System for and method of automated quality monitoring

• US 7,584,101 B2
• Filed: 08/23/2004
• Issued: 09/01/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 08/22/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: inContact Incorporated (Nice Ltd)
• Original Assignee: SER Solutions Incorporated (Atos SE)
• Inventors: Mark, Lawrence, Giordano, Geoffrey J., Scarano, Robert, Lambert, Kori
• Primary Examiner(s): ABEBE, DANIEL DEMELASH
• Application Number:
  US10/923,038
• Publication Number:
  US 20050114133A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,835 Days
• Field of Search: 704/270, 704/500, 704/251, 704/246, 379/265.07, 379/88.13, 707/5, 707/6
• 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 or more 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; and

a rules processor responsive to template imformation for providing enhanced confidence values based on a combination of respective ones of said search phrase confidence values and said template information.

2. A system according to claim 1 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.

3. A system according to claim 1 wherein the 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 based on a combination of a probability of the utterance confidence values returned from the speech engine, and a probability of a distance between adjacent candidate utterances.

4. A system according to claim 3 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 a probability of the candidate utterance being at the correct offset from a related key state.

5. A system according to claim 3 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.

6. A method of monitoring a spoken language message comprising:

capturing the spoken language message using an interface;

parsing, using a search processor, 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, using a speech engine, the spoken language message for said target search phases;

providing, using the speech processor, 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;

analyzing, using the speech processor, said search results to determine whether a condition specified by said search expression is satisfied; and

providing, using a rules processor responsive to template information, an enhanced confidence value based on a combination of respective ones of said utterance confidence values and said template information.

7. A method according to claim 6 wherein said template information includes context information, and said providing enhanced confidence value includes indicating conformity of said candidate utterances to relationship expectations defined by said template information to provide said enhanced confidence value.

8. A method according to claim 6 further including determining, using the speech processor, 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 based on a combination of a probability of the utterance confidence values returned from the speech engine, and a probability of a distance between adjacent candidate utterances.

9. A method according to claim 8 further comprising calculating, using the speech processor, 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 a probability of the candidate utterance being at the correct offset from a related key state.

10. A method according to claim 9 wherein said calculating includes determining, using the speech processor, 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.