Patent Issued for AI assistant for interacting with customers across multiple communication modes (USPTO 11134150): United Services Automobile Association

2021 OCT 15 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- A patent by the inventors Maestas, Jerry John (San Antonio, TX, US), filed on April 6, 2020, was published online on September 28, 2021, according to news reporting originating from Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx correspondents.

Patent number 11134150 is assigned to United Services Automobile Association (San Antonio, Texas, United States).

The following quote was obtained by the news editors from the background information supplied by the inventors: “Customers often interact with one or more agents of a company to meet a desired need or goal. Customers can interact with sales agents to learn about and purchase one or more services or products. Customers may interact with agents to obtain answers to questions. In the field of insurance, customers may interact with agents as part of an insurance claim process. Moreover, different interactions may take place over different kinds of communication modes. Interactions can occur over the phone, by email or by text, for example.

“Agents may use tools to facilitate customer interactions. Some of these tools may be provided as part of a customer relationship management (CMR) software package. However, CMR software and related tools are often customized for a particular task or communication mode. An agent may need to manually initiate one set of processes for interactions that take place over the phone, and another set of processes for interactions that take place through a chat-based service.

“In addition, each customer interaction is treated as an individual event with little to no context. For each new interaction, access to information about previous interactions with the customer may be limited or completely unavailable. This may result in a sense of discontinuity and frustration for a customer who may need to re-explain something to different agents at different times, and may also prevent the company from observing a larger context within which customer information, including preferences and other trends, may be visible.

“There is a need in the art for a system and method that addresses the shortcomings discussed above.”

In addition to the background information obtained for this patent, NewsRx journalists also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “In one aspect, a method of assisting an agent in interacting with a customer over multiple communication modes, the assistance being performed by an artificially intelligent assistant, includes the steps of monitoring the interaction between the agent and the customer, where the interaction occurs by a first communication mode. The method also includes analyzing information related to the interaction and generating an assistive action, the assistive action requiring the use of a second communication mode that is different than the first communication mode. The method also includes performing the assistive action, where part of performing the assistive action includes establishing communication with the customer through the second communication mode.

“In another aspect, a method of assisting an agent in an interaction with a customer, the assistance being performed by an artificially intelligent assistant, includes the steps of monitoring the interaction between the agent and the customer and analyzing information related to the interaction and generating an assistive action. The method also includes notifying the agent about the assistive action and performing the assistive action.

“In another aspect, a method of assisting an agent in an interaction with a customer, the assistance being performed by an artificially intelligent assistant, includes the steps of retrieving a first set of information about a previous interaction with the customer, monitoring a current customer interaction with an agent and extracting a second set of information related to the current customer interaction and analyzing the first set of information and a second set of information and generating an assistive action. The method also includes notifying the agent about the assistive action and performing the assistive action.

“Other systems, methods, features, and advantages of the disclosure will be, or will become, apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art upon examination of the following figures and detailed description. It is intended that all such additional systems, methods, features, and advantages be included within this description and this summary, be within the scope of the disclosure, and be protected by the following claims.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A method of assisting an agent in interacting with a customer over multiple communication modes, the assistance being performed by an artificially intelligent assistant, comprising the steps of: analyzing information related to a plurality of interactions between at least one agent and at least one customer to train the artificially intelligent assistant; based on the analyzed information, generating a plurality of assistive actions, wherein each assistive action is associated with a particular communication mode that is different for each assistive action; monitoring an interaction between an agent and a customer, the interaction occurring by a first communication mode; analyzing information related to the interaction between the agent and the customer and generating a selected assistive action from the plurality of assistive actions, the selected assistive action requiring the use of a second communication mode that is the particular communication mode associated with the selected assistive action; and performing the selected assistive action, wherein part of performing the selected assistive action includes establishing communication with the customer through the second communication mode, wherein the second communication mode is different than the first communication mode.

“2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the first communication mode is a phone call.

“3. The method according to claim 2, wherein the second communication mode is an email.

“4. The method according to claim 2, wherein the second communication mode is a short message service.

“5. The method according to claim 2, wherein the second communication mode is mediated by a chat application.

“6. The method according to claim 1, wherein the first communication mode is mediated by a chat application.

“7. The method according to claim 6, wherein the second communication mode is a phone call.

“8. The method according to claim 6, wherein the second communication mode is an email.

“9. The method according to claim 1, wherein the selected assistive action is chosen based on an amount of information that the agent is sending to the customer.

“10. The method according to claim 1, wherein analyzing information to train the artificially intelligent assistant includes inputting the information into a machine learning model; and wherein the output of the machine learning model is used to generate the plurality of assistive actions.

“11. The method according to claim 1, wherein at least one of the plurality of assistive actions is associated with an Internet of Things enabled device belonging to the customer.

“12. A system for assisting an agent in interacting with a customer over multiple communication modes, the system comprising: a communication network configured to allow communication between an agent and a customer over multiple communication modes; and an artificially intelligent assistant, wherein the artificially intelligent assistant is configured to: analyze information related to a plurality of interactions between at least one agent and at least one customer to train the artificially intelligent assistant; based on the analyzed information, generate a plurality of assistive actions, wherein each assistive action is associated with a particular communication mode that is different for each assistive action; monitor an interaction between an agent and a customer, the interaction occurring by a first communication mode; analyze information related to the interaction between the agent and the customer and generate a selected assistive action from the plurality of assistive actions, the selected assistive action requiring the use of a second communication mode that is the particular communication mode associated with the selected assistive action; and perform the selected assistive action, wherein part of performing the selected assistive action includes establishing communication with the customer through the second communication mode, wherein the second communication mode is different than the first communication mode.

“13. The system according to claim 12, wherein the artificially intelligent assistant is implemented on a centralized computer system.

“14. The system according to claim 12, wherein the artificially intelligent assistant is implemented through a cloud computing service.

“15. The system according to claim 12, wherein the artificially intelligent assistant is configured to analyze information to train the artificially intelligent assistant by inputting the information into a machine learning model; and wherein the output of the machine learning model is used to generate the plurality of assistive actions.

“16. The system according to claim 12, further comprising at least one Internet of Things enabled device belonging to the customer; and wherein at least one of the plurality of assistive actions is associated with the Internet of Things enabled device belonging to the customer.”

URL and more information on this patent, see: Maestas, Jerry John. AI assistant for interacting with customers across multiple communication modes. U.S. Patent Number 11134150, filed April 6, 2020, and published online on September 28, 2021. Patent URL: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=11134150.PN.&OS=PN/11134150RS=PN/11134150

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