System and method for automated customer feedback

• US 20040230438A1
• Filed: 05/13/2003
• Published: 11/18/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 05/13/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: ServiceNow Incorporated
• Original Assignee: SBC Properties, L.P.
• Inventors: Pasquale, Theodore B., Bushey, Robert R., Knott, Benjamin A.
• Granted Patent: US 7,877,265 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/1
• 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 for automatically obtaining and analyzing customer feedback regarding one or more self-service applications, the method comprising:

receiving one or more inbound inquiries from one or more customers;

retrieving a plurality of customer characteristics regarding the customer;

querying the customer for one or more customer tasks;

receiving one or more customer tasks from the customer;

routing the inbound inquiry based on one or more of the customer tasks provided by the customer;

monitoring the interaction of the customer with the self-service application;

determining if the customer completes the customer task;

determining if the customer desires to complete one or more additional customer tasks;

querying the customer regarding the completion of the customer task and the one or more additional customer tasks;

selecting one or more survey questions based on the customer tasks and the additional customer tasks performed by the customer, the survey questions regarding the interaction of the customer with the self-service application;

upon completion of one or more of the customer tasks and before terminating the inbound inquiry, automatically asking the customer one or more of the selected survey questions relating to the customer task;

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

storing the survey responses in a database;

asking the customer one or more additional survey questions if one or more of the survey responses exceeds a threshold;

analyzing the survey responses; and

modifying the self-service application and one or more of the survey questions based on the analysis of the survey responses.

2. A method for the automatic collection and analysis of customer feedback, the method comprising:

receiving one or more inbound inquiries from one or more customers;

querying the customer for one or more customer tasks;

routing the inbound inquiry based on one or more of the customer tasks provided by the customer;

querying the customer regarding completion of the customer task;

selecting one or more survey questions based on the customer task, the survey questions regarding performance of the customer task by the customer; and

upon completion of the customer task and before terminating the inbound inquiry, automatically communicating to the customer one or more of the selected survey questions relating to the customer task.

3. The method of claim 2 further comprising:

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

storing the survey responses in a database.

4. The method of claim 2 further comprising analyzing one or more survey responses provided by the customers.

5. The method of claim 4 further comprising modifying a self-service application based on the analysis of the survey responses.

6. The method of claim 4 further comprising utilizing the analysis of the survey responses to locate one or more problems with a self-service application.

7. The method of claim 4 further comprising modifying one or more of the survey questions based on the analysis of the survey responses.

8. The method of claim 2 further comprising retrieving a plurality of customer characteristics regarding the customer.

9. The method of claim 2 wherein querying the customer regarding completion of the customer task comprises determining if the customer desires to complete one or more additional customer tasks.

10. The method of claim 2 further comprising monitoring the interaction of the customer with a self-service application.

11. The method of claim 2 further comprising:

retrieving a telephone number for the customer when the customer does not provide one or more survey responses to the survey questions;

contacting the customer via the customer telephone number; and

asking the customer one or more of the selected survey questions relating to the customer task.

12. The method of claim 2 further comprising:

retrieving a telephone number for the customer when the customer does not complete the customer task;

contacting the customer via the customer telephone number; and

asking the customer one or more survey questions relating to noncompletion of the customer task.

13. An automated customer feedback system, the system comprising:

one or more receiving devices operable to receive a plurality of inbound inquiries from one or more customers;

a parsing module associated with the receiving device, the parsing module operable to query the customer for one or more customer tasks and route the inbound inquiry based on one or more of the customer tasks provided by the customer; and

a satisfaction module associated with the parsing module, the satisfaction module operable to select one or more survey questions based on the customer task and upon completion of the customer task and before terminating the inbound inquiry, automatically communicate to the customer one or more of the selected survey questions relating to the customer task.

14. The system of claim 13 further comprising a track module associated with the satisfaction module, the track module operable to:

to monitor the interaction of the customer with a self-service application; and

determine when the customer completes the customer task.

15. The system of claim 13 further comprising the satisfaction module operable to query the customer regarding completion of the customer task.

16. The system of claim 13 wherein the survey questions comprise a plurality of questions regarding performance of the customer task by the customer.

17. The system of claim 13 further comprising one or more databases operable to store the survey questions and a plurality of survey responses.

18. The system of claim 13 further comprising the satisfaction module operable to:

assign a weighted value to each of the survey questions; and

perform one or more additional actions if at least one survey response exceeds a threshold for a survey question having a specified weight value.

19. The system of claim 13 further comprising the satisfaction module operable to analyze one or more survey responses provided by the customers.

20. The system of claim 19 further comprising the satisfaction module operable to modify a self-service application based on the analysis of the survey responses.