The technology disclosed herein enables management of a call on-hold based on a user's activity on their endpoint during the hold period. In a particular embodiment, a method includes determining that a call has been placed on hold by a system other than a first endpoint on the call. The first endpoint is operated by a user. The method further includes receiving on-hold information from the first endpoint. The on-hold information indicates an activity of the user on the first endpoint while waiting on hold. The method also includes managing the call while on-hold based on the activity.

A communication session with a communication endpoint is established. The communication session is placed on hold. For example, the communication session is placed on hold by being sent to a contact center queue. In response to placing the communication session on hold, a first message is sent to the communication endpoint that indicates the communication session has been placed on hold. A second message is received from the communication endpoint that indicates that a user of the communication endpoint would like to play personal media while the communication session is on hold. The communication session is later taken off hold. In response to determining that the communication session is taken off hold, a third message is sent to the communication endpoint to stop playing the personalized media. This process allows the user to play personalized media while being placed on hold.

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for an automated calling system are disclosed. In one aspect, a method includes the actions of receiving audio data of an utterance spoken by a user who is having a telephone conversation with a bot. The actions further include determining a context of the telephone conversation. The actions further include determining a user intent of a first previous portion of the telephone conversation spoken by the user and a bot intent of a second previous portion of the telephone conversation outputted by a speech synthesizer of the bot. The actions further include, based on the audio data of the utterance, the context of the telephone conversation, the user intent, and the bot intent, generating synthesized speech of a reply by the bot to the utterance. The actions further include, providing, for output, the synthesized speech.

The system allows a consumer to shortcut through a call queue to reach a human agent faster. For phone or voice-based calls that require a consumer wait on hold, the system can give that consumer an accurate estimate of the wait time and allow them to skip all or some of it. It does this by using automated processes to proactively dial and wait in those call queues, measuring their time in queue. A new consumer making an incoming call can then join the call queue occupied by of those automated processes, shortcutting the consumer past all or some of the wait time.

Automated monitoring of a voice communication session, when the session is in an on hold status, to determine when the session is no longer in the on hold status. When it is determined that the session is no longer in the on hold status, user interface output is rendered that is perceptible to a calling user that initiated the session, and that indicates that the on hold status of the session has ceased. In some implementations, an audio stream of the session can be monitored to determine, based on processing of the audio stream, a candidate end of the on hold status. In response, a response solicitation signal is injected into an outgoing portion of the audio. The audio stream can be further monitored for a response (if any) to the response solicitation signal. The response (if any) can be processed to determine whether the end of the on hold status is an actual end of the on hold status.

The present disclosure relates to a method of a digital assistant device (305) of managing a voice call established between a calling party (300) and a recipient (303), the voice call having been queued to await a response by a human representative (303a) of the recipient (303) of the voice call, and a digital assistant device (305) performing the method. In a first aspect, a method of a digital assistant device (305) of managing a voice call established between a calling party (300) and a recipient (303), the voice call having been queued to await a response by a human representative (303a) of the recipient (303) of the voice call, is provided. The method comprises detecting (S101), from a voice indication of the voice call, information indicating a point in time when the human representative (303a) of the recipient (303) is expected to be able to provide a response to the queued voice call, and setting (S102) the calling party (300) in contact with the recipient (303) at the determined point in time.

A system or a method detects an electronic communication between a first communication device and a second communication device. An audible communication holding routine associated with the second communication device is determined and the electronic communication is monitored to automatically determine whether the electronic communication is put on hold by the second communication device based, at least in part, on detecting that the audible communication holding routine is included in the electronic communication. When it is determined that the electronic communication is put on hold, presentation of one or more communication holding options to the first communication device is caused.

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for an automated calling system are disclosed. In one aspect, a method includes the actions of receiving audio data of an utterance spoken by a user who is having a telephone conversation with a bot. The actions further include determining a context of the telephone conversation. The actions further include determining a user intent of a first previous portion of the telephone conversation spoken by the user and a bot intent of a second previous portion of the telephone conversation outputted by a speech synthesizer of the bot. The actions further include, based on the audio data of the utterance, the context of the telephone conversation, the user intent, and the bot intent, generating synthesized speech of a reply by the bot to the utterance. The actions further include, providing, for output, the synthesized speech.

A virtual queuing system includes a server connected to a call center. The call center includes an automatic call distributor and a firewall. The server maintains virtual queues. User interfaces enqueu a call by a user of the call center to the virtual queues via the server. An application programming interface interfaces the user interfaces to the server. A virtual queuing connector module connects the automatic call distributor of the call center to the application programming interface across the firewall of the call center via requests or pulls initiated by the virtual queuing connector module. The virtual queuing connector module and the automatic call distributor are operated inside the firewall. The server, the application programming interface, and the user interfaces are operated outside the firewall. When a call is up, the call is connected as a prioritized call, assigned to a reserved IVR channel, and put through first.

The present invention provides a method, system, and computer program product of managing telephone interactions of a user and an agent. In an embodiment, the present invention includes determining when a user telecommunications device is no longer in an on-hold state based on electronic signals transmitted from an agent telecommunications device, in response to the determining, receiving speech of an agent from the agent telecommunications device, in response to the receiving, transmitting an alert message to the user telecommunications device, in response to the receiving, monitoring for at least one indication that the user is about to speak with the agent, in response to the monitoring not resulting in the at least one indication, transmitting at least one utterance corresponding to the user to the agent telecommunications device, and in response to the monitoring resulting in the at least one indication, conducting a smooth transition to the user.