FIELD OF THE DISCLOSURE

This disclosure generally relates to contact centers and, more particularly, to techniques for hybrid behavioral pairing in a contact center system.

BACKGROUND OF THE DISCLOSURE

A typical contact center algorithmically assigns contacts arriving at the contact center to agents available to handle those contacts. At times, the contact center may have agents available and waiting for assignment to inbound or outbound contacts (e.g., telephone calls, Internet chat sessions, email) or outbound contacts. At other times, the contact center may have contacts waiting in one or more queues for an agent to become available for assignment.

In some typical contact centers, contacts are assigned to agents ordered based on time of arrival, and agents receive contacts ordered based on the time when those agents became available. This strategy may be referred to as a “first-in, first-out”, “FIFO”, or “round-robin” strategy. In some contact centers, contacts or agents are assigned into different “skill groups” or “queues” prior to applying a FIFO assignment strategy within each such skill group or queue. These “skill queues” may also incorporate strategies for prioritizing individual contacts or agents within a baseline FIFO ordering. For example, a high-priority contact may be given a queue position ahead of other contacts who arrived at an earlier time, or a high-performing agent may be ordered ahead of other agents who have been waiting longer for their next call. Regardless of such variations in forming one or more queues of callers or one or more orderings of available agents, contact centers typically apply FIFO to the queues or other orderings. Once such a FIFO strategy has been established, assignment of contacts to agents is automatic, with the contact center assigning the first contact in the ordering to the next available agent, or assigning the first agent in the ordering to the next arriving contact. In the contact center industry, the process of contact and agent distribution among skill queues, prioritization and ordering within skill queues, and subsequent FIFO assignment of contacts to agents is managed by a system referred to as an “Automatic Call Distributor” (“ACD”).

Some contact centers may use a “performance based routing” or “PBR” approach to ordering the queue of available agents. For example, when a contact arrives at a contact center with a plurality of available agents, the ordering of agents available for assignment to that contact would be headed by the highest-performing available agent (e.g., the available agent with the highest sales conversion rate, the highest customer satisfaction scores, the shortest average handle time, the highest performing agent for the particular contact profile, the highest customer retention rate, the lowest customer retention cost, the highest rate of first-call resolution). PBR ordering strategies attempt to maximize the expected outcome of each contact-agent interaction but do so typically without regard for utilizing agents in a contact center uniformly. Consequently, higher-performing agents may receive noticeably more contacts and feel overworked, while lower-performing agents may receive fewer contacts and idle longer, potentially reducing their opportunities for training and improvement as well as potentially reducing their compensation.

In view of the foregoing, it may be understood that there is a need for a system that both attempts to utilize agents more evenly than PBR while improving contact center performance beyond what FIFO strategies deliver.

SUMMARY OF THE DISCLOSURE

Techniques for hybrid behavioral pairing in a contact center system are disclosed. In one embodiment, the techniques may be realized as a method for hybrid behavioral pairing in a contact center system comprising: determining, by at least one computer processor communicatively coupled to the contact center system, a first ordering of a plurality of agents according to a behavioral pairing strategy with a balanced agent utilization; determining, by the at least one computer processor, a second ordering of the plurality of agents according to a performance-based routing strategy with an unbalanced agent utilization; determining, by the at least one computer processor, a third ordering of the plurality of agents according to a combination of the first ordering and the second ordering having a skewed agent utilization between the balanced agent utilization and the unbalanced agent utilization; and outputting, by the at least one computer processor, a hybrid behavioral pairing model based on the third ordering for connecting a contact to an agent of the plurality of agents in the contact center system.

In accordance with other aspects of this embodiment, wherein the behavioral pairing strategy may be a diagonal pairing strategy.

In accordance with other aspects of this embodiment, wherein the method may further comprise determining, by the at least one computer processor, a target amount of skew for the skewed agent utilization.

In accordance with other aspects of this embodiment, wherein the combination of the first ordering and the second ordering is a weighted sum according to the target amount of skew.

In accordance with other aspects of this embodiment, wherein the first ordering can be expressed as percentiles or percentile ranges.

In accordance with other aspects of this embodiment, wherein the third ordering can be expressed as percentiles or percentile ranges adjusted according to the combination of the first ordering and the second ordering.

In accordance with other aspects of this embodiment, wherein the hybrid behavioral pairing model preferably pairs a higher-performing agent more frequently than a lower-performing agent.

In accordance with other aspects of this embodiment, wherein the hybrid behavioral pairing model preferably pairs a higher-performing agent with a greater number of contact types than a lower-performing agent.

In accordance with other aspects of this embodiment, wherein the hybrid behavioral pairing model preferably pairs a higher-performing agent with a higher-frequency contact type than a lower-performing agent.

In another embodiment, the techniques may be realized as a system for hybrid behavioral pairing in a contact center system comprising at least one computer processor communicatively coupled to the contact center system, wherein the at least one computer processor is configured to: determine a first ordering of a plurality of agents according to a behavioral pairing strategy with a balanced agent utilization; determine a second ordering of the plurality of agents according to a performance-based routing strategy with an unbalanced agent utilization; determine a third ordering of the plurality of agents according to a combination of the first ordering and the second ordering having a skewed agent utilization between the balanced agent utilization and the unbalanced agent utilization; and output a hybrid behavioral pairing model based on the third ordering for connecting a contact to an agent of the plurality of agents in the contact center system.

In another embodiment, the techniques may be realized as an article of manufacture for hybrid behavioral pairing in a contact center system comprising a non-transitory processor readable medium and instructions stored on the medium, wherein the instructions are configured to be readable from the medium by at least one computer processor communicatively coupled to the contact center system and thereby cause the at least one computer processor to operate so as to: determine a first ordering of a plurality of agents according to a behavioral pairing strategy with a balanced agent utilization; determine a second ordering of the plurality of agents according to a performance-based routing strategy with an unbalanced agent utilization; determine a third ordering of the plurality of agents according to a combination of the first ordering and the second ordering having a skewed agent utilization between the balanced agent utilization and the unbalanced agent utilization; and output a hybrid behavioral pairing model based on the third ordering for connecting a contact to an agent of the plurality of agents in the contact center system.

The present disclosure will now be described in more detail with reference to particular embodiments thereof as shown in the accompanying drawings. While the present disclosure is described below with reference to particular embodiments, it should be understood that the present disclosure is not limited thereto. Those of ordinary skill in the art having access to the teachings herein will recognize additional implementations, modifications, and embodiments, as well as other fields of use, which are within the scope of the present disclosure as described herein, and with respect to which the present disclosure may be of significant utility.

