U.S. patent application number 11/051213 was filed with the patent office on 2005-06-23 for method and system for providing personalized service over different contact channels.
This patent application is currently assigned to Aspect Communications Corporation. Invention is credited to Zhao, Yan.
Application Number | 20050135596 11/051213 |
Document ID | / |
Family ID | 34523275 |
Filed Date | 2005-06-23 |
United States Patent
Application |
20050135596 |
Kind Code |
A1 |
Zhao, Yan |
June 23, 2005 |
Method and system for providing personalized service over different
contact channels
Abstract
A system comprising an analysis engine that interacts with a
user profile server and a content management system. The user
profile server is used to collect and manage data. The content
management system manages a plurality of content types for a
plurality of service points in real-time. A service point supports
a content type.
Inventors: |
Zhao, Yan; (Hong Kong,
HK) |
Correspondence
Address: |
SCHWEGMAN, LUNDBERG, WOESSNER & KLUTH, P.A.
P.O. BOX 2938
MINNEAPOLIS
MN
55402
US
|
Assignee: |
Aspect Communications
Corporation
|
Family ID: |
34523275 |
Appl. No.: |
11/051213 |
Filed: |
February 3, 2005 |
Related U.S. Patent Documents
|
|
|
|
|
|
Application
Number |
Filing Date |
Patent Number |
|
|
11051213 |
Feb 3, 2005 |
|
|
|
09752896 |
Dec 26, 2000 |
|
|
|
6889222 |
|
|
|
|
Current U.S.
Class: |
379/265.01 ;
379/88.17; 707/E17.109 |
Current CPC
Class: |
G06F 16/9535 20190101;
Y10S 707/99933 20130101 |
Class at
Publication: |
379/265.01 ;
379/088.17 |
International
Class: |
H04M 003/00; H04M
001/64 |
Claims
What is claimed is:
1. A method including: receiving personal attributes for a first
user and content to perform an analysis to generate a
recommendation for the first user, the recommendation to include a
plurality of content types, a first content type being personalized
for the first user and being generated for a contact channel
utilized to communicate with the first user and a second content
type being personalized for a second user; retrieving the first
content type for the first user and for the contact channel
utilized to communicate with the first user; and retrieving the
second content type for the second user.
2. The method of claim 1, wherein the first user includes a
customer and the second user includes an agent.
3. The method of claim 2, further including receiving request data
from the customer, the request data utilized in the analysis to
generate the recommendation.
4. The method of claim 3, further including selecting the agent
based on the request data.
5. The method of claim 1, wherein the contact channel includes any
one of a group of contact channels including an e-mail contact
channel, a telephone contact channel, a multi-media contact
channel, an interactive voice response system contact channel, a
postal contact channel, and a web site contact channel.
6. The method of claim 1, wherein the contact channel is selected
by the first user.
7. The method of claim 6, wherein the contact channel is selected
by an outbound campaign manager.
8. The method of claim 1, wherein the retrieving the first content
type is performed by at least one of an outbound campaign manager
and a routing manager.
9. The method of claim 1, wherein the personal attributes include
static profile attributes and dynamically generated attributes.
10. A system including: an analysis engine to receive personal
attributes for a first user and content to perform an analysis to
generate a recommendation for the first user, the recommendation to
include a plurality of content types, a first content type
personalized for the first user and generated for a contact channel
that is utilized to communicate with the first user and a second
content type personalized for a second user; a first service point
to retrieve the first content type for the first user and for the
contact channel utilized to communicate with the first user; and a
second service point to retrieve the second content type for the
second user.
11. The system of claim 10, wherein the first user includes a
customer and the second user includes an agent.
12. The system of claim 11, wherein the analysis engine receives
request data from the customer to generate the recommendation.
13. The system of claim 12, further including a routing manager to
select the agent based on the request data.
14. The system of claim 10, wherein the contact channel includes
any one of a group of contact channels including an e-mail contact
channel, a telephone contact channel, a multi-media contact
channel, an interactive voice response system contact channel, a
postal contact channel, and a web site contact channel.
15. The system of claim 10, wherein the first user selects the
contact channel.
16. The system of claim 10, further including an outbound campaign
manager that selects the contact channel.
17. The system of claim 10, wherein the second service point
includes an agent desktop server.
18. The system of claim 10, wherein the personal attributes include
static profile attributes and dynamically generated attributes.
19. A system including: a first means for receiving personal
attributes for a first user and content to perform an analysis to
generate a recommendation for the first user, the recommendation to
include a plurality of content types, a first content type
personalized for the first user and generated for a contact channel
that is utilized to communicate with the first user and a second
content type personalized for a second user; a second means for
retrieving the first content type for the first user and for the
contact channel utilized to communicate with the first user; and a
second means for retrieving the second content type for the second
user.
20. A machine readable storage media containing executable program
instructions which when executed cause a digital processing system
to: receive personal attributes for a first user and content to
perform an analysis to generate a recommendation for the first
user, the recommendation to include a plurality of content types, a
first content type being personalized for the first user and being
generated for a contact channel utilized to communicate with the
first user and a second content type being personalized for a
second user; retrieve the first content type for the first user and
for the contact channel utilized to communicate with the first
user; and retrieve the second content type for the second user.
Description
CLAIM OF PRIORITY
[0001] This application is a continuation of U.S. application Ser.
No. 09/752,896 filed Dec. 26, 2000, which is incorporated herein by
reference.
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
[0002] The invention relates generally to a method and apparatus
for providing personalized information and services to individuals
from a customer contact center.
BACKGROUND
[0003] Businesses are able to offer goods and services to customers
located world-wide through networks such as the Internet. As people
become increasingly at ease with purchasing goods and services over
the Internet, businesses have been able to expand and flourish.
Customers are generally interested in quickly perusing the goods
and services offered by a business operating on the Internet.
Businesses that offer personalized service to customers have a
competitive edge over other businesses because customers will
generally be serviced more quickly and will be provided with higher
quality of service.
[0004] Although there are a number of existing products that enable
businesses to develop web sites that are able to provide
personalized services to their customers, the levels of capability
for a personalized service are different. Instead of creating a
real integrated solution for personalized service, most existing
personalization features are typically built around or tied
together some original singularly designed solutions. For example,
Net Perceptions offers a series of products that are built around
its collaborative filtering technology. Net Perceptions applies
this technology to a community behavior analysis based
recommendation engine, a knowledge management system, and a
campaign management system thereby providing one type of
personalization service that may be used in an E-commerce system
and a customer call center. However, the users of Net Perceptions
system must integrate it with other content management systems to
target Net Perceptions system must integrate it with other content
management systems to target pre-determined content based upon the
recommendations that are generated. One disadvantage to Net
Perceptions system is that it is unable to provide different
service levels for content targeting. Additionally, the content
flexibility and the variation of the content really depend on the
external content management system. The knowledge management system
provided by Net Perception cannot perform the function of a content
management system.
[0005] A DYNAMO.TM. personalization service server by the Art
Technology Group (ATG) offers another type of personalized service.
The DYNAMO.TM. personalization server is adapted to manage both
static and dynamic user attributes. This provides service content
personalization while the customer is being served by a business on
the Internet. To generate dynamic user attributes, ATG's DYNAMO.TM.
personalization server uses a statistics based analysis mechanism.
The analysis mechanism uses information collected while a user
navigates the Internet. One disadvantage to ATG's DYNAMO.TM.
personalization server is that the services are not differentiated
for different service points (e.g., for web, voice, Email, system
internal usage, etc.) Although DYNAMO.TM. personalization server
enables service rules (e.g., rules that indicate which groups of
service content should be provided to which groups of customers),
these service rules are unable to differentiate the content for one
customer at different service points. One reason is that ATG's
DYNAMO.TM. personalization server depends upon an external content
management system to provide service content.
[0006] Interact from Responsys.com is an e-mail-based outbound
campaign service system that may support multi-media content.
However, Interact is limited to a single service channel, i.e.,
Email, which does not support different content types for different
service channels.
[0007] E.Piphany is yet another company that offers a personalized
service product. E.Piphany's product provides real-time
personalization service for customer call centers. The product may
be used to define and deliver real-time marketing campaigns (e.g.,
advertising) through multiple customer touch points such as the
phone, the web, an e-mail system, and facsimile. E.Piphany's
product uses real-time analysis mechanisms that include a
specialized real-time data mining techniques, collaborative
filtering, and likelihood analysis. However, the product's
personalization process, e.g., for campaigns and for
recommendations, relates solely to different customer direct
contact points after a customer contact point has been established.
It does not contribute to the contact point selection and other
system processes. Additionally, the product is not integrated with
customer intrinsic information-based personalization service.
Moreover, the product is not integrated with a content management
system to differentiate different content types to different
service points. It is therefore desirable to have a system that
addresses the shortcomings associated with conventional
systems.
SUMMARY
[0008] A system is disclosed that comprises a user profile server,
an analysis engine, a content management system, and their
interaction to provide personalized services or other like
services. The user profile server is used to collect and manage
user data. The content management system is used to manage a
plurality of content types for a plurality of service points. The
analysis and content services are performed in real-time. The
system differentiates content types for different service points.
Additional features, embodiments, and benefits will be evident in
view of the figures and detailed description presented herein.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0009] The accompanying drawings are included to provide a further
understanding of the invention, and are incorporated in and
constitute a part of this specification. The drawings illustrate
embodiments of the invention and, together with the description,
serve to explain the principles of the invention. In the
drawings,
[0010] FIG. 1 is a system block diagram illustrating components of
the system in accordance with one embodiment of the invention;
[0011] FIG. 2 illustrates a personalization subsystem and multiple
user data collection components and service points in accordance
with one embodiment of the invention;
[0012] FIG. 3 illustrates organization of data in the user profile
server in accordance with one embodiment of the invention;
[0013] FIG. 4 illustrates the content data management and access
control in accordance with one embodiment of the invention;
[0014] FIG. 5 illustrates the organization and the description of
content data in the content management system in accordance with
one embodiment of the invention;
[0015] FIG. 6 illustrates a view of user management, content
management, and content access control in accordance with one
embodiment of the invention;
[0016] FIG. 7 illustrates a flow diagram for customer service
recommendations for different service points in accordance with one
embodiment of the invention.
[0017] FIG. 8 illustrates a flow diagram for content retrieval
inside the content management system with access control in
accordance with one embodiment of the invention;
[0018] FIG. 9 illustrates a flow diagram in which customer dynamic
attributes for the user profile are updated in real-time in
accordance with one embodiment of the invention; and
[0019] FIG. 10 illustrates a flow diagram in which persistent
customer attributes are updated for the user profile server based
upon service history analysis in accordance with one embodiment of
the invention.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
[0020] One embodiment of the invention relates to an analysis
engine coupled to a user profile server and a content management
system. Data is transferred from multiple user data collection
points to the analysis engine. Personalized services are driven by
analysis results dynamically coupled with user information and
service content. This allows businesses using this system to offer
a customer an improved integrated solution.
[0021] Another embodiment of the invention relates to a content
management system that is configured to manage a plurality of
content types for the same logic item. Examples of content types
include the suitable content types for a customer client, an agent
client, an interactive voice response system client, and an e-mail
client. The content management system provides a content item that
is personalized to the receiving party. The receiving party may
receive a first content type at the first service point and receive
a second content type at the second service point, even though both
content types are for the same logic item. One illustration of this
embodiment relates to an agent trying to sell a good or service to
a customer. While the customer may wish to view the good or service
in great detail, an agent typically only requires brief information
regarding the good or service since the agent is presumably
familiar with the goods or services he is trying to sell.
Therefore, the content type for agent assistance is different from
the content type for customer self-service.
[0022] Specific embodiments are set forth to provide a thorough
understanding of the present invention. However, it will be
understood by one skilled in the art that the invention may be
practiced without these details. Moreover, well known elements,
devices, process steps and the like are not set forth in detail in
order to avoid obscuring the present invention. Additionally,
although the figures present the personalization subsystem,
multiple user data collection points, and the multiple service
points as separate units, it will be appreciated that the
personalization subsystem and multiple service points may be a
single unit having any configuration that achieves a similar or the
same result.
[0023] FIGS. 1-2 illustrate several embodiments of the invention
related to the overall system. FIG. 1 illustrates a system block
diagram in accordance with one embodiment of the invention. FIG. 1
shows system 100 that includes multiple user data collection and
service points 180 connected to personalization subsystem 170. Data
collection points are where data is transferred from, and may
include clients, servers, or peers. Data service points are where
data is transferred to and may include clients, servers, or peers.
Personalization subsystem 170 provides personal information and a
personalized service that is capable of supporting multimedia
content to multi-channels and multiple service points. To
accomplish these tasks, personalization subsystem 170 performs
analysis of data, generates recommendations, and transfers
recommendations to various clients.
[0024] Data repository 175 is also coupled to personalization
subsystem 170. Data repository 175 may include different types of
data repositories such as a database or any other storage device or
memory.
[0025] It will be appreciated that system 100 may or may not
include a network. A network includes local area networks (LANS),
wide area networks (WANS), global networks such as the Internet,
networking of telecommunications devices (e.g., cellular networks,
PCS networks, wireline telephony networks, and the like.
[0026] FIG. 2 illustrates a system block diagram in accordance with
the embodiment of the invention in which a network may or may not
be used between components. System 200 comprises multiple user data
collection and service points 180 coupled to personalization
subsystem 170. Multiple user data collection and service points 180
may interface with customer-client 110 and agent client 120.
[0027] It will be appreciated that techniques of the invention may
be implemented using a network in a variety of configurations such
as the network being used by customer-client 110 and agent client
120 to communicate to the servers in data collection and service
points. Additionally, the network may be used among components in
multiple user data collection and service points 180. In another
embodiment, the network may be used to connect components in
personalization subsystem 170 from data collection and service
points in 180. The network may be connected to the components
described herein in any other suitable configuration as well.
[0028] While some of these components are not new, it will be
appreciated that the components in combination provide a novel way
in which to achieve an improved integrated solution. Each of these
components is described below: Since the discussion of the
components such as data collection and service points 180 is
relatively brief compared to personalization subsystem 170, these
components are discussed first followed by a discussion of
personalization subsystem 170.
[0029] Clients
[0030] Customer-client 110 is an application that runs on a
computer or workstation. Customer-client 110 enables a customer to
send and receive data from components such as self-service web
site, Email Response Management System ("ERMS"), interactive voice
response system ("IVRS") included in multiple data collection and
self service points 180.
[0031] Agent client 120 is an application that runs on a computer
or workstation. Agent client 120 sends and receives data from an
agent desktop service component 184. It will be appreciated that
other clients may be added to system 200.
[0032] Data Collection and Service Points
[0033] Data collection and service points include agent desktop
server 184, IVRS 130, ERMS 140, self-service web sites 150, routing
manager 182, outbound campaign manager 186, and agent desktop
server 184. Agent desktop server 184, as a data collection point,
may input customer data to both the user profile server 172 and to
analysis engine 174. Agent desktop server 184 may also contribute
service content to the content management system 176. As a service
point, agent desktop server 184 may use personalization subsystem
170 to retrieve content for agent assistance or for direct
presentation to a customer.
[0034] IVRS 130 is a server or an application that runs on a
computer or workstation. IVRS 130 collects customer's requests.
IVRS 130 may automatically play an audio response to a
customer.
[0035] ERMS 140 is a server or an application that runs on a
computer or workstation. ERMS 140 enables a person to send and
receive e-mail to or from a customer contact center (not
shown).
[0036] Self-service web sites 150 are web sites provided by a
customer contact center to its potential customers that may provide
automatic service without involvement of an agent.
[0037] FIG. 2 also illustrates other service points such as routing
manager 182, and outbound campaign manager 186. Routing manager 182
is connected to user profile server 172, analysis engine 174, and
content management system 176. Routing manager 182 receives
requests from customer-client 110, for example, such as requests
related to a certain product or service. Based upon the request
made by a customer, routing manager 182 invokes analysis engine 174
and gets recommendations. Additionally, routing manager 182 may
perform calculations and may search data repository 175 for the
customer profile and/or the agent profile. Routing manager 182 then
matches an agent who is suitable for the customer's requirements
and is skilled in the area in which the request is being made and
the agent's availability during real-time. The request is then
routed to that agent from routing manager 182.
[0038] Outbound campaign manager 186 is connected to user profile
server 172, analysis engine 174, and content management system 176.
Outbound campaign manager 186 provides a multimedia and
multi-channel outbound campaign service. Outbound campaign manager
186 also provides service based upon recommendations. It also
targets a campaign service content to be sent to a user based upon
a user profile information through the operational database (not
shown) or the data repository. For example, outbound campaign
manager 186 may provide content to a customer that contains visual
and audio information through e-mail, and/or audio into a telephone
channel. The multimedia campaign content is managed in content
management system 176 and is retrievable by outbound campaign
manager 186. Outbound campaign manager 186 may be automatically
triggered by analysis engine 174 causing outbound campaign manager
186 to retrieve campaign content from the content management system
176. Outbound campaign manager 186 then sends campaign content to
customer-client 110 through an appropriate customer contact
channel. Customer contact channels for a customer include an e-mail
address(es), a phone number(s), a mailing address(es), or other
suitable channels. It will be appreciated that outbound campaign
manager 186 is configured to retrieve the campaign content item in
a different media type and different format from content management
system 176 for different customer contact channels. User profile
server 172 provides campaign target information (i.e., to whom the
different campaign content should be sent).
[0039] Another component of data collection and service points 180
is agent desktop server 184. Agent desktop server 184 is a server
connected to user profile server 172, analysis engine 174, and
content management system 176. Agent desktop server 184 provides
information and services to agent client 120, e.g., customer info
as to the optimal product or service to be provided to a customer,
multimedia applications for customer contact, etc. It also provides
recommendation to agent based upon data generated from analysis
engine 174 in association with content management system 176.
[0040] Personalization Subsystem
[0041] FIG. 2 further illustrates in detail personalization
subsystem 170. Personalization subsystem 170 includes user profile
server 172, analysis engine 174, and content management system 176.
Each of these components are discussed below.
[0042] User profile server 172 collects, manages, and provides
service of user profile data, user credential data, and other
relevant data to various components such as to the routing manager
182, agent desktop server 184, outbound campaign manager 186, as
well as to analysis engine 174. These components may then act upon
this data.
[0043] User profile data includes both static and dynamic user
attributes. Static attributes are attributes that have been stored
in a data repository 175 persistently. Static attributes relate to
relevant prolonged user information such as a user's name, address,
phone number, e-mail, occupation, or other suitable information. In
contrast, a dynamic attribute is an attribute that is inputted by
an agent and generated by analysis engine 174 in real-time during
service or other like method of generating dynamic attributes.
[0044] Profile data may be inputted from various sources such as
through customer-client 110 or transferred from other servers.
Additionally, an agent client 120 may input profile data for a
particular customer. Data is stored in a data repository. User
profile server 172 may have a data repository that is used solely
by the user profile server 172 or, alternatively, user profile
server 172 may use a common data repository shared with other
systems.
[0045] User profile server 172 may also facilitate user
authentication from clients such as web-based clients by
associating a web server authentication mechanism with user
credential data maintained in one data repository or a plurality of
data repositories. Access is denied to clients in which a user
fails user authentication.
[0046] In order to perform some of the tasks mentioned above, user
profile server 172 may organize data in a variety of ways. FIG. 3
illustrates one way of organizing data in the user profile server
172. For example, users are bundled into groups. Group bundle
includes a group ID, a user ID or a sub-group ID. Group bundle
classifies user according to a variety of criteria.
[0047] A user group may include the group ID, the name of the
group, the classification of the group, and other relevant
information. User profile, on the other hand, may include the user
ID, the name of the user, e-mail, and other data. User credential
information includes the user ID, password, and other credential
information such as a credit card or other means of payment. Other
applicable information may be included in the user credential
information such as the card user's mother's maiden name. This
information may be used to ensure that a third party is not
illegally using the credit card of the user. User profile
information is associated with the user credential information and
the user preference information. The user credential and the user
preference may be stored separately from the user profile data to
maximize the storage efficiency, data update flexibility, as well
as provide convenience for information protection and
retrieval.
[0048] Analysis Engine
[0049] Analysis engine 174 may be a server that has program
instructions or it may be program instructions (e.g., computer
programs, software, etc.) on a shared server. Analysis engine 174
may use an application program interface in order to accept input
for an analysis and to generate a result or a recommendation. The
application program interface allows different analysis mechanisms
to be plugged in for adapting to new technological advancements
such as a new version of program instructions (e.g., computer
programs, software, etc.).
[0050] Analysis engine 174 performs analysis based upon data
provided to analysis engine 174. The generated result combined with
service content data may be sent to the data collection and service
points 180 such as routing manager 182, agent desktop server 184,
and outbound campaign manager 186.
[0051] To illustrate the manner in which analysis engine 174
operates, an example of a customer seeking to purchase a sports car
is presented below. A customer requests agent assistance by
inputting request data from the customer self-service web site 150.
The data, contained in a customer request information object, is
transferred from customer self-service site 150 to routing manager
182 to find an appropriate agent. Routing manager 182 contacts
personalization subsystem 170 for personal attributes and service
recommendation retrieving. The personal attributes may be retrieved
from the user profile server 172, which may be combined with user
request data as an input to analysis engine 174. The user request
data may include personal attributes, desire to spend money, the
date of delivery of the sports car, the types of sports cars he
would consider acceptable. Analysis engine 174 performs
computations which may include both statistical and analytical
computations based upon the data collected and newly inputted.
Analysis engine 174 produces a result in the form of a
recommendation metadata object that is associated with content in
content management system 176 for retrieving a result. Routing
manager 182 may access the result by requesting the result from
content management system 176. Alternatively, analysis engine 174
may retrieve results from the content management system 176 and
send the result directly to routing manager 182. The recommendation
metadata object has information pertaining to the user, user group,
content, content category, and content access control. For a
recommendation to be made based upon a certain content category,
the access control may be applied to the user group for different
items in the category for different group of users. The result
contained in the recommendation metadata object may include the
content ID, the customer's user ID, and the service point ID, which
are needed for content retrieval from content management system
176.
[0052] The appropriate item attributes may then be retrieved from
the content management system 176 by using, for instance, the item
ID. Routing manager 182 compares the recommended service data that
was obtained from the content management system 176 to the data
that pertains to agents that have relevant skills to the good or
service that a customer desires. The information regarding the
skills and experience of various agents is maintained in data
repository 175 or a separate data repository. Routing manager 182
then determines the agent that best matches the customer's
requirements. An agent that best matches a customer's request
regarding a good or service may be based upon a variety of factors.
For instance, an application system may be customized to consider
the agent's area of specialization, the amount of time the agent
has specialized in that particular area, the gender or age of the
agent, or any other factors that the application customizer (e.g.,
system designer, user, etc.) may deem relevant. In this scenario,
the best agent would be a person who specializes in selling
recommended sports cars. By matching the most qualified agent to a
customer, techniques described herein are able to provide
personalized services by increasing the quality of service
delivered and potentially reducing the amount of time to perform a
transaction between an agent and a customer.
[0053] In another embodiment of the invention, the information
presented on the graphic user interface ("GUI") to the agent
generally contains information relating to the same topic as that
which is presented on the GUI to the customer. However, the
information on the agent's GUI contains less details than that
which is presented to a customer. Each service point such as
routing manager 182, outbound campaign manager 186, or agent
desktop server 184, may retrieve the recommendation contained in
the recommendation metadata object from the content management
system 176 by using a unique content ID and service point ID. The
content ID is the same for all types of service points. However,
depending upon the service point ID, different content may be
retrieved. For example, agent desktop server 184 may retrieve a
first content type for an agent, and a second content type for
customer browser. For example, the type of content that is
retrieved and provided to an agent through agent desktop server 184
should be in a format that the agent is able to comprehend but the
content does not need to go into as much detail such as extensive
marketing information as if the content was being sent to a new
customer. This is due to the fact that agents are generally assumed
to have knowledge about the services or products that are being
provided by the company.
[0054] After an agent is selected, the agent receives a request
from the customer. The agent may then search for information that
is responsive to the customer's request. To provide information
such as information regarding a good to a customer, different
customer contact channels may be used. Different customer contact
channels are configured for different service points such as e-mail
addresses, phone numbers, mailing addresses, or other suitable
channels to retrieve different content types. A first customer
service point and a second customer service point are configured to
retrieve different types of content from content management system
176.
[0055] The communication protocol is open among a customer, routing
manager 182, components in personalization subsystems, and agent
desktop server 184. In order to implement techniques described
herein, interface objects may be used. In one embodiment, interface
objects for analysis engine 174 include recommendation engine, and
recommendation service. RecommendationEngine is an object that
contains attributes and methods for recommendation engine
definition and services. It may be a plug-in from existing products
or technologies which is beyond the scope of this invention.
[0056] RecommendationService is an interface object that provides
recommendation services with appropriate content being retrieved
from content management system 176. The service methods may
include:
[0057] GetResultsForAgent(ContentItemID)
[0058] GetResultsForCustomer(ContentItemID)
[0059] GetResultsForCustomerInVoice(ContentItemID)
[0060] GetResultsForCustomerInFax(ContentItemID)
[0061] GetResultsForService(ContentItemID).
[0062] Other suitable service methods may also be used.
[0063] Content Management System
[0064] While analysis engine 174 performs analysis on the data sent
to analysis engine 174, content management system 176 manages
various kinds of content or content data for personalized customer
services including content for agents to assist customers, content
for customer service recommendations, and content for customer
self-service web sites 150, and content for outbound campaigns.
[0065] Content management system 176 may be operated under an
independent web server, a shared web server, or a server with other
communication protocol. Content management system 176 is capable of
searching and retrieving items such as content metadata and content
data for other components such as analysis engine 174. Content
metadata and the multimedia content data may be stored in data
repository 175 or multiple data repositories.
[0066] Content management system 176 may be configured to support
web browser based clients with search and category navigation
interfaces that may be used by a customer and/or agent client 120
for navigation via the Internet. Content management system 176 also
provides request/response application program interfaces ("APIs")
for service requests from other service components, such as from
analysis engine 174 and outbound campaign manager 186.
[0067] Content management system 176 may contribute to agent script
on the agent desktop. Based upon agent identification and profile,
an agent script may be automatically generated after an agent is
logged in. The agent may update his/her script during customer
service. Additionally, each agent may contribute to data repository
175 by submitting new content to content management system 176.
[0068] Content may be requested by customer-client 110, IVRS 130,
ERMS 140, or other data collection and service points 180. To
illustrate, agent client 120 may determine that a certain content
may be useful to a customer. Agent client 120 may then input the
agent ID and/or the customer ID. Agent client 120 may input a
content ID, explicitly or implicitly by using a content retrieval
GUI. Each content ID uniquely identifies a content item described
by a metadata object.
[0069] For outbound campaign manager 186, content management system
176 provides multimedia campaign content. It is possible to share
campaign content with the recommendation content as "the content
for customers". However, each content item should have multiple
presentation formats for different customer contact channels and
for different type of applications.
[0070] Service target control data, such as the one to specify
which customer or customer group will get what content or services,
may be stored in a data repository such as data repository 175. For
ease of operation, the metadata for content management system 176
is also stored in data repository 175 although the content data may
be distributed in different data repositories.
[0071] In order to implement techniques of the one embodiment of
the invention, FIG. 4 illustrates the organization of data for
content management system 176. It will be appreciated that there
are a variety of other ways to organize data in content management
system 176. Content collection includes a collection ID, title,
date, and other information. Content collection is constructed
based upon the physical location or an access control request for
the content. The content collection defines the minimal access
controllable set of contents, such as a set of content regarding a
project or set of content located in a physical storage. A content
item is placed in a content collection for access control. The
smallest content collection contains only one content item. Content
collections may be arranged in a variety of orders and are
generally hierarchically ordered. A content item is typically only
included in one of the lowest level of the collections.
Additionally, a subcollection may be included in only one parent
collection structure. Content category provides a logical group of
similar contents by a given criteria that may be specified by a
system administrator, business operator, a business manager, sales
person or other suitable person. The criteria may also be extracted
from the content itself. One content item may be in multiple
subcategories in which each subcategory may be in multiple
categories. The content item may be dynamically bundled into
subcategories and categories which facilitates a category-driven
content retrieval mechanism.
[0072] FIG. 5 illustrates one content data organization schema that
may be used in accordance with one embodiment of the invention. It
will be appreciated that other suitable data schemes may be used.
For example, content catalogue includes an identifier, title,
description, date, source, and language. The content catalogue is
defined and implemented by a group of database tables. The
catalogue table includes the attributes for content items. The
subject reference (or key words) and the type reference (the
different content types for a different customer contact point)
attributes are stored in separate tables so that each attribute may
have multiple values and may be extended independently. Separate
tables allow for a faster search by an individual value in each
field.
[0073] FIG. 6 illustrates an overall data schema in data repository
175 in accordance with one embodiment of the invention. It will be
appreciated that other suitable data schemes may be used. Content
management system 176 includes user targeting and access control
components. Content items are targeted by user groups. User access
control is applied based upon content collections. User access
control is applied based on user groups. It will be appreciated
that personalization subsystem 170 is extensible. Therefore,
additional components may be added to personalization subsystem 170
to improve the personalized service offered to a customer.
[0074] FIG. 7 illustrates a flow diagram for customer service
recommendations for different service points in accordance with one
embodiment of the invention. At block 500, the operation starts
from a specific service point such as a routing manager, an agent
desktop server, an outbound campaign manager, or other service
point using its unique service point identifier. At block 510, a
customer profile and corresponding references are accessed from the
user profile server based upon a customer's ID. At block 520, the
customer profile and the corresponding preferences are sent to
analysis engine 174. Analysis engine 174 generates at least one
recommended item. At block 530, a recommended item or recommended
items are accessed and listed by item IDs. At block 540, the proper
type of content for each recommended item is retrieved by service
points such as routing manager 182, agent desktop server 184, and
outbound campaign manager 186 from the content management system
based upon the item ID and the service point ID. At block 550, the
recommended items are used by the service point. This means that
the service point performs an action in response to a recommended
item. For example, a recommended item to routing manager 182 may
cause routing manager 182 to route a customer to a particular
agent.
[0075] FIG. 8 illustrates a flow diagram for content retrieval
inside the content management system 176 with access control in
accordance with one embodiment of the invention. At block 600, a
content requester's ID and content item ID are inputted by an
application which obtains these IDs from previous steps or from the
service content. At block 610, it is determined that the content
item(s) belong to which content collection due to content access
control. At block 630, the group list should be found such that the
group in the group list allows read access to the content
collection. At block 640, the group list to which the content
requester belongs must be determined. At block 650, if the union of
the two lists is not empty such as when the user has "read" access
based upon the meaning of two lists, then the item content must be
retrieved based upon the service point ID. Otherwise, the content
is not retrieved.
[0076] FIG. 9 illustrates a flow diagram in which customer dynamic
attributes for the user profile are updated in real-time in
accordance with one embodiment of the invention. At operation 700,
the user profile server sends a user ID to the analysis engine. At
block 710, the analysis engine responds with a list of customer
attributes that may be either dynamic attributes or static
attributes. At block 720, the user profile server updates the
current dynamic attributes for the user. For example, new
attributes may be added and obsolete attributes may be deleted.
[0077] FIG. 10 illustrates a flow diagram in which persistent
customer attributes are updated for the user profile server based
upon service history analysis in accordance with one embodiment of
the invention. Service history analysis relates to the goods or
services purchased in past transactions. Service history may
pertain to the particular service history of a particular customer
or a group of customers.
[0078] At block 800, the user profile server sends a user ID and
the persistent attribute (e.g., preferred contact media, contact
address, etc.) that should be updated to the analysis engine. At
operation 810, the analysis engine responds with an updated
attribute value which is sent back to the user profile server. At
block 820, the user profile server updates a persistent attribute
in the data repository and in the run-time environment of the
service engine.
[0079] In the preceding detailed description, the invention is
described with reference to specific embodiments thereof. It will,
however, be evident that various modifications and changes may be
made thereto without departing from the broader spirit and scope of
the invention as set forth in the claims. The specification and
drawings are, accordingly, to be regarded in an illustrative rather
than a restrictive sense.
* * * * *