NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING (NLP) AND NATURAL LANGUAGE GENERATION (NLG) BASED ON USER CONTEXT FOR ENHANCED CONTACT CENTER COMMUNICATION

• US 20150163358A1
• Filed: 12/11/2013
• Published: 06/11/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 12/11/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: ServiceNow Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Avaya Incorporated
• Inventors: Klemm, Reinhard, Erhart, George, Becker, Lee, Skiba, David
• Granted Patent: US 9,454,760 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/248 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/56 Natural language generation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/01 Customer relationship services

Abstract

Contact centers may incorporate automated agents to respond to inquiries. The inquiries may solicit a substantive response, for example, by providing a time when the inquiry asks for the departure time for a flight. Such responses omit the normal conversational subject matter used to embellish person-to-person conversations and appear are very machine-like. Herein, a source of user context, such as a social media website, customer database, or other data, is accessed. Certain aspects of the customer may then be identified and used to embellish the reply with additional and/or alternative content. As a result, the reply may be more conversational.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

accessing a message by a contact center from a sender;

formulating a substantive portion of a response to the message;

accessing a user context of the sender;

selecting an embellishment in accord with the user context;

embellishing the response with banter from the embellishment; and

sending the response to the sender.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the user context comprises a descriptive element of, at least one of, a past transaction, a past interaction, a posting on a social media website, a social media profile element, an endorsement of a posting on a social media website, an event attended, a social media connection, and a demographic descriptor.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the user context comprises a punctuation usage style associated at least one social media post of the user.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the user context comprises a social media website connection of the user.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the user context comprises, at least one of, age, gender, occupation, marital status, income, education, and area of residency.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the user context comprises, at least one of, language formality preference, regional dialect, language fluency, and domain expertise.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the embellishment comprises additional content to the substantive portion of the response.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the embellishment modifies the presentation of the substantive portion of the response.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the embellishment comprises a selected one of a number of potential embellishments in accord with the user context.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the selected one of the number of potential embellishments is determined, at least in part, by at least one of, providing supplemental information relevant to the message, providing supplemental information relevant to the sender, accommodating a preference of the sender, and building affinity with the sender.

11. A system, comprising:

a communications interface;

a database;

a processor; and

wherein the processor is operable to access a message by a contact center from a sender, formulate a substantive portion of a response to the message, access a user context of the sender, select an embellishment in accord with the user context, embellish the response with banter from the embellishment, and send the response to the sender.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the user context comprises a descriptive element of, at least one of, a past transaction, a past interaction, a posting on a social media website, a social media profile element, an endorsement of a posting on a social media website, an event attended, a social media connection, and a demographic descriptor.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein the user context comprises, at least one of, age, gender, occupation, marital status, income, education, and area of residency.

14. The system of claim 11, wherein the user context comprises, at least one of, language formality preference, regional dialect, language fluency, and domain expertise.

15. The system of claim 11, wherein the embellishment comprises additional content to the substantive portion of the response.

16. The system of claim 11, wherein the embellishment modifies the presentation of the substantive portion of the response.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the selected one of the number of potential embellishments is determined, at least in part, by at least one of, providing supplemental information relevant to the message, providing supplemental information relevant to the sender, accommodating a preference of the sender, and building affinity with the sender.

18. A non-transitory computer readable medium with instructions thereon that, when read by a computer, cause the computer to perform:

accessing a message by a contact center from a sender;

formulating a substantive portion of a response to the message;

accessing a user context of the sender;

selecting an embellishment in accord with the user context;

embellishing the response with banter from the embellishment; and

sending the response to the sender.

19. The instructions of claim 18, wherein the embellishment comprises a selecting one of a number of potential embellishments in accord with the user context.

20. The instructions of claim 19, wherein selecting one of the number of potential embellishments is determined, at least in part, by at least one of, providing supplemental information relevant to the message, providing supplemental information relevant to the sender, accommodating a preference of the sender, and building affinity with the sender.