Abstract: A customer service robot may be limited to a maximum physical ability, such as speed of travel, speed of a robotic arm, etc. However, certain customers may be uncomfortable with a robot operating at the maximum capacity. Accordingly, a customer may have an attribute associated with a performance-limiting criteria. The criteria then limits the robot to operations within operational parameters associated with the performance-limiting criteria. As a benefit, a robot may be transformed to provide a better customer service experience by working quickly to address a customer service task, but within the confines of what a particular customer, or customer type, may consider comfortable or acceptable.

Abstract: A customer service robot may be selected, or configured, to address a particular work item. Robots may comprise different functionality due to absent software or hardware or due to existent but worn or non-compliant components. A particular work item may have several means of resolution. A particular resolution path is selected in accord with the ability of a robot. Should no path exist, the robot may be transformed by the addition or installation of hardware and/or software to provide the absent functionality. Resolution paths may also be weighted based on the level of success provided by prior resolution paths and/or the requirement for human involvement. Accordingly, a resolution path may be provided that balances robot capability with the likelihood of success and an appropriate level of human involvement.

Abstract: A service robot is provided to communicate with other devices of a service location, such as another robot. A first and second robot may be tasked with performing a customer service task requiring a physical interaction. The first robot may determine that the second robot lacks instructions to perform the customer service task. Upon making the determination, the first robot retrieves physical interaction instructions and causes the second robot to load and execute the physical interaction instructions. The second robot is then transformed, by the first robot, into a configured robot able to perform the customer service task.

Abstract: Methods, devices, and systems for dynamically changing between contexts running simultaneously on a single communication device, such as a mobile communication device. More particularly, each context can be run as a virtual machine on the same communication device and context-related parameters can be used to determine which context or combination of contexts should be applied at a particular time.

Abstract: The sentiment of a message may not be obtainable from the message itself. However, many messages have an associated context that provides information useful in determining the sentiment of a message. Messages may include links to other resources, such as graphics or videos, which in turn include titles, comments, viewer ratings or other attributes that may provide a sentiment of the message.

Abstract: Banks and other financial institutions struggle to determine when to authorize and when to deny a transaction, such as credit card transactions, for customers. Customers, such as those who travel infrequently or otherwise make purchases at unusual locations, may have transactions denied at such locations. Conversely, stolen credit cards or their numbers, are often utilized in atypical locations for the customer. The provision of a secondary indicator of the customer's location to a bank, such as via an application or a check-in operation on a social media website, allows the bank to determine that the customer is likely at a location associated with a prospective transaction. Confirming a customer's location via a check-in operation, which may require the customer's device and/or social media credentials, provides an extra level of security while minimizing undue denial of legitimate transactions.

Abstract: Contact centers often balance the business needs to efficiently operate with the objective of providing timely service to customers interacting with the contact center. Often contact centers are unable to connect customers to live agents without a period of hold time, usually to wait for an agent to become available. Automated resources, such as interactive voice response or automated text-based response components, may gather information from the customer. When an estimated wait time for a live agent is longer than the estimated time required to perform that automated interaction, artificial delays (e.g., slow-downs, pauses, echoes, etc.) may be inserted to keep the customer engaged in an effort to retain the customer beyond an estimated abandonment time.

Abstract: A dialog aggregator provided by a contact center communication system for text-based interaction chains is described along with various methods and mechanisms for administering the same. The dialog aggregator produces a summary, in real-time, of questions posed and existing answers in the interaction chain while identifying outstanding questions that have not been answered for display to an agent. The display includes any current answer the agent is working on as well as completed items and additionally executes rules based on the status of the remaining questions. The display in canonical form of the summary and outstanding question set enables a contact center agent or other observer of the interaction to quickly and efficiently assess the interaction history.

Abstract: Contact centers strive to provide quality customer service in a timely manner as well as to maintain profitability to ensure continued business operations. Having optimal agents available to accept every work item a customer may have is expensive and, when such skills are unneeded, wasteful. Once a work item is received, an optimal agent or agents are identified; however, if the wait time is unacceptable, the work item may be passed to a suboptimal agent who is able to process a portion of the work item. Once the optimal agent becomes available, the work item is joined by the optimal agent or, alternatively, a second non-optimal agent is brought in to address a second portion of the work item.

Abstract: Co-browsing sessions provide a way for one party to see exactly what is being displayed on another party's computer or similar device. Co-browsing is particularly useful to an agent to help a customer solve a problem on a computer. Contact centers may determine portions of a co-browsing session that have been successful, capture the associated inputs, and have them play back to future customers. The agent may then be relieved from portions of the co-browsing interaction that are predictable and provide manual inputs having less predictability. The instructions for the automated co-browsing portions may be executed by the agent's device, the customer's device, and/or a server and may appear to the customer to be originating from the agent.

Abstract: An automated system for message analysis whereby messages within a given category may be identified and processed as a category connote. While a domain of messages may be monitored and processed in the due course of business, connote message are different. For example, a number of messages may fall into a domain of “poor airline food.” Such messages may be processed in the due course of business. However, a message with a different aspect, such as, “I found glass in my food,” may be initially identified as begin within the domain of “poor airline food,” and processed further to distinguish the message as being a connote with regard to the “poor airline food” category and warranting special handling.

Abstract: Many factors can affect the operation of a contact center, especially contact centers utilizing human agents. An agent's health may be utilized as a predictor of performance with respect to a particular task. Having sensors to gather health data are provided. The data may then be aggregated into a long-term health trend, which may be determined to indicate that a change in an agent's performance is likely and may allow the contact center to reallocate tasks and/or other resources to accommodate the change in performance to mitigate the effect of the change in the agent's health. Work tasks are then routed to agents accordingly.

Abstract: Contact centers strive to match the demands and preferences of their customers with the skills and abilities of the agents who process work items associated with the customers (e.g., contacts). However, the preferred agent may be unavailable, non-existent, backlogged or otherwise ineligible to accept the work item. An agent who is non-preferred but still qualified may be utilized to process the work item, such as an agent with adequate skills with respect to a particular attribute of the work item. Reports for the selection of the non-preferred but qualified agents are provided herein. A contact center may then utilize such reporting to identify underserved areas of their customer base.

Abstract: The delivery of goods to a customer comprises a substantial portion of human activity. To correct address errors and/or to more precisely locate delivery locations, systems are provided to assist human, human operated vehicle, or autonomous vehicles to locate a delivery point. Often the location of a delivery point is inaccurate or imprecise. GPS and other coordinate systems often fail or are imprecise without an unobstructed view of the sky. Even with coordinates available, the delivery point may be different from the coordinates or, more commonly, coordinates that are different from some standard point within a postal address associated with the coordinates. Providing a delivery system that utilizes a broadcasted identifier, such as an identifier associated with the order of the item, the delivery of the item may be made proximate to the source of the broadcasted identifier or further refined using the broadcasted identifier as a reference.

Abstract: Allocation of resources utilized by a contact center remains a balancing act between the burden of having resources that are generally underutilized and underperforming due to resource constraints. Many contact centers support a variety of communication types (e.g., audio-video, audio, text, email, etc.) associated with a respective communication channel. Communications may be dynamically incentivized or allocated from one communication channel having greater resource demands to another communication channel having lesser resource demands. Additionally, the resources of the contact center may be shared by customers of clients utilizing the contact center. As a result, one customer having a spike in demand may have their, and/or another customer's, communications reallocated to the less demanding channel to manage contact center resource utilization.

Abstract: An agent may be qualified to perform a number of tasks, each requiring different levels of mental and/or physical ability. Prior to scheduling the agent to work a particular task, a scheduling process receives biometric data for the agent and, based on the biometric data and the demands of the various tasks, schedules the agent to work on one task versus another task. As a benefit, the agent's present abilities and/or impairments may be better utilized by scheduling the agent to perform tasks for which they are better suited and/or not scheduling the agent to perform tasks for which they are less well suited. Agents may be incentivized to provide the biometric data and/or maintain their ability to be able to perform certain tasks.

Abstract: Even with the best efforts to design and deliver accurate systems with usable interfaces, customers often encounter difficulties in completing a task using an electronic device, such as completing a form on a web page, using a software application, or navigating an interface. This may be due to a programming error, inaccurate instructions, or an unusual situation not contemplated by the programmers or designers. Without interaction with a human agent, a cue may be provided to the user upon detection of an issue for completing the task. A co-browse operation may be automatically initiated to provide a cue selected in accord with the issue that thereby allows the user to complete the task.

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.

Abstract: Contact centers employ agents to provide services to customers. In particular, artificial agents are provided that have a rich background and continuing life with the realm of social media. The artificial agent's profile is selected in accord with the profiles of current or prospective customers. As the customers age and progress in life, the artificial agent profile is updated in accord with the customers' changing profiles and similarly ages and progresses in life. When a customer desires to interact with artificial agent, for a purpose provided by a contact center, a human agent may be provided the profile and/or history of the artificial agent so as to impersonate the artificial agent and promote the relationship with the customer.

Abstract: The delivery of goods to a customer comprises a substantial portion of human activity. To correct address errors and/or to more precisely locate delivery locations, systems are provided to assist human, human operated vehicle, or autonomous vehicles to locate a delivery point. Often the location of a delivery point is inaccurate or imprecise. GPS and other coordinate systems often fail or are imprecise without an unobstructed view of the sky. Even with coordinates available, the delivery point may be different from the coordinates or, more commonly, coordinates that are different from some standard point within a postal address associated with the coordinates. Providing a delivery system that utilizes a broadcasted identifier, such as an identifier associated with the order of the item, the delivery of the item may be made proximate to the source of the broadcasted identifier or further refined using the broadcasted identifier as a reference.