Method and system for managing interactive communications campaigns

Abstract

A web-based solution through which business entities create and manage communications campaigns, such as campaigns that afford target recipients an opportunity to be connected to a third party call center. A web interface is provided to enable a business entity customer to create a set of one or more rules that, when triggered during the campaign, cause the solution to take certain control actions in real-time, based on campaign performance. Preferably, this campaign performance is measured indirectly, i.e. without requiring a direct connection to an on-premises call center ACD. The interface provides the business entity customer with a convenient and easy-to-use display that identifies any rule that has been (or may be getting ready to be) triggered, together with a then current status of the campaign. The system takes a control action (e.g., campaign suspension, adjusting an outbound call rate, or the like) when a customer-configurable rule is triggered.

1 . Apparatus, comprising:
 a set of machines that comprise a service provider infrastructure, each machine comprising a processor, and computer memory holding program instructions that are executed by the processor, the service provider infrastructure being shared by a plurality of business entities that create distinct interactive communications campaigns;   one or more web servers executing on the machines and through which first and second business entities each creates and manages an interactive communications campaign, each campaign including a set of one more rules that may be triggered during the campaign;   a telephony server executing on one of the machines to initiate outbound calls to recipients over a plurality of voice connections during the campaign for a respective one of the business entities, wherein a recipient of an outbound call initiated by the telephony server is afforded an option to connect, via a voice connection through the telephony server, to a third party contact center having an automatic call distributor (ACD); and   an application server executing on one of the machines (i) to monitor the voice connections through the telephony server as the campaign for a respective one of the business entities is executed to infer a content center performance metric, (ii) to evaluate the content center performance metric to determine whether a rule from the set of one or more rules has been triggered, (iii) to take a given action if the rule has been triggered, and (iv) to provide information identifying the rule, together with a status of the given campaign;   at least one of the web servers being further adapted to serve a web page to the respective business entity, the web page identifying the status of campaign as determined by the application server.   
     
     
         2 . The apparatus as described in  claim 1 , wherein the status is a display icon having at least first and second. 
     
     
         3 . The apparatus as described in  claim 2 , wherein, with respect to a given contact center performance metric, the first state indicates that a rule from the set of rules has been triggered, and the second state indicates that a rule has been triggered that has caused an adjustment to the campaign. 
     
     
         4 . The apparatus as described in  claim 1 , wherein the application sever updates the information identifying the rule and the status of a campaign.