System and method for automated customer feedback

• US 7,877,265 B2
• Filed: 05/13/2003
• Issued: 01/25/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 05/13/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: ServiceNow Incorporated
• Original Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Pasquale, Theodore B., Bushey, Robert R., Knott, Benjamin A.
• Primary Examiner(s): Brooks, Matthew L
• Application Number:
  US10/436,743
• Publication Number:
  US 20040230438A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,814 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 705/1.1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/016 After-sales
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0203 Market surveys; Market polls
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0217 involving input on products or services in exchange for incentives or rewards
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0281 Customer communication at a business location, e.g. providing product or service information, consulting
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0282 Rating or review of business operators or products
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/22 Arrangements for supervision, monitoring or testing

Abstract

A system and method for automated customer feedback allows for automatically collecting and analyzing customer feedback data regarding customer satisfaction and customer task completion with respect to self-service applications and live agents. When contacting a customer service center, customers provide one or more customer tasks. The customers are routed within the customer service center based on the customer task and/or one or more customer characteristics. While interacting with the customer service center, the customers are automatically asked one or more specific survey questions relating to the customers'"'"' interaction with the customer service center and the customers'"'"' satisfaction levels. The customers provide one or more survey responses to the survey questions. The survey responses are recorded and analyzed in order to modify and update the customer service center and the survey questions in order to increase customer satisfaction and increase customer task completion.

Claims

1. A method of improving caller satisfaction comprising:

receiving an inbound inquiry from a caller;

receiving an indication of a task from the caller;

routing the inbound inquiry based on the task indicated by the caller to an automated self-service application including at least one user interface menu presented to the caller;

after an indication that the caller completed the indicated task and before terminating the inbound inquiry, automatically asking the caller a set of survey questions, the survey questions concerning interaction of the caller with the self-service application;

receiving from the caller one or more survey responses to the survey questions; and

based on the survey responses, altering the user interface menu.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising storing the received survey responses in a database.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising obtaining caller identification information and using the caller identification information to retrieve caller characteristics.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the caller characteristics include account activity information.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein the caller characteristics include caller status information indicative of a premium status of the caller.

6. The method of claim 3, wherein routing the call comprises routing the call based at least in part on the caller characteristics.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising using automated number identification to determine the identity of the caller and using the identity to retrieve caller characteristics.

8. A method of improving caller satisfaction comprising:

receiving an inbound inquiry from a caller;

receiving an indication of a task from the caller;

routing the inbound inquiry based on the task indicated by the caller to an automated self-service application including at least one user interface menu presented to the caller;

responsive to an indication that the caller completed the indicated task and before terminating the inbound inquiry, automatically asking the caller a set of survey questions, the survey questions concerning interaction of the caller with the self-service application;

receiving from the caller one or more survey responses to the survey questions;

based at least in part on the survey responses, updating the set of survey questions.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising storing the received survey responses in a database.

10. The method of claim 8, further comprising obtaining caller identification information and using the caller identification information to retrieve caller characteristics.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the caller characteristics include account activity information.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the caller characteristics include caller status information indicative of a premium status of the caller.

13. The method of claim 10, wherein routing the call comprises routing the based at least in part on the caller characteristics.

14. The method of claim 8, further comprising using automated number identification to determine the identity of the caller and using the identity to retrieve caller characteristics.

15. A method of improving caller satisfaction comprising:

receiving an inbound inquiry from a caller;

receiving an indication of a task from the caller;

routing the inbound inquiry based on the task indicated by the caller to an automated self-service application including a set of user interface menus presented to the caller;

monitoring interaction of the caller with the user interface menus to determine whether the caller completes the indicated task;

upon determining completion of the identified task and before terminating the inbound inquiry, automatically asking the caller a set of survey questions, the survey questions concerning interaction of the caller with the self-service application;

storing responses to the survey in a database; and

based at least in part on the responses to the survey, modifying the self-service application.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein monitoring interaction comprises monitoring the caller'"'"'s selections and responses made with a user interface menu.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein monitoring interaction to determine whether the caller completes the indicated task comprises comparing the caller task with the caller'"'"'s progression within the self-service application to recognize a particular menu associated with completion of the indicated caller task.

18. The method of claim 17, further comprising storing in a database data indicating that the task was completed.

19. The method of claim 15, further comprising terminating communication with the caller prior to analyzing the survey responses.

20. The method of claim 15, wherein routing the inbound inquiry consists of routing to a human agent or to a self service application.