US Patent 7421475 Method and system for e-mail allocation

Customer e-mail service requests are allocated to plural working groups for response through virtual queues that store unanswered e-mail and meter the unanswered e-mail to working queues that make the e-mails available to associated working groups. The working queues are replenished from the virtual queues to maintain above a minimum and up to a maximum number of e-mails. The virtual queues are manipulated to control e-mail flow rates by allocating e-mails to virtual queues based on desired factors and by moving e-mail between virtual queues as needed to manage working groups. The virtual queues allow tracking of e-mail response metrics and monitoring of working group performance and timeliness.