Online dynamic solution retrieval based on automatic keyword selection during customer dialogue

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016358242-A1
Application number	US-201514733600-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Jun 8, 2015
Priority date	Jun 8, 2015
Publication date	Dec 8, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

A system and method provide assistance to an agent in responding to a customer query. A dialogue including communications between a customer and an agent is displayed to an agent on a display device. During the dialogue, keywords are extracted from at least one of the customer's text communications. This includes identifying keywords that are found in a set of terms extracted from a knowledge base. A search query is generated, based on the extracted keywords. Results of the search query are retrieved from at least one of the knowledge base and an external website. The results are displayed on the display device contemporaneously with at least a portion of the text communications, allowing the agent to quickly copy and paste text from one of the results into his response without having to leave the window in which the communications are displayed.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A method for assisting an agent comprising:
during a dialogue comprising communications between a customer and an agent which are displayed to an agent on a display device, the communications including customer text communications generated by the customer and agent text communications generated by the agent, extracting keywords from at least one of the customer text communications, the extraction comprising identifying keywords in the customer text communication that are found in a set of terms extracted from a knowledge base; generating a search query based on the keywords extracted from the at least one customer communication; retrieving results of the search query from at least one of the knowledge base and an external website; and providing for at least one of the results of the search query to be displayed on the display device contemporaneously with at least a portion of the text communications, wherein at least one of the extracting keywords, generating a search query and providing for the display of the result is performed with a computer processor.

2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the method further comprises providing for the agent to copy and paste text from the displayed result into a text communication from the agent to the customer.

3 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the retrieving results of the search query comprises submitting the search query to the knowledge base and to the external website.

4 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the knowledge base is structured as a set of problems with a device or service, each problem being linked to a set of one or more solutions to the problem.

5 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the method further comprises ranking the retrieved results, the ranking including applying a higher weighting to results that are retrieved from the knowledge base than to results that are retrieved from the external website.

6 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising updating the search query when keywords extracted from a later of the customer text communications differ from keywords extracted from at least one earlier one of the customer text communications.

7 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the method comprises extracting keywords each time a new customer text communication is received and, if the keywords are different, updating the search query based on the keywords extracted from the at least one customer communication.

8 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the method further includes determining whether a search status is active and, only if the search status is active, providing for results of an updated search query to be displayed on the display device.

9 . The method of claim 8 wherein the search status is activatable by the agent.

10 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising providing for the agent to modify the identified keywords on which the search query is based.

11 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the providing for at least one of the results of the search query to be displayed on the display device contemporaneously with at least a portion of the text communications comprises generating a graphical user interface in which the text communications are displayed in a first region of a window and the at least one result is displayed in a second region of the same window.

12 . The method of claim 1 , wherein each of the terms in the set of terms extracted from the knowledge base is associated with a salience.

13 . The method of claim 12 , wherein the salience of each term is based on a measure of occurrence of each term in the knowledge base.

14 . The method of claim 12 , wherein the identifying of the keywords in the text communication comprising identifying a set of keywords corresponding to terms having a highest salience.

15 . The method of claim 12 , wherein the salience of the terms corresponding to the extracted keywords is used in at least one of the generating of the search query and the ranking of the results.

16 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the extracting keywords further includes extracting keywords from at least one of the agent's text communications in the dialogue.

17 . A computer program product comprising a non-transitory storage medium storing instructions, which when executed by a computer, perform the method of claim 1 .

18 . A system comprising memory which stores instructions for performing the method of claim 1 and a processor in communication with the memory for executing the instructions.

19 . A system for assisting an agent comprising:
memory which stores a set of terms extracted from a knowledge base; a keyword identification component which, during a textual dialogue comprising text communications between a customer and an agent which are displayed to an agent on an associated display device, extracts keywords from at least one of the customer text communications, the extraction comprising identifying keywords in the text communication that are found in the set of terms extracted from the knowledge base; a meta-search engine for generating a search query based on the keywords extracted from the at least one customer communication and for retrieving results of the search query from at least one of the knowledge base and an external website; a graphical user interface generation component which generates a graphical user interface for display on the display device, the graphical user interface displaying one of the results of the search query while displaying at least a portion of the text communications; and a processor for implementing the keyword identification component, meta-search engine, and graphical user interface generation component.

20 . The system of claim 17 , further comprising a results ranking component which ranks the retrieved results based on whether the results were retrieved from the knowledge base or from the external webpage.

21 . A method for assisting an agent to respond to a customer's query, comprising:
in a first region of a graphical user interface, displaying communications between the customer and the agent, the communications including customer text communications generated by the customer interspersed with agent text communications generated by the agent; extracting keywords from the customer text communications, the extraction comprising identifying keywords in the customer text communication that are found in a set of terms extracted from a knowledge base; querying the knowledge base and an external website based on the keywords extracted from the at least one customer communication; in a second region of the graphical user interface, displaying retrieved results of the search query, whereby the agent is able to read one of the customer's communications and generate a communication in response thereto using text of one of the results, wherein at least one of the displaying communications, extracting keywords, querying the knowledge base and the external website, and displaying retrieved results is performed with a computer processor.

22 . The method of claim 19 , further comprising ranking the retrieved results based on, for each result, at least one of:
whether the result is present in the knowledge base; and a computed salience of the keywords that retrieved the result.

Assignees

• Xerox Corp

Inventors

• Lagos Nikolaos
• Aït-Mokhtar Salah

Classifications

• G06F16/248

  Presentation of query results · CPC title

• G06F16/9535

  Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation · CPC title

• G06Q30/02

  Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising · CPC title

• G06Q30/0625 Primary

  by formulating product or service queries, e.g. using keywords or predefined options · CPC title

• G06F16/243 Primary

  Natural language query formulation · CPC title