Document performance based knowledge content management recommender system

• US 10,152,717 B1
• Filed: 05/24/2013
• Issued: 12/11/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 05/24/2013
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: T-Mobile Innovations LLC (Deutsche Telekom AG)
• Original Assignee: Sprint Communications Company LP (Deutsche Telekom AG)
• Inventors: Aldrich, Dan, Henderson, Mathew, Smith, Judd, Studer, Ryan, Williams, Lance, Worley, Chris
• Primary Examiner(s): Fleischer, Mark A
• Application Number:
  US13/902,426
• Time in Patent Office: 2,027 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/016 After-sales

Abstract

Customer care representatives in the telecommunications industry and other service-based industries receive problem reports from customers associated with serviceIDs. These customer care representatives have access to at least one data store that contains pieces of content that may aid the customer care representative in assisting the customer. The pieces of content may be related to devices supported by the telecommunications service provider and services provided by or supported by the provider. The ability of the customer care representatives to assist customer is enhanced by returning a prioritized list of pieces of content where the priority is based on a content quality metric associated with some or all of the pieces of content. The content quality metric may be based on a plurality of factors that may each be normalized and weighted and, in some cases, combined, to determine a content quality metric that may be updated dynamically, periodically, or manually.

Claims

1. A method of providing content to a customer care representative, comprising:

receiving, by an application, during a first interaction between a user and the customer care representative, a report associated with at least one of a first service problem or a first device problem;

receiving, by the application, a plurality of key words from the customer care representative, wherein at least some key words of the plurality of key words are associated with the report;

retrieving, by the application, a plurality of pieces of content associated with the at least some key words, the plurality of pieces of content including customer support documentation at least partially related to the first service problem or the first device problem;

sending, by the application, at least some pieces of content of the plurality of pieces of content to a graphical user interface of a device associated with the customer care representative, the at least some pieces of content of the plurality of pieces of content displayed in a first sorted list;

wherein each piece of the at least some pieces of content is associated with a content quality metric indicating a quality of each respective piece of the at least some pieces of content with respect to the first service problem or the first device problem in resolving the first service problem or the first device problem,

wherein the at least some of the pieces of content are sorted in the first sorted list by the content quality metric associated with each piece of content;

wherein the content quality metric is determined based on a plurality of call metrics, wherein each call metric of the plurality of call metrics is associated with each piece of content; and

wherein the plurality of call metrics comprises;

an interaction time metric indicating an average time of a plurality of interactions between a plurality of customer care representatives and a plurality of customers associated with each piece of content;

a customer care representative sentiment metric indicating an average value of a rating provided by each customer care representative of a plurality of customer care representatives for each piece of content;

a next call metric indicating an additional interaction with the user;

a content usage metric indicating an amount of time that a respective piece of the at least some pieces of content is accessed in addressing the first service problem or the first device problem; and

a content age metric indicating an age of a respective piece of the at least some pieces of content;

updating, by the application, at least one call metric of the plurality of call metrics for at least one piece of content from the first sorted list in response to the at least one piece of content being accessed from the first sorted list; and

sending, by the application, the at least some pieces of content of the plurality of pieces of content to the graphical user interface of the device associated with the customer care representative, the at least some pieces of content of the plurality of pieces of content displayed in a second sorted list varied from the first sorted list based on the updated at least one call metric of the plurality of call metrics.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the content quality metric associated with each piece of content of the at least some pieces of content is determined based on weighting at least some of the metrics of the plurality of call metrics.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising normalizing, prior to weighting, each call metric of the plurality of call metrics.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising determining, prior to normalizing, at least one outlier call metric and removing, in response to the determination, the at least one outlier call metric prior to normalizing each call metric.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the next call metric is based on a percentage of how many customers of a plurality of customers associated with each piece of content experienced at least one of another service problem or device problem.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the next call metric further is based on a percentage of how many customers of a plurality of customers associated with each piece of content experienced at least one of another service problem or device problem within seven days of the first service problem or the first device problem.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the content usage metric is based on the number of times the content has been used by a plurality of customer care representatives, and wherein the content age metric comprises at least one of a length of time since the creation of each piece of content or a length of time since the last update to each piece of content.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the next call metric is based on a binary determination as to whether the serviceID associated with the first service problem or the first device problem is also associated with at least one of a second service problem or a second device problem received by the application within seven days of the first service problem or the first device problem.

9. A method of providing reliable content to a customer care representative, comprising:

storing, on a server, a plurality of pieces of content, wherein each piece of content of the plurality of pieces of content is associated with at least one topic of a plurality of topics;

sending, by a server, in response to a request for content, at least some pieces of content of the plurality of pieces of content, wherein the request for content is associated with an interaction between the customer care representative and a customer;

determining, by the server, a content quality metric indicating a quality of each respective piece of content and associated with each piece of content, wherein the content quality metric comprises a plurality of call metrics that comprise;

an interaction time metric indicating an average time of a plurality of interactions between a plurality of customer care representatives and a plurality of customers associated with each piece of content;

a customer care representative sentiment metric indicating an average value of a rating provided by each customer care representative of a plurality of customer care representatives for each piece of content;

a next call metric indicating an additional interaction with the user relating to a same problem;

a content usage metric indicating an amount of time that a respective piece of the plurality of pieces of content is accessed in addressing a first problem; and

a content age metric indicating an age of a respective piece of content of the plurality of pieces of content;

sorting, based on the content quality metric, the at least some of the pieces of content into a prioritized order, wherein the content quality metric is based on at least some of the plurality of call metrics associated with each piece of content, and wherein the plurality of call metrics comprise an average interaction time metric, a next call metric, a customer care representative sentiment metric, a content use metric, and a content age metric;

presenting the sorted pieces of content in the prioritized order;

determining, by the server, an updated content quality metric associated with each piece of content, wherein the updated content quality metric comprises an updated plurality of call metrics;

sorting, based on the updated content quality metric, the at least some of the pieces of content into an updated prioritized order, wherein the updated content quality metric is based on at least some of the updated plurality of call metrics associated with each piece of content, and wherein the updated plurality of call metrics comprise an updated average interaction time metric, an updated next call metric, an updated customer care representative sentiment metric, an updated content use metric, and an updated content age metric; and

presenting the sorted pieces of content in the updated prioritized order.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the content quality metric associated with each piece of content of the at least some pieces of content is updated one of dynamically, periodically, and manually to form the updated content quality metric.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein the plurality of call metrics further comprises a customer care representative experience metric.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein each call metric is normalized and weighted prior to determining the content quality metric.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising combining the customer care representative sentiment metric and the content use metric to form a combined metric.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the combined metric is weighted 25%.

15. The method of claim 9, wherein each topic of the plurality of topics is associated with at least one of a telecommunications service or a telecommunications device.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the average interaction time metric is weighted 20%, and the next call metric is weighted 40%.

17. A system for providing content to a customer care representative, comprising:

a server and a data store coupled to a network, the data store comprising a plurality of pieces of content; and

an application on the server, wherein the application;

receives a plurality of key words from a search engine associated with at least one of a first service problem or a first device problem associated with a serviceID;

sends at least some pieces of content of the plurality of pieces of content to a graphical user interface as a prioritized list, wherein the prioritized list is based on a content quality metric associated with the at least some pieces of content, wherein the content quality metric comprises at least two of;

an average interaction time metric comprising an average of a plurality of interaction times associated with each piece of content;

a customer care representative sentiment metric comprising one of an alpha, a numeric, or an alphanumeric code;

a content usage metric comprising a number of times the content has been used during a plurality of interactions between a plurality of customer care representatives and a plurality of customers, wherein each customer of the plurality of customers is associated with at least one serviceID;

a content age metric comprising at least one of a length of time since the creation of each piece of content and a length of time since the last update to each piece of content;

determines if the serviceID associated with the first service problem or the first device problem is also associated with at least one of a second service problem or a second device problem; and

updates the prioritized list based on a change to the content quality metric to increase priority of at least one piece of content of the plurality of pieces of content when the change to the content quality metric is an increase in content quality and to decrease priority of at least one piece of content of the plurality of pieces of content when the change to the content quality metric is a decrease in content quality.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the second service problem or a second device problem is received within seven days of the first service problem or the first device problem.

19. The system of claim 17, further comprising a customer care representative workstation, wherein the prioritized list is sent to a graphical user interface of the customer care workstation.