Automated methods and systems for assisting customers in making purchases utilizing verbal communication

• US 20040267628A1
• Filed: 06/30/2003
• Published: 12/30/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 06/30/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Bellsouth Intellectual Property Corporation (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Stillman, Scott
• Granted Patent: US 7,454,368 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/26.35
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/06 Buying, selling or leasing transactions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 Electronic shopping [e-shopping]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0609 Buyer or seller confidence or verification
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0613 Third-party assisted
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0641 Shopping interfaces

Abstract

Methods and systems assist customers in making purchases for goods and/or services by automating the purchase process while providing the customer the ability to speak the purchasing instructions. The customer may place a voice call into an automated service and verbally request that a purchase of a general nature be made. The verbal request is converted into instruction data. A customer profile is referenced to determine information such as price and brand requirements that govern purchases to be made on behalf of the customer, and a purchase is initiated according to the instruction data and the customer profile. The automated service may, in addition or in the alternative, perform purchase option searches in accordance with the customer profile. The results of the purchase option search are provided to the customer so that the customer may then provide a verbal instruction that a purchase should be made.

Claims

1. A method of assisting a customer in making purchases, comprising:

receiving a voiced call from the customer at an automated voice services node;

receiving voice instructions from the customer through the received voiced call at the voice services node, the voice instructions pertaining to the purchase to be made for the customer;

interpreting the voice instructions to generate instruction data;

locating a stored customer profile, the customer profile providing governing data for purchases for the customer; and

initiating an automated purchase over a communications network in accordance with the instruction data and customer profile.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

generating a notification of the status of the automated purchase; and

delivering the notification to the customer.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the governing data of the customer profile comprises permissible goods and services brands.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the governing data of the customer profile comprises credit account information.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the governing data of the customer profile comprises price ranges for various categories of items to be purchased.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the governing data of the customer profile comprises permissible vendors.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein locating the stored customer profile comprises receiving caller identifier data through the voiced call from the customer and looking up the customer profile according to the caller identifier.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein locating the stored customer profile comprises receiving a user name and password from the customer at the voice services node, and looking up the customer profile according to the user name and password.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the notification is an email to an email address of the customer contained in the customer profile.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the notification is a return voiced call to the telephone of the customer at a telephone number contained in the customer profile, wherein the return voiced call provides text to speech at the voice services node to speak the notification to the customer.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

providing data to the customer profile database by receiving information from the computer of the customer, wherein the information is entered by the customer on the computer.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein providing data to the customer profile further comprises the customer visiting a web site and entering data within a template of the web site.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

providing data to the customer profile database by receiving a voiced call from the customer to the voice services node, receiving voice information from the customer, and converting the voice information to data within the customer profile database.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein locating a stored customer profile and initiating the automated purchase are performed by an application server in conjunction with a customer agent server, wherein the customer agent server utilizes the customer profile data to generate purchase requests upon activation from the application server, and wherein the application server is in communication with the voice services node to receive an indication that the voiced call for a customer purchase has been received, retrieve the profile data for the customer, and provide the customer profile data and the instruction data to the customer agent server.

15. A system for assisting a customer in making purchases, comprising:

a voice services node that receives voiced calls from customers over and converts voice instructions from the customers to instruction data;

a customer profile database containing governing data for purchases for the customers, wherein the customer profile database groups governing data for each customer;

a computer-implemented customer agent that receives the instruction data generated by the voice services node and the governing data from the customer profile database to initiate the automated purchase over a communications network for the customer based on the instruction data and the governing data for the customer; and

a network-based computer-implemented application that receives an indication from the voice services node that the customer has provided instructions for a purchase and that activates the customer agent for the customer who placed the voiced call.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the voice services node receives voiced calls over a public switched telephone network and wherein the network-based computer-implemented application provides VoiceXML information to the voice services node, and the voice services node interprets the VoiceXML information to provide speech to the customer over the voiced call to assist the user in providing the voice instructions.

17. The system of claim 15, further comprising a first server implementing the customer agent and a second server implementing the application.

18. The system of claim 15, wherein the application obtains the governing data from the profile database, obtains the instruction data from the voice services node, and provides the governing data and instruction data to the customer agent when activating the customer agent for the customer.

19. The system of claim 15, wherein the customer agent generates a notification of status for the customer.

20. The system of claim 15, wherein the notification of status is delivered as an email to the computer of the customer from the customer agent over a network connection.

21. A method of assisting a customer in making purchases, comprising:

locating a stored customer profile, the customer profile providing governing data for purchases for the customer;

initiating an automated search of purchase options over a communications network in accordance with the customer profile to gather purchase option data;

generating and delivering an automated notification of the purchase option data to the customer;

receiving voice instructions from the customer through a voiced call at a voice services node, the voice instructions pertaining to a purchase to be made for the customer from the purchase options;

interpreting the voice instructions to generate instruction data; and

initiating an automated purchase in accordance with the instruction data.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein the voice services node receives the voice instructions through a voiced call, the method further comprising receiving the voiced call from the customer at the voice services node over a public switched telephone network.

23. The method of claim 21, further comprising placing the voiced call from the voice services node to the customer.

24. The method of claim 23, wherein the automated notification is delivered by the voice services node to the customer over the voiced call.