System for and method of automated quality monitoring

• US 20050114133A1
• Filed: 08/23/2004
• Published: 05/26/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 08/22/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: inContact Incorporated (Nice Ltd)
• Original Assignee: Siemens Enterprise Communications, Inc. (Atos SE)
• Inventors: Mark, Lawrence, Lambert, Kori, Giordano, Geoffrey J., Scarano, Robert
• Granted Patent: US 7,584,101 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/251
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/26 Speech to text systems G10L15/08 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99935 Query augmenting and refining, e.g. inexact access
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99936 Pattern matching access

Abstract

A system and method according to the present invention automates call monitoring activities to evaluate and directly improve agent-customer interactions. Rather than listening to an entire call or monitoring only a small fraction of all the calls made in the contact center, the system performs highly accurate, automated evaluations of all customer interactions. By automating the time-consuming aspect of monitoring calls, the system empowers contact center operators to address quality issues, more accurately measure, coach and reward agents, and identify business-critical trends.

Claims

1. A system for monitoring a spoken language message comprising:

an interface operational to capture the spoken language message;

a speech processor including a parser operational to implement a search expression syntax to decode a search expression into a number of (i) target search phrases and (ii) rules defining required relationships; and

.

a speech engine operational to search the spoken language message for one or more of said target search phrases and, in response, provides search results identifying a location of any candidate utterances matching said target search phrase together with confidence values indicating a certainty of each of the candidate utterances to corresponding ones of said target search phrases; and

said speech processor responsive to said search expression for identifying one of said target search phrases to said speech engine and analyzing said search results to determine whether a condition specified by said search expression is satisfied.

2. A system according to claim 1 wherein said parser includes logic for decoding a plurality of symbols into corresponding operators defining said relationships specified by said rules.

3. A system according to claim 1 wherein said parser recognizes a plurality of operators defining said rules, said operators selected from the set consisting of logical AND, logical OR, unitary negation, permutations, proximity and confidence.

4. A system according to claim 1 wherein a rules processor is further responsive to template information for providing enhanced confidence values based on a combination of respective ones of said search phrase confidence values and said template information

5. A system according to claim 4 wherein said template information includes context information, said rules processor indicating conformity of said candidate utterances to relationship expectations defined by said template information to provide said enhanced confidence values.

6. A system according to claim 1 wherein a rules processor is operational to determine a statistical distribution of time between adjacent ones of said candidate utterances and a statistical distribution of confidence scores, and determine an enhanced confidence value value based on a combination of the probability of the utterance confidence values returned from the speech engine, and a probability of the distance between adjacent candidate utterances.

7. A system according to claim 6 wherein said rules processor calculates a key state probability as P(K|xs,xo)=P(xs)*P(xo) where P(xs) is a probability of a confidence score and P(xo) is the probability of the candidate utterance being at the correct offset from a related key state.

8. A system according to claim 6 wherein said rules processor is operational to determine said probability of a confidence score S as P(xs|S)=g(xs) and said probability of an offset O being correct as P(xo|O)=g(xo) where g is a probability function.

9. A method of monitoring a spoken language message comprising the steps of:

capturing the spoken language message;

parsing a search expression to implement a search expression syntax and decode said search expression into a number of target search phrases and rules defining required relationships;

searching the spoken language message for said target search phrases;

providing search results including identifying a location of any candidate utterances matching the target search phrases together with confidence values indicating a certainty of each of the candidate utterances to corresponding ones of said target search phrases; and

analyzing said search results to determine whether a condition specified by said search expression is satisfied.

10. A method according to claim 9 wherein further comprising a step of decoding a plurality of symbols into corresponding operators defining relationships specified by said rules.

11. A method according to claim 9 wherein further comprising a step of recognizing a plurality of operators defining said rules, said operators selected from the set consisting of logical AND, logical OR, unitary negation, permutation, proximity and confidence.

12. A method according to claim 9 further comprising a step responsive to template information for providing an enhanced confidence values based on a combination of respective ones of said utterance confidence values and said template information

13. A method according to claim 12 wherein said template information includes context information, said step of providing enhanced confidence values including indicating conformity of said candidate utterances to relationship expectations defined by said template information to provide said enhanced confidence values.

14. A method according to claim 9 further including a step of determining a statistical distribution of time between adjacent ones of said candidate utterances and determining a statistical distribution of confidence scores, and determining an enhanced confidence value value based on a combination of the probability of the utterance confidence values returned from the speech engine, and a probability of the distance between adjacent candidate utterances.

15. A method according to claim 14 wherein further comprising a step of calculating a key state probability as P(K|xs,xo)=P(xs)*P(xo) where P(xs) is a probability of a confidence score and P(xo) is the probability of the candidate utterance being at the correct offset from a related key state.

16. A method according to claim 15 wherein said step of calculating includes a step of determining said probability of a confidence score S as P(xs|S)=g(xs) and said probability of an offset O being correct as P(xo|O)=g(xo) where g is a probability function.