System and method for customized voice response

• US 8,442,827 B2
• Filed: 06/18/2010
• Issued: 05/14/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 06/18/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hyundai Motor Company (Hyundai Motor Group), Kia Corp.
• Original Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Duffield, Nicholas
• Primary Examiner(s): Shah, Paras D
• Application Number:
  US12/818,821
• Publication Number:
  US 20110313767A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,061 Days
• Field of Search: 704/231, 704/236, 704/251, 704/254, 704/257, 704/9, 704/2, 704/275, 379/88.01
• US Class Current: 704/254
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/167 Audio in a user interface, e.g. using voice commands for navigating, audio feedback
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/00 Speech recognition G10L17/00 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/18 using natural language modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/187 Phonemic context, e.g. pronunciation rules, phonotactical constraints or phoneme n-grams
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/22 Procedures used during a speech recognition process, e.g. man-machine dialogue
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/30 Distributed recognition, e.g. in client-server systems, for mobile phones or network applications
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 17/14 Use of phonemic categorisation or speech recognition prior to speaker recognition or verification
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2203/2061 Language aspects
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2203/255 comprising a personalized user interface
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2250/58 including a multilanguage function
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/4936 Speech interaction details speech recognition per se G10L15/00

Abstract

Disclosed herein are systems, methods, and non-transitory computer-readable storage media for approximating an accent source. A system practicing the method collects data associated with customer specific services, generates country-specific or dialect-specific weights for each service in the customer specific services list, generates a summary weight based on an aggregation of the country-specific or dialect-specific weights, and sets an interactive voice response system language model based on the summary weight and the country-specific or dialect-specific weights. The interactive voice response system can also change the user interface based on the interactive voice response system language model. The interactive voice response system can tune a voice recognition algorithm based on the summary weight and the country-specific weights. The interactive voice response system can adjust phoneme matching in the language model based on a possibility that the speaker is using other languages.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

collecting a customer specific services list associated with a customer about to use an interactive voice response system;

for each service in the customer specific services list, generating country-specific weights;

generating a set of summary weights for a plurality of countries based on an aggregation of the country-specific weights;

selecting an interactive voice response system language model based on the set of summary weights; and

recognizing speech received from the customer via the interactive voice response system based on the interactive voice response system language model.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the interactive voice response system changes a user interface based on the interactive voice response language model.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the interactive voice response system selects language options for a splash screen based on the country-specific weights.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the interactive voice response system tunes a voice recognition algorithm based on the country-specific weights.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the interactive voice response system adjusts phoneme matching in the interactive voice response system language model based on a possibility that the customer is using other languages based on the country-specific weights and the set of summary weights.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the interactive voice response system further tracks, while recognizing speech from a customer, a number of times the customer repeats speech input.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein data associated with the customer specific services comprise one of a phone record, an internet service record, a television service record, a mobile device record, and location information.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the internet service record comprises one of a customer requested top level domain, a web page language encoding, a browsing history, and a viewed web page content.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein the television service record comprises one of a viewing history, a time of channel changes, a content of viewed channels, a digital video recorder recording history, scheduled shows for recording, and a viewing location.

10. A system comprising:

a processor; and

a computer-readable storage medium having instructions stored which, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to perform a method comprising;

collecting a customer specific services list;

for each service in the customer specific services list, generating country-specific weights;

generating a set of summary weights for a plurality of regional language variations based on an aggregation of the country-specific weights;

selecting a system language model based on the set of summary weights; and

recognizing speech received from the customer based on the system language model.

11. The system of claim 10, the computer-readable storage medium having additional instructions stored which result in the method further comprising changing a user interface based on the interactive voice response system language model.

12. The system of claim 10, the computer-readable storage medium having additional instructions stored which result in the method further comprising selecting language options for a splash screen based on the set of summary weights and the country-specific weights.

13. The system of claim 10, the computer-readable storage medium having additional instructions stored which result in the method further comprising tuning a voice recognition algorithm based on the set of summary weights and the country-specific weights.

14. The system of claim 10, the computer-readable storage medium having additional instructions stored which result in the method further comprising adjusting phoneme matching in the language model based on a possibility that the speaker is using other languages based on an adjusted summary weight and adjusted country-specific weights, wherein the adjusted summary weight and the adjusted country-specific weights are adjusted in real time based on user interactions with the interactive voice response system.

15. The system of claim 10, the computer-readable storage medium having additional instructions stored which result in the method further comprising tracking, while recognizing speech from a customer, a number of times the customer repeats speech input.

16. The system of claim 10, wherein data associated with the customer-specific services list comprises one of a phone record, an internet service record, a television service record, a mobile device record, and location information.

17. A computer-readable storage device having instructions stored which, when executed by a computing device, cause the computing device to perform a method comprising:

collecting a customer specific services list associated with a customer about to use an interactive voice response system;

for each service in the customer specific services list, generating country-specific weights;

generating a set of summary weights for a plurality of countries based on an aggregation of the country-specific weights;

selecting an interactive voice response system language model based on the set of summary weights; and

recognizing speech received from the customer via the interactive voice response system based on the interactive voice response system language model.

18. The computer-readable storage device of claim 17, wherein the interactive voice response system selects language options for a splash screen based on the set of summary weights and the country-specific weights.

19. The computer-readable storage device of claim 17, wherein the interactive voice response system tunes a voice recognition algorithm based on the set of summary weights and the country-specific weights.