JP2006053858A - Intelligent mail transmitter-receiver - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To properly determine the urgency of an inquiry mail from a customer, properly determine the urgency of the inquiry mail even if a same customer transmits the inquiry mail by using a plurality of mail addresses, and rapidly return an answer mail to the inquiry mail with high urgency. <P>SOLUTION: This intelligent mail transmitter-receiver comprises a storage means for storing the inquiry mails from the customers together with customer identification information, a first means for setting, for the stored inquiry mails from the customers, an overall urgency formed by integrating urgencies according to the elements of a receiving time zone, a difference between a receiving time and a previous receiving time, and a call center person who answered and storing urgency tables for each call center person, and a second means for referring to the overall urgency of the urgency table for the receiving operation for the inquiry mails from answer terminals operated by the call center persons and reading the inquiry mails from the storage means starting at the inquiry mails with high urgency that must be answered by the call center persons before distributing them. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2006,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to an intelligent mail transmitting / receiving apparatus that receives various inquiry mails (electronic mails) at a call center or the like and transmits answer mails to the mails.

Conventionally, e-mail, like postal mail, transmits text that does not require immediate responsiveness. However, as the number of terminals that can send and receive e-mail, such as mobile phones, increases, documents that require immediate responsiveness are increasing. Increasing cases are being sent and received by e-mail. At this time, a technique is required that enables delivery so that mail can be browsed efficiently from those with a high degree of urgency.
Also, if the same customer uses multiple email addresses to send e-mail, name identification is used to recognize that multiple email addresses belong to one customer in order to effectively use this technology. There is a need to.

Conventionally, as a technique for browsing mails in descending order of priority, for example, there is one disclosed in Patent Document 1 below.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 11-261627 discloses a method for calculating and distributing an urgent level / priority from an elapsed time and contents after receiving an e-mail.

However, in the prior art disclosed in Patent Document 1, the urgency level is calculated based on the word contained in the document described by the customer because the urgency level is calculated from the document content of the e-mail. Therefore, there is a case where an appropriate degree of urgency cannot be calculated, and when applied to a call center or the like, there is a possibility that the response is delayed and the reliability to the customer is lowered.
Also, if the same customer who has multiple email addresses sends inquiry emails using different email addresses, the elapsed time after receiving the previous email should be measured based on the inquiry email of which email address. There is a problem that it is difficult to determine whether or not.

  An object of the present invention is to appropriately determine the urgency level of an inquiry email from a customer, and even when the same customer transmits an inquiry email using a plurality of email addresses, It is an object of the present invention to provide an intelligent mail transmission / reception device capable of appropriately determining the degree and promptly replying a reply mail to a highly urgent inquiry mail.

In order to achieve the above object, an intelligent mail transmitting / receiving apparatus according to the present invention provides a respondent to an inquiry mail from an unspecified number of customers received to an e-mail address of a call center domain as one of a plurality of call center personnel. An intelligent mail transmission / reception device that replies an answer mail input by a call center staff member assigned to
Storage means for sequentially storing inquiry mails from customers together with customer identification information and reception time information, and for each stored inquiry mail from each customer, the difference between the reception time zone, the previous reception time, and each of the call center personnel who answered For the first means for setting the general urgency level that combines the urgency levels according to the elements and storing them in the urgency level table for each call center staff, and for receiving the inquiry mail from the answering terminal operated by each call center staff, And a second means for referring to the general urgency in the urgency table and reading out from the storage means in order from the inquiry mail with the highest urgency to be answered by the call center staff.
Further, the first means is characterized in that the total urgency is set by further adding an urgency corresponding to the satisfaction with the reply mail collected from the inquiry mail sender.
In addition, it comprises a mail address storage means for storing a plurality of mail addresses for each customer identification information for a customer having a plurality of mail addresses,
The first means, when setting the general urgency level for the inquiry mail, checks whether or not another mail address possessed by the customer is stored in the mail address storage means based on the customer identification information of the received inquiry mail. If so, the general urgent level is set for the inquiry mail received at the other mail address.
It also monitors the number of inquiry emails that are not assigned to call center personnel and are waiting to be assigned to respondents, and the waiting time for inquiry emails that are on hold for the longest time. It is further characterized by further comprising means for displaying.
Also, monitor the number of inquiry emails and waiting time that are on hold, and if the waiting time is expected to exceed the predetermined time, calculate the estimated reply time, It is further characterized by further comprising means for transmitting a message indicating that the customer cannot be answered immediately upon receipt of the mail and a scheduled reply time.

According to the present invention, for the inquiry mail from each customer, a general urgency level is set, which combines the reception time zone, the difference from the previous reception time, and the urgency level corresponding to each element of the answered call center personnel. For example, if the time period when customer A's inquiry mail is received is significantly different from the normal mail transmission time period of customer A, it is considered that an emergency has occurred, so the degree of urgency is Set high. Also, if the time difference from the previous inquiry mail is small, it can be regarded as urgent, so the urgency level is set high.
Furthermore, if the sender of the previous response mail is call center personnel B, it is considered that the inquiry is a re-inquiry that is a highly urgent mail to call center personnel B, so the urgency is increased and call center personnel B is given priority. To correspond to.
As described above, the inquiry mail having a high degree of urgency is preferentially processed without the call center staff thoroughly reading the contents of the inquiry mail, and the reply mail to the inquiry mail having a high degree of urgency can be quickly returned.
In addition, since the urgency level corresponding to the call center staff who has returned the reply mail to the inquiry mail is taken into consideration, the reply work can be continuously assigned to the staff involved in the reply.
Furthermore, the customer identification information of the received inquiry mail is used to check whether the other mail address of the customer is stored in the mail address storage means, and if it is stored, the inquiry mail received at the other mail address is also a target. Thus, since the general urgency level is set, even if the same customer transmits an inquiry mail using a plurality of mail addresses, it is possible to appropriately determine the urgency level of the inquiry mail and assign a respondent.

Hereinafter, an embodiment for carrying out the present invention will be specifically described with reference to the drawings.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of an intelligent mail transmitting / receiving apparatus according to the present invention.
A mail server 1 is prepared in the call center. The mail server 1 corresponds to an intelligent mail transmission / reception device.
Emails (inquiry mails) M1 and M2 from the customer sent to the mail server 1 are all stored in the database 2, and then each answering terminal is operated by the mail receiving operation of the call center personnel 3a to 3c in the answering terminals 4a to 4c. 4a to 4c are read and displayed.
The mail server 1 stores in the storage device 5 a mail reception process 51, a received mail allocation process 52, a recipient unknown mail response process 53, a customer satisfaction survey mail transmission / reception process 54, a call center personnel designation mail reception process 55, and a reply not yet received. A program consisting of the mail handling process 56 is stored.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the database 2. The customer table 21, the customer email address table 22, the customer email transmission / reception time table 23, the received email table 24, the sent email table 25, and the call center personnel-specific electronic A mail urgency table 26 is provided.
In the customer table 21, names and contact information of individual customers are registered with unique customer IDs. The registered customer information is linked to the customer e-mail address table 22 and the customer e-mail transmission / reception time table 23 by the customer ID, and checks whether the same customer has a plurality of e-mail addresses by the customer ID. be able to. When there are a plurality of mail addresses, the mail transmission / reception times of all the mail addresses are acquired from the table 23, and the urgency of the inquiry mail is set based on the difference between the reception times. In addition, call center personnel can obtain and browse received mails at all electronic mail addresses from the received electronic mail table 24.

FIG. 3 is a processing flow when the mail server 1 receives an electronic mail (inquiry mail) from a customer.
When the e-mail arrives at the mail server 1, the mail receiving process 51 searches the customer table 21 from the address of the received e-mail and specifies the customer (step 301).
Thereafter, the date and time when the customer transmitted the previous e-mail is obtained from the customer e-mail transmission / reception time table 23, and the difference from the time when the current e-mail was received is calculated. Then, the reply time urgency table 400 of FIG. 4 is searched from the calculation result, and the urgency 402 corresponding to the difference 401 between the previous mail transmission time and the current mail transmission time is acquired (step 303). This urgency level 402 is set so as to increase as the difference 401 decreases.
Next, a time zone during which the customer normally sends an e-mail is acquired from the customer e-mail transmission / reception time table 23. If the current reception time is out of this time zone, the e-mail transmission time deviation table 500 of FIG. And the urgency level 502 corresponding to the difference 501 between the normal mail transmission / reception time zone and the current mail transmission time is acquired (step 304). The degree of urgency 502 is set so as to increase as the difference 501 increases.
Thereafter, the transmission e-mail table 25 is searched, and the urgency level for each call center person who has replied to the customer of the received e-mail is acquired (step 305). Information used at this time is an example of the customer-facing call center personnel table 600 of FIG. Here, the urgency 602 is set to “50” when the call center staff A answers, and the urgency 602 is set to “10” when the staff B to which the call center staff A belongs responds.
Next, the transmission e-mail table 25 is searched, a satisfaction survey response mail for the response mail collected from the customer is obtained, the average customer satisfaction for the answer mail transmitted by the call center staff is obtained, and the average customer satisfaction is obtained. The corresponding urgency is acquired from the conversion table 700 of FIG. 7 (step 306). In the example of FIG. 7, a value is set such that the urgency 702 increases as the average customer satisfaction 701 decreases.
Next, all the urgency levels 402, 502, 602, and 702 acquired as described above are totaled, and the total value is registered as the total urgency level in the call center personnel-specific e-mail urgency level table 26 (step 307).
After that, the estimated reply time of the reply mail is calculated, and if it is expected that the reply to the customer's electronic mail will take a certain time or more, a mail notifying the scheduled reply time is automatically transmitted (step 308).

FIG. 11 is an example of an e-mail notifying the e-mail reply scheduled time.
The estimated response time is calculated by setting the average answer time per e-mail of the call center staff x the number of e-mails with higher priority than the e-mail.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing a procedure when the call center personnel 3a to 3c process the e-mail on the mail server 1 using the answer terminals 4a to 4c.
When the call center personnel 3a to 3c are capable of handling e-mails, the answer terminals 4a to 4c assign the corresponding call center personnel on the mail server 1 to process the most urgent e-mail.
In FIG. 8, when the call center staff member 3a logs in to the mail server 1 using his / her user ID (step 801), the received mail assignment processing 52 is the most among the electronic mails (inquiry mails) assigned to the user ID. An email with a high degree of urgency is acquired from the received email table 24 and displayed on the reply terminal 4a (step 802).
If the customer is the customer who sent the inquiry mail for the first time, there is no history of call center personnel who responded to the inquiry mail, so the processing of steps 301 to 307 in FIG. 3 is skipped, and the received inquiry mail is arbitrary. The call center personnel are stored in a compatible buffer, assigned to the call center personnel in the standby state among the logged-in call center personnel, and displayed on the answer terminal 4a of the call center personnel.
However, if the inquiry mail has an answer history in the past, it is assigned to one of the call center personnel in accordance with the degree of customer satisfaction and the like and displayed on the answer terminal 4a of the call center personnel by the processing of FIG.
Next, the reply mail created by the call center staff 3a is transmitted to the customer (step 803).
Next, it is determined whether or not the call center personnel 3a has issued a logout request (step 804). If not issued, the process returns to step 802, and an e-mail with the next highest urgency level is acquired. If a logout request has been issued, the process ends.

  FIG. 9 shows a list of mails sent by a customer when a customer having a plurality of mail addresses sends an e-mail using different mail addresses by searching and specifying the customer. It is an example of a screen. FIG. 9 shows an example in which, when “Hanako Suzuki” is designated, a list of e-mails transmitted by “Hanako Suzuki” using their own separate e-mail addresses is displayed at the bottom of the screen.

  FIG. 10 is a screen example of the answer terminals 3a to 3c on which the number of e-mails waiting for processing and the maximum waiting time of e-mails waiting for reply are displayed. A waiting time 102 is displayed. In addition, an indicator 103 for the maximum waiting time 102 is displayed. The indicator 103 is long when the maximum waiting time is large, and short when the maximum waiting time is short.

FIG. 12 is a flowchart showing the unknown recipient mail handling process 53 when the mail server 1 receives an error mail because, for example, the e-mail sent by the call center staff does not have a destination mail address.
First, the e-mail address of the transmission destination replied with unknown recipient is searched from the customer e-mail address table 22 (step 1201), and an unknown address flag is set for the matched record (step 1202). Then, the customer is notified of the failure to receive the e-mail to the call center staff who sent the e-mail (step 1203).
If the call center personnel try to send an email to the email address with the unknown address flag, an error dialog is displayed to notify the call center personnel that the email address did not reach the customer.

FIG. 13 is a flowchart when the customer satisfaction survey email transmission / reception processing 54 transmits a customer satisfaction survey email.
The customer satisfaction survey mail transmission / reception processing 54 automatically transmits a customer satisfaction difference mail to the customer when a predetermined time has elapsed since the call center staff transmitted the reply mail to the customer (step 1301) (step 1301). 1302).

FIG. 14 is a flowchart when the customer satisfaction survey email transmission / reception processing 54 receives a reply email to the customer satisfaction survey email from the customer.
When the customer fills the question item in the customer satisfaction survey email form and returns a reply, the customer satisfaction survey email transmission / reception process 54 receives this (step 1401), and the content of the answer to the question item is received. The satisfaction score is calculated and registered in association with the corresponding reply mail (reply to the customer's inquiry) in the transmission e-mail table 25 (step 1402).

FIG. 15 is a flowchart showing the process of the staff designation mail receiving process 55 in the case where the call center staff is absent when the customer designates the call center staff and transmits the e-mail.
The staff designation mail receiving process 55 receives the e-mail designating the staff name from the customer, and if the call center staff is absent (step 1501), notifies the date and time when the call center staff can reply, The call center personnel are introduced (step 1502).

FIG. 16 is a flowchart of the reply undelivered mail handling process 56 when notifying the call center staff and customer by e-mail when there is no reply to the e-mail from the customer even after the desired reply date and time designated by the call center staff has elapsed. .
If the customer does not receive an e-mail reply even after the reply desired date and time specified by the call center personnel has elapsed (step 1601), the customer will receive an e-mail from the customer even if the desired reply date and time designated by the call center personnel has elapsed. That there is no reply (step 1602).

It is a block diagram which shows embodiment of this invention. It is a block diagram of a database. It is a flowchart which shows the operation | movement which sets the urgency level of the inquiry mail received from the customer. It is an example of the reply time urgency table used when setting the urgency of an inquiry mail. It is an email transmission time deviation table used when setting the urgency level of an inquiry mail. It is a customer correspondence call center personnel table used when setting the urgency of an inquiry mail. It is a customer satisfaction table used when setting the urgency of an inquiry mail. It is a flowchart at the time of assigning an inquiry mail to a reply terminal. It is a figure which shows the example of the screen which displays the list of the mail received from a customer. It is an example of the screen showing the number of mails waiting for processing and the average waiting time. It is a figure which shows the example of the email which notifies the reply scheduled time of a reply mail. It is a flowchart which shows a process when the e-mail transmitted by the call center staff returns in the absence of a recipient. It is an example of the flowchart at the time of the intelligent mail transmission / reception apparatus of this invention transmitting a customer satisfaction investigation mail. It is a flowchart at the time of receiving a customer satisfaction survey mail. It is a flowchart which shows a process when a call center person is absent when a customer designates a call center person and transmits an e-mail. It is a flowchart when notifying a call center staff and a customer by e-mail when there is no reply to the e-mail from the customer even after a reply desired date and time designated by the call center staff has elapsed.

Explanation of symbols

1 Mail server 2 Database 3a-3c Call center personnel 4a-4c Answer terminal

Claims (5)

Assign respondents to inquiry emails from a large number of unspecified customers received to the email address of the call center domain to one of multiple call center personnel, and reply emails entered by the assigned call center personnel to the inquiring customer An intelligent mail sending / receiving device for replying,
Storage means for sequentially storing inquiry emails from customers together with customer identification information and reception time information;
For the stored inquiry emails from each customer, set a general emergency level that combines the reception time zone, the difference from the previous reception time, and the emergency level according to each element of the answering call center personnel. First means for storing in the degree table;
In response to an inquiry mail reception operation from an answering terminal operated by each call center staff, the general urgency in the urgency level table is referred to, and the call responsiveness to which the call center staff should answer is read from the storage means in order. And an intelligent mail transmitting / receiving apparatus comprising: a second means for distributing the mail.   2. The intelligent mail according to claim 1, wherein the first means sets the total urgency level in consideration of an urgency level corresponding to a satisfaction level with respect to a response mail collected from a sender of the inquiry mail. Transmitter / receiver. E-mail address storage means for storing a plurality of e-mail addresses for each customer identification information for customers having a plurality of e-mail addresses,
The first means, when setting the general urgency level for the inquiry mail, checks whether or not another mail address possessed by the customer is stored in the mail address storage means based on the customer identification information of the received inquiry mail. 3. The intelligent mail transmitting / receiving apparatus according to claim 1 or 2, wherein if it is, the total urgency is set for an inquiry mail received at the other mail address.   Monitors the number of inquiry mails that are not assigned to call center personnel and are waiting to be assigned to respondents, and the waiting time for inquiry mails that are on hold for the longest time, and displays them on the answering terminals operated by each call center person The intelligent mail transmitting / receiving apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 3, further comprising means.   Monitor the number of inquiries that are on hold and the waiting time, and if the waiting time is expected to exceed the specified time, calculate the estimated reply time and send an email from the customer waiting for an answer. 5. The intelligent mail transmitting / receiving apparatus according to claim 4, further comprising means for transmitting a message indicating that an immediate response cannot be made to the customer at the time of reception and a scheduled reply time.

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