Method for making optimal decisions in automated customer care

• US 20080046386A1
• Filed: 07/02/2007
• Published: 02/21/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 07/03/2006
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Synchronoss Technologies Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Synchronoss Technologies Incorporated
• Inventors: Pieraccinii, Roberto, Gorelov, Zor
• Application Number:
  US11/824,657
• Publication Number:
  US 20080046386A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/402
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising

Abstract

This invention relates to a method for optimizing the cost of interaction with a caller utilizing an automated interactive voice response system. A plurality of interactions between a caller and an automated interactive voice response system are analyzed. Discrete attributes of the interactions between the callers and the automated interactive voice response system are analyzed, and a set of logical statements relative to the discrete attributes is formulated. The set of logical statements is applied to the interaction with the caller, from which an action is determined.

Claims

1. A method for optimizing the cost of an interaction with a caller utilizing an automated interactive voice response system comprising:

analyzing a plurality of interactions between historical callers and said automated interactive voice response system;

recording discrete attributes of said interactions between said historical callers and said automated interactive voice response system;

formulating a set of logical statements relative to said discrete attributes;

applying said set of logical statements to said interaction with a caller; and

executing an action based on the application of said logical statements to said interaction with said caller.

2. A method for optimizing the cost of interaction with a caller utilizing an automated interactive voice response system according to claim 1 wherein said plurality of interactions between historical callers and said automated interactive voice response system comprises historical call interaction data.

3. A method for optimizing the cost of interaction with a caller utilizing an automated interactive voice response system according to claim 2 wherein said historical interaction data is recorded as a sequence of feature vectors in the form of T_k=(F_k,1 F_k,2, . . . F_k,R_k,O_k) wherein, T_k is a training example, F_k,j is a feature vector recorded for each caller interaction turn j of each call k in the set of calls that belong to the historic data, R_k is the actual number of turns for that call and O_k is the actual outcome of the call.

4. A method for optimizing the cost of interaction with a caller utilizing an automated interactive voice response system according to claim 1 wherein said discrete attributes are recorded as a vector in the form of F=(F1, F2, F3, . . . , FN) wherein the variables of vector F are individual attributes.

5. A method for optimizing the cost of interaction with a caller utilizing an automated interactive voice response system according to claim 4 wherein said individual attributes are recorded as a vector in the form of F=(t, N_T, N_NM, N_TO, T_D, dw, dy, Cac . . . ), wherein t is time elapsed from the beginning of the call, N_T is the ordinal number of the current caller turn, N_NM is the number of speech recognition no-matches experienced by the caller since the beginning of the interaction, N_TO is the number of time-outs experienced by the system since the beginning of the interaction, T_D is the time of day, dw is the day of the week, dy is the day of the year, and Cac is the area code of the caller.

6. A method for optimizing the cost of interaction with a caller utilizing an automated interactive voice response system according to claim 1 wherein the action that is executed is determined in accordance with an analytical function of the form d=D(P,F) where d is the index or scale of values of one of a finite set of actions to be taken at a given point during the interaction. F is a vector of features and P is a vector of parameters related to said features or combinations of said features.

7. A method for optimizing the cost of interaction with a caller utilizing an automated interactive voice response system according to claim 6 wherein said set of logical statements is formulated as a number Q of parameters described by said vector P, in the form of P=(p₁, p₂, p₃ . . . , p_Q).

8. A method for optimizing the cost of interaction with a caller utilizing an automated interactive voice response system according to claim 6 wherein d=(1, 2, . . . , M) is the index of one of a finite set of M actions (a₁, a₂, . . . , a_m) to be taken at a given point during said interaction.

9. A method for optimizing the cost of interaction with a caller utilizing an automated interactive voice response system according to claim 1 wherein said plurality of interactions between a caller and said automated interactive voice response system, is represented as a set T of L training examples of the form T=(T₁, T₂, . . . T_L).

10. A method for optimizing the cost of a communication with a caller utilizing an automated interactive voice response system according to claim 1 wherein said set of logical statements relative to said discrete attributes is formulated by developing a set of rules controlling said interaction with a caller utilizing said automated interactive voice response system for at least one of said discrete attributes.

11. A method for optimizing the cost of interaction with a caller utilizing an automated interactive voice response system according to claim 1 wherein said set of logical statements is applied to an interaction with said caller, by correlating at least one of said set of logical statement to said interaction to cause a predetermined outcome.

12. A method for optimizing the cost of interaction with a caller utilizing an automated interactive voice response system according to claim 11 wherein said predetermined outcome includes continuing the call with an automated IVR.

13. A method for optimizing the cost of interaction with a caller utilizing an automated interactive voice response system according to claim 11 wherein said predetermined outcome includes transferring a call to a live operator.

14. A method for optimizing the cost of an interaction with a caller utilizing an automated interactive voice response system according to claim 1, wherein said method is computer implemented.