Patent US6115693A successfully refreshed from Google Patents.
US6115693A
Expired / Lapsed
US
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Quality center and method for a virtual sales and service center
Assignee: Accenture Global Services Ltd
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Filing: 1998-04-17
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Granted: 2000-09-05
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Expires: 2018-04-17
Abstract
Abstract A Quality Center for a Virtual Sales and Service Center. The Quality Center is responsible for monitoring the "customer experience" across the telephone customer access resource. The Quality Center assists in managing the business of operating multiple call centers as a single Virtual Sales and Service Center and presents the business in a professional, informative and impressive manner. The Quality Center includes a forecasting system for predicting contact volume for a plurality of physical locations forming a Virtual Sales and Service Center, a monitor for monitoring contact traffic for the Virtual Sales and Service Center, a controller for controlling network routing based upon the call volume predictions and the contact traffic monitoring and a processor for providing an interface between the forecasting system, the monitor and the controller and for servicing requests and response therebetween. The Quality Center may further include a reporting system for accessing statistics for generating management reports regarding the operation of the Virtual Sales and Service Center, a messaging system for providing messaging between the physical locations and a trouble-shooting system for analyzing and solving problems occurring in the Virtual Sales and Service Center.
Inventors
- 👤 Charles McDonough
- 👤 W. Mike Bethea
- 👤 Bonnie Yeckley
Bibliographic Details
Application Number
—
Jurisdiction
US
Data Source
google_patents
Last Synchronized
2026-10-31 10:27
CPC Classifications
G; G06; G06Q; G06Q10/00; G06Q10/10; G06Q10/06; G06Q10/063; G06Q10/0631; G06Q10/06311; G06Q10/063112; G06Q10/063116; G06Q10/06315; G06Q10/0639; G06Q10/06395; G06Q30/00; G06Q30/02; G06Q30/0201; G06Q30/0202; G06Q30/0203; G06Q30/0204; G06Q30/0205; G06Q30/06; G06Q30/0601; G06Q30/0641
Claims Analysis
Total Claims: 70
Claim 1
Independent Claim
151 words
A quality center for ensuring the satisfaction of operational efficiency of a Virtual Sales and Service Center and customer experience goals of customers accessing the Virtual Sales and Service Center, comprising: a forecasting system for predicting contact volume for a plurality of physical locations forming a Virtual Sales and Service Center; a monitor for monitoring contact traffic for the Virtual Sales and Service Center; a controller for controlling network routing based upon the call volume predictions and the contact traffic monitoring; a processor for providing an interface between the forecasting system, the monitor and the controller and for servicing requests and response there between; a reporting system for accessing statistics for generating management reports regarding the operation of the Virtual Sales and Service Center; a messaging system for providing messaging between the physical locations; and a trouble-shooting system for analyzing and solving problems occurring in the Virtual Sales and Service Center.
Claim 2
Dependent Claim
151 words
A quality center for ensuring the satisfaction of operational efficiency of a Virtual Sales and Service Center and customer experience goals of customers accessing the Virtual Sales and Service Center, comprising: a forecasting system for predicting contact volume for a plurality of physical locations forming a Virtual Sales and Service Center; a monitor for monitoring contact traffic for the Virtual Sales and Service Center; a controller for controlling network routing based upon the call volume predictions and the contact traffic monitoring; a processor for providing an interface between the forecasting system, the monitor and the controller and for servicing requests and response there between; a reporting system for accessing statistics for generating management reports regarding the operation of the Virtual Sales and Service Center; a messaging system for providing messaging between the physical locations; and a trouble-shooting system for analyzing and solving problems occurring in the Virtual Sales and Service Center.
Claim 3
Dependent Claim
12 words
The quality center of claim 1 wherein the reports are compiled periodically.
Claim 4
Dependent Claim
23 words
The quality center of claim 1 wherein the messaging system processes messages between the plurality of physical locations regarding system availability and outages.
Claim 5
Dependent Claim
17 words
The quality center of claim 1 wherein the reporting system accesses statistics servers for generating history reports.
Claim 6
Dependent Claim
22 words
The quality center of claim 4 wherein the history reports provide metrics for use in measuring virtual sales and service center performance.
Claim 7
Dependent Claim
24 words
The quality center of claim 1 wherein the processor further comprises a plurality of inputs for receiving signals from the plurality of physical locations.
Claim 8
Dependent Claim
17 words
The quality center of claim 6 wherein the signals comprises fax, telephone calls and electronic mail signals.
Claim 9
Dependent Claim
23 words
The quality center of claim 1 wherein the monitor monitors information regarding contact volume for the plurality of physical locations in real time.
Claim 10
Dependent Claim
22 words
The quality center of claim 8 wherein the contact volume information is used to guide network routing decisions controlled by the controller.
Claim 11
Dependent Claim
28 words
The quality center of claim 1 wherein the controller comprises routing rules, the controller making modifications to the routing rules to change how contacts are routed to resources.
Claim 12
Dependent Claim
15 words
The quality center of claim 1 wherein the monitor monitors the experience of a customer.
Claim 13
Dependent Claim
14 words
The quality center of claim 1 wherein the forecasting system supports planning of resources.
Claim 14
Dependent Claim
19 words
The quality center of claim 12 wherein resource planning is based upon an analysis of space and equipment impacts.
Claim 15
Dependent Claim
18 words
The quality center of claim 1 wherein the forecasting system enables the planning of resource and staffing requirements.
Claim 16
Dependent Claim
15 words
The quality center of claim 1 wherein the forecasting system facilitates staffing and hiring analysis.
Claim 17
Dependent Claim
23 words
The quality center of claim 1 wherein the forecasting system facilitates a single virtual environment implementing team based and skill based scheduling models.
Claim 18
Dependent Claim
20 words
The quality center of claim 1 wherein the forecasting system provides real-time adherence of resources and teams against a schedule.
Claim 19
Dependent Claim
31 words
The quality center of claim 1 wherein the monitor measures end-to-end process flows for outlining the process for monitoring the Virtual Sales and-Service Center, analyzing the key statistics, and gathering information.
Claim 20
Dependent Claim
23 words
The quality center of claim 1 wherein the monitor provides data to decision makers for maintaining a high performance framework for business processes.
Claim 21
Dependent Claim
21 words
The quality center of claim 1 further comprising an information delivery architecture for enabling the gathering and reporting of performance data.
Claim 22
Dependent Claim
30 words
The quality center of claim 20 wherein the information delivery architecture gathers performance data from computer telephony interfaces, voice response units, Internet sources, a service provider and a fulfillment server.
Claim 23
Dependent Claim
21 words
The quality center of claim 20 wherein the processor gathers statistics from system events and transforms the statistics into business statistics.
Claim 24
Dependent Claim
22 words
The quality center of claim 22 wherein the business statistics are stored in a data mart to leverage the information reporting capabilities.
Claim 25
Dependent Claim
16 words
The quality center of claim 23 wherein the data mart allows access to the business statistics.
Claim 26
Dependent Claim
14 words
The quality center of claim 1 further comprising a display for displaying performance data.
Claim 27
Dependent Claim
42 words
The quality center of claim 25 wherein the displayed performance data may be specifically tailored for different users to ensure that information flows to key decision makers in a timely manner in order to effectively manage the virtual sales and service center.
Claim 28
Dependent Claim
25 words
The quality center of claim 1 wherein the monitor monitors contact traffic within the Virtual Sales and Service Center for making adjustments to contact routing.
Claim 29
Dependent Claim
28 words
The quality center of claim 27 wherein the contact routing is modified on a scheduled basis based on forecast projections and comparisons of previous forecasts to actual volumes.
Claim 30
Dependent Claim
19 words
The quality center of claim 1 wherein the monitor receives real-time information as to the availability of all systems.
Claim 31
Dependent Claim
25 words
The quality center of claim 1 further comprises a virtual sales and service center manager for monitoring call volume in real-time according to selected parameters.
Claim 32
Dependent Claim
13 words
The quality center of claim 30 wherein the selected parameters comprises customer types.
Claim 33
Dependent Claim
14 words
The quality center of claim 31 wherein the selected parameters comprises Physical Location volume.
Claim 34
Dependent Claim
27 words
The quality center of claim 1 wherein the monitor facilitates adjustments to the Virtual Sales and Service Center for making resource staffing recommendations to each Physical Location.
Claim 35
Dependent Claim
26 words
The quality center of claim 1 wherein the monitor facilitates adjustments to the Virtual Sales and Service Center for changing the timing parameters on overflow rules.
Claim 36
Dependent Claim
30 words
The quality center of claim 1 wherein the monitor facilitates adjustments to the Virtual Sales and Service Center for adding an additional profile for particular resources in a Physical Location.
Claim 37
Dependent Claim
22 words
The quality center of claim 1 wherein the monitor facilitates adjustments to the Virtual Sales and Service Center for initiating cross-sell efforts.
Claim 38
Dependent Claim
23 words
The quality center of claim 1 wherein the processor performs analysis on virtual sales and service center statistics in conjunction with business parameters.
Claim 39
Dependent Claim
34 words
The quality center of claim 1 further comprising on-line analytical processing for promoting the gathering of performance information and analysis of trends and statistics for operational management of the Virtual Sales and Service Center.
Claim 40
Dependent Claim
16 words
The quality center of claim 1 further comprises a helpline for identifying and resolving operational problems.
Claim 41
Dependent Claim
17 words
The quality center of claim 1 further comprising a customer feedback repository for storing feedback from customers.
Claim 42
Dependent Claim
22 words
The quality center of claim 1 further comprising a quality control center for verifying call handling efficiency, fulfillment timeliness and accuracy checkpoints.
Claim 43
Dependent Claim
22 words
The quality center of claim 1 wherein the messaging system provides immediate broadcast messages to resources in the plurality of physical locations.
Claim 44
Dependent Claim
20 words
The quality center of claim 42 wherein the broadcast messages are based upon target user populations via a publish/subscribe message.
Claim 45
Dependent Claim
120 words
A quality center for ensuring the satisfaction of operational efficiency of a Virtual Sales and Service Center and customer experience goals of customers accessing the Virtual Sales and Service Center, comprising: a forecasting system for predicting contact volume for a plurality of physical locations forming a Virtual Sales and Service Center; a monitor for monitoring contact traffic for the Virtual Sales and Service Center; a controller for controlling network routing based upon the call volume predictions and the contact traffic monitoring; and a processor for providing an interface between the forecasting system, the monitor and the controller and for servicing requests and response there between; wherein the forecasting system uses skill group and local site scheduling to predict contact volume.
Claim 46
Dependent Claim
120 words
A quality center for ensuring the satisfaction of operational efficiency of a Virtual Sales and Service Center and customer experience goals of customers accessing the Virtual Sales and Service Center, comprising: a forecasting system for predicting contact volume for a plurality of physical locations forming a Virtual Sales and Service Center; a monitor for monitoring contact traffic for the Virtual Sales and Service Center; a controller for controlling network routing based upon the call volume predictions and the contact traffic monitoring; and a processor for providing an interface between the forecasting system, the monitor and the controller and for servicing requests and response there between; wherein the forecasting system uses skill group and local site scheduling to predict contact volume.
Claim 47
Dependent Claim
132 words
A quality center for ensuring the satisfaction of operational efficiency of a Virtual Sales and Service Center and customer experience goals of customers accessing the Virtual Sales and Service Center, comprising: a forecasting system for predicting contact volume for a plurality of physical locations forming a Virtual Sales and Service Center; a monitor for monitoring contact traffic for the Virtual Sales and Service Center; a controller for controlling network routing based upon the call volume predictions and the contact traffic monitoring; and a processor for providing an interface between the forecasting system, the monitor and the controller and for servicing requests and response there between; wherein the monitor facilitates adjustments to the Virtual Sales and Service Center for sending out broadcast/alert messages to warn the physical locations of extremely high volume situations.
Claim 48
Dependent Claim
132 words
A quality center for ensuring the satisfaction of operational efficiency of a Virtual Sales and Service Center and customer experience goals of customers accessing the Virtual Sales and Service Center, comprising: a forecasting system for predicting contact volume for a plurality of physical locations forming a Virtual Sales and Service Center; a monitor for monitoring contact traffic for the Virtual Sales and Service Center; a controller for controlling network routing based upon the call volume predictions and the contact traffic monitoring; and a processor for providing an interface between the forecasting system, the monitor and the controller and for servicing requests and response there between; wherein the monitor facilitates adjustments to the Virtual Sales and Service Center for sending out broadcast/alert messages to warn the physical locations of extremely high volume situations.
Claim 49
Dependent Claim
118 words
A quality center for ensuring the satisfaction of operational efficiency of a Virtual Sales and Service Center and customer experience goals of customers accessing the Virtual Sales and Service Center, comprising: a forecasting system for predicting contact volume for a plurality of physical locations forming a Virtual Sales and Service Center; a monitor for monitoring contact traffic for the Virtual Sales and Service Center; a controller for controlling network routing based upon the call volume predictions and the contact traffic monitoring; and a processor for providing an interface between the forecasting system, the monitor and the controller and for servicing requests and response there between; wherein the controller provides capabilities for contact routing, contact control, and contact/data synchronization.
Claim 50
Dependent Claim
118 words
A quality center for ensuring the satisfaction of operational efficiency of a Virtual Sales and Service Center and customer experience goals of customers accessing the Virtual Sales and Service Center, comprising: a forecasting system for predicting contact volume for a plurality of physical locations forming a Virtual Sales and Service Center; a monitor for monitoring contact traffic for the Virtual Sales and Service Center; a controller for controlling network routing based upon the call volume predictions and the contact traffic monitoring; and a processor for providing an interface between the forecasting system, the monitor and the controller and for servicing requests and response there between; wherein the controller provides capabilities for contact routing, contact control, and contact/data synchronization.
Claim 51
Dependent Claim
131 words
A quality center for ensuring the satisfaction of operational efficiency of a Virtual Sales and Service Center and customer experience goals of customers accessing the Virtual Sales and Service Center, comprising: a forecasting system for predicting contact volume for a plurality of physical locations forming a Virtual Sales and Service Center; a monitor for monitoring contact traffic for the Virtual Sales and Service Center; a controller for controlling network routing based upon the call volume predictions and the contact traffic monitoring; and a processor for providing an interface between the forecasting system, the monitor and the controller and for servicing requests and response there between; wherein the controller is operatively coupled to a computer telephony interface for changing resource profile information and customer preference information to adjust routing and overflow operation.
Claim 52
Dependent Claim
131 words
A quality center for ensuring the satisfaction of operational efficiency of a Virtual Sales and Service Center and customer experience goals of customers accessing the Virtual Sales and Service Center, comprising: a forecasting system for predicting contact volume for a plurality of physical locations forming a Virtual Sales and Service Center; a monitor for monitoring contact traffic for the Virtual Sales and Service Center; a controller for controlling network routing based upon the call volume predictions and the contact traffic monitoring; and a processor for providing an interface between the forecasting system, the monitor and the controller and for servicing requests and response there between; wherein the controller is operatively coupled to a computer telephony interface for changing resource profile information and customer preference information to adjust routing and overflow operation.
Claim 53
Dependent Claim
127 words
A quality center method for ensuring the satisfaction of operational efficiency of a Virtual Sales and Service Center and customer experience goals of customers accessing the Virtual Sales and Service Center, comprising the steps of: predicting contact volume for a plurality of physical locations forming a Virtual Sales and Service Center; monitoring contact traffic for the Virtual Sales and Service Center; controlling network routing based upon the call volume predictions and the contact traffic monitoring; providing an interface between the forecasting, monitoring and controller and for servicing requests and response there between; accessing statistics for generating management reports regarding the operation of the Virtual Sales and Service Center; providing messaging between the physical locations; and analyzing and solving problems occurring in the Virtual Sales and Service Center.
Claim 54
Dependent Claim
127 words
A quality center method for ensuring the satisfaction of operational efficiency of a Virtual Sales and Service Center and customer experience goals of customers accessing the Virtual Sales and Service Center, comprising the steps of: predicting contact volume for a plurality of physical locations forming a Virtual Sales and Service Center; monitoring contact traffic for the Virtual Sales and Service Center; controlling network routing based upon the call volume predictions and the contact traffic monitoring; providing an interface between the forecasting, monitoring and controller and for servicing requests and response there between; accessing statistics for generating management reports regarding the operation of the Virtual Sales and Service Center; providing messaging between the physical locations; and analyzing and solving problems occurring in the Virtual Sales and Service Center.
Claim 55
Dependent Claim
30 words
The quality center method of claim 48 wherein the step of messaging further comprises the step of processing messages between the plurality of physical locations regarding system availability and outages.
Claim 56
Dependent Claim
24 words
The quality center method of claim 48 wherein the step of reporting further comprises the step of accessing statistics servers for generating history reports.
Claim 57
Dependent Claim
31 words
The quality center method of claim 48 wherein the step of monitoring further comprises the step of monitoring information regarding contact volume for the plurality of physical locations in real time.
Claim 58
Dependent Claim
31 words
The quality center method of claim 48 wherein the step of controlling further comprises the step of making modifications to the routing rules to change how contacts are routed to resources.
Claim 59
Dependent Claim
20 words
The quality center method of claim 48 wherein the step of forecasting further comprises the step of planning of resources.
Claim 60
Dependent Claim
40 words
The quality center method of claim 48 wherein the step of monitoring further comprises the step of measuring end-to-end process flows for outlining the process for monitoring the Virtual Sales and Service Center, analyzing thee key statistics, and gathering information.
Claim 61
Dependent Claim
20 words
The quality center method of claim 48 further comprising the step of enabling the gathering and reporting of performance data.
Claim 62
Dependent Claim
18 words
The quality center method of claim 48 further comprising the step of displaying performance data on a display.
Claim 63
Dependent Claim
36 words
The quality center method of claim 48 wherein the step of controlling further comprises the step of modifying contact routing on a scheduled basis based on forecast projections and comparisons of previous forecasts to actual volumes.
Claim 64
Dependent Claim
27 words
The quality center method of claim 48 wherein the step of monitoring further comprises the step of receiving real-time information as to the availability of all systems.
Claim 65
Dependent Claim
21 words
The quality center method of claim 48 further comprising the step of call volume monitoring in real-time according to selected parameters.
Claim 66
Dependent Claim
31 words
The quality center method of claim 48 wherein the step of processing further comprises the step of performing analysis on virtual sales and service center statistics in conjunction with business parameters.
Claim 67
Dependent Claim
39 words
The quality center method of claim 48 further comprising the step of promoting the gathering of performance information and analysis of trends and statistics for operational management of the Virtual Sales and Service Center using an on-line analytical processor.
Claim 68
Dependent Claim
20 words
The quality center method of claim 48 further comprising the step of identifying and resolving operational problems using a helpline.
Claim 69
Dependent Claim
21 words
The quality center method of claim 48 further comprising the step of storing feedback from customers using a customer feedback repository.
Claim 70
Dependent Claim
26 words
The quality center method of claim 48 further comprising the step of verifying contact handling efficiency, fulfillment timeliness and accuracy checkpoints using a quality control center.
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USPTO Annuity & Maintenance Windows
| Annuity Stage | Window Opens | Payment Deadline | Surcharge Period Until | Estimated Fee | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3.5 Years (Year 4) | 2003-09-05 | 2004-03-06 | 2004-09-05 | $2000.00 | Window Closed / Lapsed |
| 7.5 Years (Year 8) | 2007-09-05 | 2008-03-06 | 2008-09-05 | $3760.00 | Window Closed / Lapsed |
| 11.5 Years (Year 12) | 2011-09-05 | 2012-03-06 | 2012-09-05 | $7700.00 | Window Closed / Lapsed |