JP3529687B2 - Complex call center operation system - Google Patents

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a composite call center operation system in a call center having an operator in charge of outbound business and an operator in charge of inbound business, and particularly depends on human resources of the call center and the number of operators. The present invention relates to a composite call center operating method, a composite call center operating device, and the composite call center operating device capable of effectively utilizing equipment resources and further improving the quality of customer service by improving the efficiency of use of acquired customer information. The present invention relates to a computer-readable recording medium recording a computer program.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Regarding an outbound business by a call originating from a call center to a customer, when a large number of operators exist and a computer automatically originates, for example, in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 11-215528, information about a called party is accumulated. There is disclosed a technique of presenting information about the called party to the operator device when there is a response from the called party. This makes ACD
Even when the (Automatic Call Distribution) function is used, the operator can obtain the individual customer information.

In addition to such an operator who is in charge of outbound business, in some cases, a single call center may have an operator in charge of inbound business by a call received from a customer to the call center side. Conventionally, even when personnel and equipment are interchanged between the outbound business and the inbound business, when the operator is in charge of the outbound business, the operator is dedicated to the business and does not perform the inbound business. In addition, when the operator is in charge of inbound work, full-time dedicated to the work,
Do not perform outbound work. That is, even an operator who can perform both jobs can simultaneously perform only one of the jobs.

[0004]

Therefore, conventionally, it is not possible to flexibly deal with the fluctuation of human resources and equipment resources of each call center. Therefore, these valuable resources such as human resources and equipment resources are not effectively used.

Further, conventionally, no device has been devised for exchanging information between the customer information handled in the outbound business and the customer information handled in the inbound business. Therefore, it is difficult to exchange information, and limited information can be obtained, which may limit the customer service.

The present invention has been made to solve the above-mentioned conventional problems, and aims to effectively use the human resources of a call center and the equipment resources depending on the number of operators, and further, to obtain the acquired customers. It is an object of the present invention to provide a combined call center operation system capable of improving the quality of customer service by improving the efficiency of use of information.

[0007]

First, a method for operating a composite call center according to the first invention of the present application is to carry out outbound business by a call originating from a call center to a customer and to receive a call from the customer.
In performing the inbound business by the trust to call, A
When a predictive call is made by automatically dialing the customer's telephone number in the outbound business , at least the customer outgoing information that specifies the destination of the predictive call is saved, and the predictive call of the outbound business is performed. Incoming at connection, or before
When an incoming call from a customer is present on the call center side during inbound business , the incoming call information is used to identify whether the incoming call is an incoming call for connection to the predictive outgoing call or an incoming call from a customer. At the same time, the distinction of each of the predictive outgoing calls is identified, the corresponding customer outgoing call information is selected and read based on these identifications, and the incoming call is connected to an idle operator,
The incoming call connected to the operator
Outbound business or inbound business
Or call me before you start the call.
In addition, by using the information sent by the customer,
The problem is solved by providing necessary information about the customer.

[0008] Further, in the composite call center operation method, with the operators of the operator and outbound service charge of inbound business in charge, by which to allow the transfer with bidirectional data, the use of customer information is acquired The efficiency of can improve the quality of customer service.

Next, the composite call center operation device according to the second aspect of the present invention uses the outbound service by the call originating from the call center to the customer and the call originating from the customer.
Complex call center operation equipment for inbound business
In the outbound business, when a predictive call is made by automatically dialing and dialing the customer's telephone number, at least the customer call information that specifies the call destination of the predictive call is stored. and a control unit, wherein when outbound service call during connection by the predictive calling of, or the incoming call from the customer calling upon the inbound <br/> de business was in call center,該着signal is connected to said predictive calling An incoming call identification control unit for identifying whether it is an incoming call or an incoming call from a customer by obtaining incoming call information and distinguishing each of the predictive outgoing calls, and the corresponding customer based on these identifications It reads the transmission information by selecting a customer calling information readout control unit, the incoming Can be connected to the operator, with respect to the air-out operator <br/> over data, incoming connected to an operator outbound
Wound work or inbound work
It is a solution to the above-mentioned problem by notifying the user before the start of a call and providing the information about the customer necessary for the outbound business by using the customer transmission information. . Note that the customer transmission information storage control unit, the incoming call identification control unit, and the customer transmission information read control unit can be realized by a computer program as an entity.

Further, a computer-readable recording medium according to the third invention of the present application realizes the customer-originated-information storage controller, the incoming-call identification controller, and the customer-originated information read controller described in the second invention. The problem is solved by providing a computer-readable recording medium having the computer program recorded thereon.

The operation of the present invention will be briefly described below.

[0012] In a call center having an operator in charge of inbound work in addition to an operator in charge of outbound work, it is conceivable that a single operator takes charge of outbound work and inbound work at any time. Free words, incoming at the time of connection by calling the outbound service, or if there is an incoming call by call coming from a customer inbound operations, without particular about by charge outbound industry Tsutomuya <br/> inbound operations, these incoming It is to connect to the operator. This makes it possible to effectively use the human resources of the call center and the equipment resources that depend on the number of operators.

[0013] also in the case of mixed-connected in this way outbound industry Tsutomu及 beauty inbound business, of course operator, is the arrival of the outbound business must be a corresponding accordingly, as well as for the even incoming inbound business It is necessary to respond accordingly. Therefore, the operator needs to know at least whether the incoming call connected to the operator is related to the outbound business or the inbound business before starting the call.

According to the present invention, at the time of outbound business by a call originating from a call center to a customer, when a predictive call is made by automatically dialing the customer's telephone number, at least the customer who specifies the destination of the call is specified. Save outgoing information.

Further, if an incoming call at the time of connection due to the outgoing outbound business or an incoming call from the customer's outgoing call at the call center side during the inbound business due to a call received from the customer, the incoming call is the incoming call at the connection for the outgoing call. Identify whether there is one, and identify the distinction of each individual origination. Then, the corresponding customer-originated information is selected and read out based on these identifications, and the information about the customer is provided to the operator who connects the incoming call by using the customer-originated information.

For this reason, the operator knows whether the incoming call connected to himself is related to the outbound business or the inbound business until the call is started.
It is possible that. Further, it is possible to provide information such as name and other information about the customer.

Therefore, according to the present invention, the human resources of the call center and the equipment resources depending on the number of operators are effectively used, and the quality of the customer service is improved by the efficient use of the acquired customer information. It is possible to improve.

When installing hardware in a call center, a model is selected from various aspects such as price, purchase condition, maintenance condition. Then, in the call center, the hardware used for outbound business and the hardware used for inbound business may be manufactured by different manufacturers. In such cases, the function included in the outbound service, in the functions contained in the inbound operations, it might be difficult to work with each other. Also, even if the same manufacturer,
When the delivery time is different or the product series is different, similarly, it may be difficult for the functions included in the outbound business and the functions included in the inbound business to cooperate with each other.

However, according to the present invention, when a predictive call is made during an outbound business, at least customer call information for identifying the call destination of the call is stored. Then, when the incoming call is on the call center side, it is identified whether the incoming call is the incoming call of the connection to the outgoing call, the distinction between the individual outgoing calls is identified, and the corresponding Select and read out customer-dispatched information. Since the customer-originated information is temporarily stored in this manner, it becomes easy to coordinate the functions of the outbound business and the inbound business on the hardware.

[0020]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION Embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows C of an embodiment to which the present invention is applied.
3 is a block diagram showing an overall configuration of a usage form of a TI (Computer Telephony Integration) server device 50. FIG.

In this figure, the call center side has P
A BX (Private Branch eXchange) 44, a plurality of telephones 32 and a plurality of client devices 34 provided for each operator, and a CTI server device 50 are provided. Also, the PBX 44 and the plurality of client devices 34
And the CTI server device 50 are LAN (Local Area)
Network) 46 and are connected to each other.

In such a call center, the customer telephone 40 is used by utilizing the operator predictive calling function.
There is a so-called outbound business in which the call center side makes a call.

That is, by the predictive transmission function,
Automatically dial and call the customer's phone number. Then, when the outgoing call is connected to the customer side via the public switched telephone network (PSTN) 42, the call is connected to the operator's telephone 32 by the PBX 44 in the call center. At the same time, information about the customer such as the called party number of the call is sent from the CTI server device 50 to the client device 34 of the operator and displayed on the screen of the client device 34.

Further, when an incoming call from the customer is on the call center side during inbound work by a call received from the customer, the caller number may be notified by the incoming call. In such a case, the information about the customer of the caller number is sent from the CTI server device 50 to the client device 34 of the operator and displayed on the screen of the client device 34.

FIG. 2 shows the CTI server device 5 of this embodiment.
It is a block diagram which shows the structure of 0.

The CTI server device 50 includes a CTI control unit 1
0, pacing controller 12, client controller 1
4 and a database control unit 16 that controls the database 17.

The client control unit 14 has a function of connecting to a plurality of client devices 34 via a LAN 46, as shown in FIG. The CTI control unit 10 is connected to the PBX 44, and the pacing control unit 12 is connected to the external storage device 20 via the LAN 46.

In FIG. 2, first, the customer database is
It is composed of a database control unit 16 and a database 17. The customer database stores information about a large number of customers of interest, including at least their telephone numbers. The customer database stores information about customers who are targets of outbound business. Further, the customer database also stores information about customers who may be the target of inbound business, such as customers who have handled some business in the past.

The client control unit 14 sends a CTI command to the CTI control unit 10 based on the information received from the client program contained in the client device 34. In addition, various information is received from the CTI control unit 10 and the database control unit 16 and transmitted to the client program of the client device 34.

The CTI control unit 10 transmits the CTI command transmitted from the client control unit 14 or the pacing control unit 12 to the PBX 44. From the pacing controller 12, the CTI command is only a call command. or,
The CTI control unit 10 manages information such as incoming calls, responses, and disconnections sent from the PBX 44. In particular, information about the incoming call obtained as a result of the predictive call being connected to the customer is transmitted to the database control unit 16. Information about incoming calls other than this is transmitted to the client control unit 14.

The pacing control unit 12 stores a data group for predictive transmission in the database control unit 16.
To request. The data group thus obtained is transmitted to the CTI control unit 10.

The database controller 16 extracts from the database 17 the outgoing data group requested by the pacing controller 12. Then, the information managed by the database 17 is added to the information regarding the incoming call by the predictive transmission sent from the CTI control unit 10, and the information is transmitted to the client control unit 14.

The external storage device 20 is used for outbound business by a call originating from a call center to a customer.
When a predictive call is made by automatically dialing a customer's telephone number and making a call, the customer call information storage control unit stores at least customer call information that specifies the call destination. If the call center side receives an incoming call at the time of connection due to an outbound business call, by identifying the distinction between individual outbound business calls,
The customer-originated information stored in the external storage device 20 is selected and read.

In this embodiment, the customer transmission information storage control unit, the incoming call identification control unit, and the customer transmission information read control unit of the second invention of the present application are configured inside the CTI control unit 10. As the actual processing, the processing of the customer-originated information storage control unit is realized mainly at step 114, the processing of the incoming call identification control portion is carried out at step 123, and the processing of the customer-originated information read control portion is realized mainly at step 124. The customer transmission information stored in the first and second inventions is stored in the soft dialer customer identifier file 22 described later. The soft dialer customer identifier file 22 is configured in the external storage device 20 described above.

In the above-mentioned configuration, the symbols 1 to 4 in the figure represent the exchange of signals described below, which occur in the order of their numbers.

First, in the reference numeral, the client device 3
The client program of No. 4 is the client control unit 14
To the CTI command. Further, in the code, the client program receives the incoming call information from the client device 34.

In the code, the client control unit 14 uses C
The CTI command is transmitted to the TI control unit 10. In the code, the CTI control unit 10 to the client control unit 14
Receives incoming call information.

In the code, the pacing control unit 12 requests the database control unit 16 for a transmission data group for predictive transmission. Then, in the code, the database control unit 16 determines that the database 17
The corresponding transmission data group read from the pacing control unit 1
Send to 2.

In the code, the pacing controller 12 uses CT
The above-mentioned transmission data group is sent to the I control unit 10. In the code, the CTI control unit 10 sends a C to the PBX 44.
Send a TI command. The PBX 44 has a code C
The incoming call information is transmitted to the TI control unit 10.

In the case of the predictive transmission, the predictive transmission information including at least the customer transmission information for specifying the transmission destination of the transmission is written in the file of the external storage device 20 in the code. Further, when the predictive call is received, the file is read. For other incoming calls, such reading is not performed.

At the time of incoming call for predictive outgoing call, the CTI control unit 10 sends to the database control unit 16 the incoming call information to which the above-mentioned predictive outgoing call information is added.

In the code, information is read from the database 17 based on the predictive transmission information. The information is, for example, information about the customer who received the call.

In the code, the client control unit 14 is transmitted with incoming information added with the above-mentioned predictive outgoing information.

FIG. 3 is a flow chart showing the contents of processing at the time of call originating from the CTI control unit 10.

At step 112, the CTI control unit 10
From the client controller 14 or the pacing controller 1
Customer telephone 40 connected from 2 to the public telephone line network 42
To send a call command (CTI command) to. In the case of preview transmission (manual transmission) in which the operator operates to make a call to the customer's telephone 40, when the operator's operation in the client device 34 makes a call, this is transmitted to the client control unit 14, and the client control unit 14 performs CT.
A call command is sent to the I control unit 10. On the other hand, in the case of predictive transmission, the pacing control unit 12 causes the CTI
An outgoing command is sent to the control unit 10.

The process on the side of the client controller 14 related to step 112 is as shown in the flowchart of FIG. The processing on the pacing controller 12 side is as shown in the flowchart of FIG. 7.

In step 113, it is determined whether the calling command thus obtained is due to the predictive calling of the pacing controller 12 or the manual calling. When it is determined that the predictive call is made, the predictive call information is written in the soft dialer customer identifier file 22 in step 113. The information to be written includes information (identifier information) indicating which one of the individual outgoing calls in the predictive outgoing call, and customer outgoing information that specifies the outgoing call destination of the outgoing call.

Note that the above-mentioned identifier information is not particularly necessary when the individual call origination to the customer can be discriminated by the customer call origination information for specifying the destination of the call origination. Alternatively, when the information for distinguishing each call is added when the call command is transmitted to the PBX 44 in the following step 115, this added information may be used as the above-mentioned identifier information.

If it is determined that the call is made manually, or if step 114 is completed, then in step 115, a call command (CTI command) is transmitted to the PBX 44. As a result, the PBX 44 makes a call to the corresponding customer telephone 40.

The determination in step 113 is made when the call command from the client control unit 14 and the call command from the pacing control unit 12 can be distinguished by the call command itself or is originally added to the call command. In the case where the information provided makes a distinction, it may be based on such a distinction.
Alternatively, different information for distinguishing each other may be added to the transmission commands from the pacing control unit 12 and the client control unit 14, and such determination may be performed based on the additional information.

FIG. 4 is a flow chart showing the contents of processing performed mainly by the CTI control unit 10 when an incoming call is made.

In step 122, when the call center side receives an incoming call, the CTI control unit 10 obtains the incoming call information transmitted by the PBX 44. For the incoming call, in the outbound business by the call sent from the call center to the customer,
There is a case where an incoming call is made at the time of connection to the customer's telephone 40 of the outgoing call after a predictive outgoing call is made by automatically dialing the telephone number of the customer. Alternatively, there may be an incoming call from the customer's origination during an inbound business by a call received from the customer.

In step 123, it is judged whether the above-mentioned incoming call is from the predictive outgoing connection or from the customer in the inbound business.
If the incoming call information itself obtained in step 122 includes information necessary for the determination, the incoming call information may be used for the determination.
Alternatively, if the information that can be directly determined is not included,
For example, if it is a caller number or a callee number included in the information, such a determination can be made by comparing it with other information in the call center.

When it is determined that the predictive call is being connected, at step 124, when the predictive call is made at step 114 of FIG.
The predictive transmission information written in the soft dialer customer identifier file 22 is read. In the reading, by using the above-mentioned identifier information, the information corresponding to the incoming call by the predictive outgoing connection can be selected and read. It should be noted that the identifier information can be obtained directly from the incoming information from the PBX 44 at the time of incoming call or by correlating the incoming information with other information in the call center.

In step 125, the predictive outgoing information and the incoming information obtained in step 124 are notified to the database control section 16. Then, from the database control unit 16, information useful for the operator to talk with the customer and perform the business is obtained from the database 17 and the database control unit 16. The information is presented to the operator on the display screen of the client device 34 via the client control unit 14 and the LAN 46.

The processing on the side of the database control unit 16 regarding the step 125 is as shown in the flowchart of FIG. The process on the client control unit 14 side is as shown in the flowchart of FIG.

As described above, the present invention can be effectively applied to this embodiment. Therefore, the human resources of the call center and the equipment resources depending on the number of operators can be effectively used, and the quality of customer service can be improved by improving the efficiency of use of the acquired customer information.

[0059]

According to the present invention, the human resources of the call center and the equipment resources depending on the number of operators are effectively used, and further, the efficiency of the use of the acquired customer information enables the customer service to be improved. The quality can be improved.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an overall configuration of a usage form of a CTI server device according to an embodiment to which the present invention is applied.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the CTI server device of the above embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the contents of processing at the time of call originating from the CTI control unit used in the embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the contents of processing at the time of incoming call, which is mainly performed by the CTI control unit used in the embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing the processing contents when a CTI command is issued, which is performed by the client control unit used in the above embodiment.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing the processing contents at the time of receiving incoming call information, which is performed by the client control unit used in the above embodiment.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing the contents of processing performed by the pacing control unit used in the above embodiment.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing the contents of processing performed by the database control unit used in the above embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

10 ... CTI control unit 12 ... Pacing controller 14 ... Client control unit 16 ... Database control unit 17 ... Database 20 ... External storage device 32 ... Telephone 34 ... Client device 40 ... Customer telephone 42 ... Public telephone network 44 ... PBX 46 ... LAN 50 ... CTI server device

─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (56) Reference JP-A-8-88690 (JP, A) (58) Fields investigated (Int.Cl. ⁷ , DB name) H04M 3/42-3/64 H04Q 3 / 58-3/62

Claims (4)

(57) [Claims] 1. Outbound business by making a call from a call center to a customer and making a call from a customer
When performing a predictive call to automatically dial the customer's telephone number for outbound work when performing inbound work , at least the customer call information that identifies the destination of the predictive call is saved, and the outbound incoming upon connection by the predictive calling the business, or call from the case where during the inbound operations is an incoming call from a calling customer was on call center, or該着signal is incoming connections to the predictive calling, or customer calling It is determined whether or not the incoming call information is obtained , and the distinction between the individual predictive outgoing calls is identified. Based on these identifications, the corresponding customer outgoing call information is selected and read out, and the incoming call is connected to a free operator. , The
An incoming call connected to an operator for an empty operator
Is related to outbound business, or inbound business
It may be related to work, or you may give a notification before starting the call.
In addition, by using the information sent by the customer ,
A method for operating a composite call center, which is characterized by providing necessary customer information. 2. A composite call center management method according to claim 1, combined to between operators operator and outbound service charge of inbound business in charge, characterized in that so as to perform a transfer with bidirectional data Call center operating method. [Claim 3] Outbound business by a call originating from a call center to a customer and a call originating from a customer
Complex call center operation equipment for inbound business
In the outbound business, when a predictive call is made by automatically dialing the customer's telephone number, at least the customer call information that specifies the call destination of the predictive call is stored. and a control unit, wherein when outbound service call during connection by the predictive calling of, or the incoming call from the customer calling upon the inbound operations was in call center, or該着signal is incoming connections to the predictive calling, Alternatively, whether or not the incoming call is from a customer is identified by obtaining the incoming information, and the incoming call identification control unit that identifies the distinction between the individual predictive outgoing calls and the corresponding customer outgoing information is selected based on these identifications. and a customer calling information read control unit for reading Te, empty the incoming The operator, and the incoming call connected to the operator is outbound to the idle operator.
Do business or inbound business
Or call before starting the call and call from the customer
A composite call center operation device characterized in that it provides information about a customer necessary for outbound business by using communication information . 4. A computer-readable recording medium in which a computer program for realizing the customer-originated information storage control unit, the incoming-call identification control unit, and the customer-originated information read-out control unit according to claim 3 is recorded.