System and method for automated customer feedback

• US 8,650,130 B2
• Filed: 01/03/2011
• Issued: 02/11/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 05/13/2003
• Status: Expired due to Term

• 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): Plucinski, Jami A
• Assistant Examiner(s): Bahl, Sangeeta
• Application Number:
  US12/983,789
• Publication Number:
  US 20110106586A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,135 Days
• Field of Search: 705/1.1, 705/14.19, 705/304, 705/346
• US Class Current: 705/304
• 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, the method comprising:

routing, by an interactive voice response system, a call by a caller to an automated self-service application including a user interface menu presented to the caller;

before terminating the call, presenting to the caller a set of survey questions concerning interaction of the caller with the self-service application;

receiving from the caller a response to a question included in the set of survey questions; and

altering, by the interactive voice response system, the user interface menu based on the response.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the question included in the set of survey questions is based on a task, indicated by the caller, associated with the call.

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 1, wherein the question included in the set of survey questions asks the caller to indicate a level of caller satisfaction.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the level of caller satisfaction is selected from a set of defined satisfaction levels.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising, responsive to determining that the response exceeds a threshold value, asking the caller additional survey questions.

8. A method of improving caller satisfaction, the method comprising:

routing, by an interactive voice response system, an inbound inquiry from a caller, based on a task indicated by the caller, to an automated self-service application including a user interface menu presented to the caller;

before terminating the inbound inquiry, asking the caller a set of survey questions regarding the automated self-service application;

receiving from the caller a response to at least one of the survey questions; and

updating, by the interactive voice response system, the set of survey questions based at least in part on the response.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising storing the response 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 call 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 computer non-transitory readable storage medium including processor executable instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising:

routing a call by a caller to an automated self-service application including a user interface menu presented to the caller;

before terminating the call, asking the caller a set of survey questions concerning interaction of the caller with the self-service application;

receiving from the caller a response to a question included in the set of survey questions; and

based on the response, altering the user interface menu.

16. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the operations include selecting a question included in the set of survey questions based on a task, indicated by the caller, associated with the call.

17. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the operations include obtaining caller identification information and using the caller identification information to retrieve caller characteristics.

18. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein the caller characteristics include account activity information.

19. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein a question included in the set of survey questions asks the caller to indicate a level of caller satisfaction and wherein the level of caller satisfaction is selected from a set of defined satisfaction levels.

20. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the operations include asking the caller additional survey questions responsive to determining that the response exceeds a threshold value.