1 Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an improved system for integrating automatic outbound dialer functions with automatic call distribution functions, and more particularly to a system that balances the number of agents assigned to these functions while maintaining the inbound call waiting time within prescribed limits.
2 Description of the Prior Art
Many call centers provide both an automatic inbound telephone call distribution function and an automatic outbound call function. As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, there have been proposals in the prior art to link inbound automatic call distribution and automatic outbound calling in order to improve staffing efficiency. Inbound call distribution typically has peaks and valleys in its load, since the demand is generated by outside callers. By linking inbound and outbound call functions, outbound agents can be switched to inbound duty during peak inbound demand periods and switched back to outbound duty during slack periods in inbound demand, thus improving overall staffing efficiency.
In a typical prior art system, an inbound performance parameter is monitored based upon statistics tracked by the inbound call distributor; for example, number of calls in the inbound queue or average time to answer an inbound call. Target values, and upper and lower thresholds are established for the inbound performance parameter; for example a five second target to respond to incoming calls with an upper threshold of seven seconds and a lower threshold of three seconds. The assumptions of the thresholds is; if upper threshold is exceeded, the performance is unacceptable and more inbound agents are needed; and (b) if the lower threshold is exceeded, the inbound function is considered to be overstaffed and overall efficiency would be improved by transferring inbound agents to outbound operations.
In the prior art, so called blend agents are typically transferred, as they become available, when the upper or lower threshold values are exceeded. Agents continue to be transferred until the performance is between the upper and lower threshold limits, when the transfer stops. U.S. Pat. No. 5,425,093, assigned to the assignee of this application and incorporated herein by reference, discloses the concept of providing hysteresis to provide added stabilization to agent transfer. With hysteresis, a higher threshold value is used to trigger the transfer of agents as the upper range of acceptable performance is being exceeded than the threshold value used to stop transfer as the performance moves toward the acceptable range. Similarly for the lower limit; the trigger value to start transfer is lower as measured performance leaves the range than to stop transfer as the performance moves toward the range. However, this and other prior art call center balance algorithms for determining the transfer of agents between inbound and outbound functions operate in response to current inbound performance, and have not proven to be altogether satisfactory in operation.