Patent Issued for AI assistant for interacting with customers across multiple communication modes (USPTO 11758046): United Services Automobile Association

2023 OCT 03 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- According to news reporting originating from Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx journalists, a patent by the inventors Maestas, Jerry John (San Antonio, TX, US), filed on June 28, 2021, was published online on September 12, 2023.

The assignee for this patent, patent number 11758046, is United Services Automobile Association (San Antonio, Texas, United States).

Reporters obtained the following quote 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 obtaining background information on this patent, NewsRx editors 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 training an artificially intelligent assistant to generate assistive actions associated with communication modes to be used to assist an agent in an interaction with a customer, the method comprising the steps of: analyzing information related to a plurality of training 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 and a plurality of communication modes between an agent and a customer, wherein each assistive action of the plurality of assistive actions is associated with a particular communication mode of the plurality of communication modes between an agent and a customer that is different for each assistive action; wherein at least one assistive action of the plurality of assistive actions is associated with a new communication mode between an agent and a customer that was not previously available during an interaction between an agent and a customer.

“2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the training interactions are based on historical interactions between at least one agent and at least one customer.

“3. The method according to claim 1, wherein the training interactions are based on simulated interactions between agents and customers.

“4. The method according to claim 1, wherein the particular communication mode is based on an amount of information that an agent is sending to a customer.

“5. The method according to claim 1, wherein an interaction between an agent and a customer occurs over a first communication mode between the agent and the customer; wherein each assistive action of the plurality of assistive actions requires the use of a second communication mode between the agent and the customer that is the particular communication mode associated with the assistive action; and wherein performing the assistive action includes establishing communication with the customer through the second communication mode, wherein the second communication mode includes the new communication mode and wherein the second communication mode is different than the first communication mode.

“6. The method according to claim 5, wherein the first communication mode is a phone call.

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

“8. The method according to claim 6, wherein the second communication mode is a short message service.

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

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

“11. The method according to claim 10, wherein the second communication mode is a phone call.

“12. The method according to claim 10, wherein the second communication mode is an email.

“13. A method of training an artificially intelligent assistant to generate assistive actions associated with communication modes to be used to assist an agent in an interaction with a customer, the method comprising the steps of: analyzing information related to a plurality of training interactions between at least one agent and at least one customer to train the artificially intelligent assistant, wherein the plurality of training interactions includes at least one of (1) historical interactions between at least one agent and at least one customer, or (2) simulated interactions between agents and customers; based on the analyzed information, generating a plurality of outputs, wherein each output represents an assistive action associated with a particular communication mode between an agent and a customer; wherein the particular communication mode is different for each assistive action; and wherein at least one assistive action of the plurality of outputs is associated with a new communication mode between an agent and a customer that was not previously available during an interaction between an agent and a customer.

“14. The method according to claim 13, wherein the plurality of outputs includes a first output, a second output, a third output, and a fourth output.

“15. The method according to claim 14, wherein the first output corresponds to an assistive action where the artificially intelligent assistant prepares and sends information to the customer using a short message service.

“16. The method according to claim 14, wherein the second output corresponds to an assistive action where the artificially intelligent assistant prepares and sends an email to the customer.

“17. The method according to claim 14, wherein the third output corresponds to an assistive action where the artificially intelligent assistant prepares and sends messages to the customer using a messaging application.

“18. The method according to claim 14, wherein the fourth output corresponds to an assistive action where the artificially intelligent assistant receives information from an Internet of Things enabled device.

“19. The method according to claim 13, wherein the particular communication mode for the assistive action is based on an amount of information that an agent is sending to a customer.

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

For more information, see this patent: Maestas, Jerry John. AI assistant for interacting with customers across multiple communication modes. U.S. Patent Number 11758046, filed June 28, 2021, and published online on September 12, 2023. Patent URL (for desktop use only): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/external.html?q=(11758046)&db=USPAT&type=ids

(Our reports deliver fact-based news of research and discoveries from around the world.)