Spectral diagnostic engine for customer support call center

• US 9,813,555 B2
• Filed: 12/12/2014
• Issued: 11/07/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 12/12/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Conduent Business Services, LLC (Conduent, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Conduent Business Services, LLC (Conduent, Inc.)
• Inventors: Perez, Julien, Bouchard, Guillaume
• Primary Examiner(s): Smith, Creighton
• Application Number:
  US14/569,095
• Publication Number:
  US 20160173690A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,061 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0748 in a remote unit communicating with a single-box computer node experiencing an error/fault remote testing G06F11/2294
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/079 Root cause analysis, i.e. error or fault diagnosis in a hardware test environment G06F11/22; in a software test environment G06F11/36
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 17/16 Matrix or vector computation , e.g. matrix-matrix or matrix-vector multiplication, matrix factorization matrix transposition G06F7/78
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/20 Administration of product repair or maintenance
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/01 Customer relationship services
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5175 Call or contact centers supervision arrangements

Abstract

A collective matrix is constructed, having a diagnostic sessions dimension and a diagnostic state descriptors dimension. The diagnostic state descriptors dimension includes a plurality of symptom fields, a plurality of root cause fields, and a plurality of solution fields. Collective matrix factorization of the collective matrix is performed to generate a factored collective matrix comprising a sessions factor matrix embedding diagnostic sessions and a descriptors factor matrix embedding diagnostic state descriptors. An in-progress diagnostic session is embedded in the factored collective matrix. A symptom or solution is recommended for evaluation in the in-progress diagnostic session based on the embedding. The diagnostic state descriptors dimension may further include at least one information field storing a representation (for example, a bag-of-words representation) of a semantic description of a problem being diagnosed by the in-progress diagnostic session.

Claims

1. A diagnostic call center comprising:

a call session log comprising a data storage medium storing diagnostic sessions represented as at least symptoms belonging to a symptoms set and solutions belonging to a solutions set;

a diagnostic engine comprising an electronic data processing device programmed to perform a diagnostic support method including the operations of;

formulating the diagnostic sessions stored in the call session log as a collective matrix having a diagnostic sessions dimension and a diagnostic state descriptors dimension wherein the diagnostic state descriptors dimension includes at least a plurality of symptom fields corresponding to the symptoms of the symptoms set and a plurality of solution fields corresponding to the solutions of the solutions set;

performing collective matrix factorization of the collective matrix to generate a factored collective matrix comprising a sessions factor matrix embedding diagnostic sessions and a descriptors factor matrix embedding diagnostic state descriptors;

embedding an in-progress diagnostic session in the factored collective matrix;

determining one of a predicted solution for the in-progress diagnostic session and a not-yet-acquired probative symptom for the in-progress diagnostic session based on the embedding; and

in response to determining a not-yet-acquired probative symptom, displaying a recommendation to acquire the value of the probative symptom for the in-progress diagnostic session on a display device; and

a call center device providing two-way communication between a customer and a call center agent to conduct the in-progress diagnostic session, the call center device further providing a user interface configured to display to the call center agent the predicted solution or not-yet-acquired probative symptom determined by the diagnostic engine for the in-progress diagnostic session being conducted via the call center device.

2. The diagnostic call center of claim 1 wherein the diagnostic sessions are further represented as root causes belonging to a root causes set and wherein the diagnostic state descriptors dimension of the collective matrix further includes a plurality of root cause fields corresponding to the root causes of the root causes set.

3. The diagnostic call center of claim 1 wherein the diagnostic state descriptors dimension further includes at least one information field storing information about a problem being diagnosed by the in-progress diagnostic session.

4. The diagnostic call center of claim 3 wherein the at least one diagnostic session information field includes one or more fields storing a bag-of-words representation of a semantic description of the problem being diagnosed by the in-progress diagnostic session.

5. The diagnostic call center of claim 1 wherein the diagnostic support method includes the further operation of:

in response to determining a predicted solution for the in-progress diagnostic session, displaying the predicted solution for the in-progress diagnostic session on a display device.

8. The diagnostic call center of claim 1 wherein the determining operation comprises determining a predicted solution for the in-progress diagnostic session by:

determining the solution of the solutions set that maximizes information gain for the embedding.

17. The diagnostic call center of claim 1 wherein the call center device includes at least one of a telephone, a computer running a voice-over-Internet protocol (VOIP) telephone session;

or a two-way video conferencing station comprising a computer with a microphone, a speaker, and a display screen.

6. A diagnostic call center comprising:

a call session log comprising a data storage medium storing diagnostic sessions represented as at least symptoms belonging to a symptoms set and solutions belonging to a solutions set;

a diagnostic engine comprising an electronic data processing device programmed to perform a diagnostic support method including the operations of;

formulating the diagnostic sessions stored in the call session log as a collective matrix Y having a diagnostic sessions dimension and a diagnostic state descriptors dimension wherein the diagnostic state descriptors dimension includes at least a plurality of symptom fields corresponding to the symptoms of the symptoms set and a plurality of solution fields corresponding to the solutions of the solutions set;

performing collective matrix factorization of the collective matrix to generate a factored collective matrix comprising a sessions factor matrix A embedding diagnostic sessions and a descriptors factor matrix B embedding diagnostic state descriptors, wherein the operation of performing collective matrix factorization comprises evaluating

7. The diagnostic call center of claim 6 wherein the evaluating comprises:

performing an alternating least squares optimization in which the following are computed alternately;

9. A diagnostic call center comprising:

a call session log comprising a data storage medium storing diagnostic sessions represented as at least symptoms belonging to a symptoms set and solutions belonging to a solutions set;

a diagnostic engine comprising an electronic data processing device programmed to perform a diagnostic support method including the operations of;

formulating the diagnostic sessions stored in the call session log as a collective matrix having a diagnostic sessions dimension and a diagnostic state descriptors dimension wherein the diagnostic state descriptors dimension includes at least a plurality of symptom fields corresponding to the symptoms of the symptoms set and a plurality of solution fields corresponding to the solutions of the solutions set;

performing collective matrix factorization of the collective matrix to generate a factored collective matrix comprising a sessions factor matrix embedding diagnostic sessions and a descriptors factor matrix embedding diagnostic state descriptors;

embedding an in-progress diagnostic session in the factored collective matrix; and

determining a not-yet-acquired probative symptom for the in-progress diagnostic session by determining the not-yet-acquired symptom of the symptoms set that maximizes information gain for the embedding; and

a call center device providing two-way communication between a customer and a call center agent to conduct the in-progress diagnostic session, the call center device further providing a user interface configured to display to the call center agent the predicted solution or not-yet-acquired probative symptom determined by the diagnostic engine for the in-progress diagnostic session being conducted via the call center device.

10. A diagnostic method comprising:

storing diagnostic sessions represented as at least symptoms belonging to a symptoms set and solutions belonging to a solutions set in a call session log comprising a data storage medium;

formulating the diagnostic sessions stored in the call session log as a collective matrix Y having a diagnostic sessions dimension and a diagnostic state descriptors dimension wherein the diagnostic state descriptors dimension includes at least a plurality of symptom fields corresponding to the symptoms of the symptoms set and a plurality of solution fields corresponding to the solutions of the solutions set ;

performing collective matrix factorization of the collective matrix to generate a factored collective matrix comprising a sessions factor matrix A embedding diagnostic sessions and a descriptors factor matrix B embedding diagnostic state descriptors wherein the operation of performing collective matrix factorization comprises evaluating

11. The diagnostic method of claim 10 wherein the diagnostic sessions are further represented as root causes belonging to a root causes set and wherein the diagnostic state descriptors dimension of the collective matrix Y further includes a plurality of root cause fields corresponding to the root causes of the root causes set .

12. The diagnostic method of claim 10 wherein the diagnostic state descriptors dimension further includes at least one information field storing a representation of a semantic description of a problem being diagnosed by the in-progress diagnostic session.

13. The diagnostic method of claim 10 wherein the evaluating comprises:

performing an alternating least squares optimization in which the following are computed alternately;

14. The diagnostic method of claim 10 further wherein:

the two-way communication includes communicating the recommended symptom or solution from the call center staffer to the customer.

15. The diagnostic method of claim 10 wherein the generating comprises:

generating a recommended symptom as the symptom of the set of symptoms that maximizes information gain of the embedding.

16. The diagnostic method of claim 10 wherein the generating comprises:

generating a recommended solution as the solution of the set of solutions that maximizes information gain of the embedding.