statistics to see how well agents  112  are handling work items that are being monitored. Statistics might include, but are not limited to, Average Call Handle Time (ACHT) which may include total talk time and wrap time divided by the total number of calls, Service Level (SL %) which may indicate the percentage of calls answered within a certain amount of time (e.g., 30 seconds), Abandon Rate (ABN %) which may be the number of dropped calls divided by total incoming calls, Average Speed Answer (ASA) which may be the average number of seconds or minutes it takes to answer a call, Longest Wait Time (LWT) and Average Wait Time (AWT) for incoming calls, and Calls in Queue (CIQ) which may indicate how many calls are pending, waiting for agent  112  handling. The bot agent  132  may additionally monitor data from speech analytics and contextual programs to determine how well agents  112  are handling work items. A definition of a low-performing agent  112  can be customized using the work assignment engine  120 . Customized strategies are not required to match strategies for incoming customer calls. The customized strategy may be used internally for the supervisor  212  to find low-performing agents  112 . Examples of a custom low peak performing agent strategy might compare metrics like recent handling duration times versus best handling duration times and revenue/handling times versus best revenue/handling times. Matching and comparison may be automated with a bot agent  132  call. 
         [0058]    In addition to active monitoring of available data, the bot agent  132  may be available on demand from the agent  112 . In step  412 , the agent  112  may send an alert and/or signal of some kind to the bot agent  132 , requesting assistance. The request may be in a form including, but not limited to, a call, a sequence of tones, an email, a text, a button push on a user interface, etc. 
         [0059]    In step  416 , a communication system  100  may send an indicator and/or an alert to the bot agent  132  when certain performance indicators (e.g., KPIs) exceed a threshold or expected value. Based on predetermined matching and comparison values, the bot agent  132  may begin an evaluation as to whether or not the agent  112  needs assistance. If the agent  112  does not need assistance, the process may begin again with the bot agent  132  returning to a ready state (step  408 ). In step  420 , the bot agent  132  may make a determination that the agent  112  needs assistance. If the answer to the query is yes, the bot agent  132  may mark and/or join the call in step  424  to further evaluate the assistance needed. The supervisor  212  may be alerted by the bot agent  132  and/or the work assignment engine  120 , in step  428 . If the supervisor  212  does not need to join the call, the bot agent may automatically assist the agent  112  without requiring manual input, in step  432 . In response to the need to join the call, the supervisor  212  may check data from the communication system  100 , including a work item ticket, thresholds, statistics, metrics, and/or see the agent&#39;s  112  desktop using native and/or third-party applications. If the supervisor  212  feels that action is warranted, the supervisor  212  may join the call and/or initiate additional service observing features, in step  436 . 
         [0060]    For example, if Josh  112   c  has been on a call for ten minutes over the threshold, Omar  212  may join the call and listen in. If Omar  212  has additional concerns, he may initiate recording, an IM session with Josh  112   c , and pull up the customer&#39;s account information and history. Once Omar  212  disconnects in step  440  and the bot agent  132  leaves the call, in step  444 , the process may loop back to the beginning, and the monitoring bot agent  132  may go ready, in step  408 . 
         [0061]    Although the present disclosure describes components and functions implemented in the aspects, embodiments, and/or configurations with reference to particular standards and protocols, the aspects, embodiments, and/or configurations are not limited to such standards and protocols. Other similar standards and protocols not mentioned herein are in existence and are considered to be included in the present disclosure. Moreover, the standards and protocols mentioned herein and other similar standards and protocols not mentioned herein are periodically superseded by faster or more effective equivalents having essentially the same functions. Such replacement standards and protocols having the same functions are considered equivalents included in the present disclosure. 
         [0062]    The foregoing discussion has been presented for purposes of illustration and description. The foregoing is not intended to limit the disclosure to the form or forms disclosed herein. In the foregoing Detailed Description for example, various features of the disclosure are grouped together in one or more aspects, embodiments, and/or configurations for the purpose of streamlining the disclosure. The features of the aspects, embodiments, and/or configurations of the disclosure may be combined in alternate aspects, embodiments, and/or configurations other than those discussed above. This method of disclosure is not to be interpreted as reflecting an intention that the claims require more features than are expressly recited in each claim. Rather, as the following claims reflect, inventive aspects lie in less than all features of a single foregoing disclosed aspect, embodiment, and/or configuration. Thus, the following claims are hereby incorporated into this Detailed Description, with each claim standing on its own as a separate preferred embodiment of the disclosure.

Technology Category: 5