Abstract: A method and apparatus for providing Web advertisements to online users is disclosed. A balanced set of negative data points and positive data points is derived from a log of Ad impressions and used to train a classifier. In response to an Ad request signal, a plurality of Ads is retrieved from a database. The Ad request signal indicates a request to provide an Ad for a slot available on a Web page associated with a website. The signal is provided in relation to an access of the Web page by an online user and includes information related to the online user. A choice of an Ad is predicted based on the information related to the online user and the plurality of Ads. The Ad is provided to a Web server to cause display of the Ad on the slot when the Web page is displayed to the online user.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for providing assistance to customers seeking assistance from agents of an enterprise is disclosed. The method includes receiving a signal indicating the caller's wish to speak with a live agent associated with the enterprise to seek the assistance from the live agent. In response to a receipt of the signal, it is determined whether at least one live agent from among a plurality of live agents associated with the enterprise is available for a voice interaction with the caller. Subsequent to determining that no live agent from among the plurality of live agents is currently available for the voice interaction with the caller, the caller is diverted to an asynchronous messaging channel. A textual messaging-based interaction is facilitated between a messaging agent and the caller on the asynchronous messaging channel to provide the assistance to the caller.

Abstract: A context sensitive slider content area provides a slide out mechanism that is automatically actuated when additional information is needed during a chat session between an agent and a visitor, e.g. where a pre-chat and/or exit form is to be completed. The context sensitive slide out content area also provides problem resolution information to the visitor to help in solving problems, e.g. the top five problems; and also provides a self-service step-by-step wizard. A history section is provided with which the visitor can track back all previous steps carried out within the smart client. A history bar provides an iconic representation of all previous activities. A technique is also disclosed for executing various actions, such as form filling or requests for additional services, in a chat session.

Abstract: A computer-implemented method and an apparatus for notifying customers of agent's availability is disclosed. An input indicative of a customer seeking an interaction with an agent of an enterprise is received on a first interaction channel. Subsequent to receiving the input, it is determined whether at least one agent is available for interacting with the customer. If no agent is available for interacting with the customer, a status message including an estimate of a waiting time for the interaction with the agent is provided to the customer. Subsequent to detecting the availability of the agent, a notification is provided to the customer for informing the customer of the availability of the agent. An interaction is facilitated between the customer and the agent subsequent to providing the notification to the customer. The interaction is facilitated on the first interaction channel or a second interaction channel different than the first interaction channel.

Abstract: A chat console includes a chat portion and at least one portion corresponding to an enterprise system application. The chat portion displays text related to a chat interaction between the agent and a customer in real-time in an ongoing manner. The portion related to the enterprise system application displays data relevant to the chat interaction fetched from a respective enterprise system application. The agent console operatively communicates with three enterprise system applications, such that data relevant to the current chat interaction is fetched from each of the three enterprise system applications and displayed in a respective portion within the agent console.

Abstract: A computer-implemented method and an apparatus facilitate user chat interactions. A chat widget offering chat-based assistance is displayed on one or more Web pages of an enterprise Website. In response to a user selection of the chat widget, a chat window is displayed at a first predetermined position on a Web page. The chat window is repositioned to a second predetermined position in response to a user input indicative of provisioning of a text input. The repositioning of the chat window enables display of a virtual keyboard. The placement of the chat window and the virtual keyboard enables the user to view a substantial portion of the Web page. The chat window is caused to scroll with the Web page in response to a Web page scroll input provided by the user and slide back to a previous position subsequent to completion of a scroll movement of the Web page.

Abstract: A computer-implemented method and an apparatus for providing customer notification detects the presence of a customer in one or more interaction channels from among a plurality of interaction channels. The presence of the customer in the one or more interaction channels is stored as presence information. Attention information corresponding to the customer is determined in connection with the presence information. The attention information indicates a current attention of the customer. A notification is provided to the customer on an interaction channel from among the plurality of interaction channels over which the customer is identified to be active or most likely to be active, based on the presence information and the attention information.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for facilitating interactions between customers and agents are disclosed that include detecting whether a customer is present on a website related to an enterprise. The detection is performed subsequent to an initiation of an interaction with an agent by the customer. When the customer is detected to be present, an option is provided to the agent to offer co-browsing of the web site to the customer. In response to an acceptance of the offer by the customer, a co-browsing session is initiated for facilitating the co-browsing of the website. Digital content is generated based on at least one of the ongoing co-browsing session and the interaction between the customer and the agent and display of the digital content by the agent to the customer is caused. The digital content is displayed during the ongoing co-browsing session to provide assistance to the customer.

Abstract: A method and system for authenticating customers on call are disclosed. The method includes providing a notification to a customer on an electronic device associated with the customer. The notification is provided in response to the customer placing a call for seeking an interaction with an agent of an enterprise. The notification is configured to trigger authentication of the customer using an application on the electronic device. A status of the authentication of the customer is received from the application on the electronic device and, if the status of the authentication of the customer is a success, the call is connected to the agent to facilitate the interaction between the customer and the agent.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for facilitating training of agents is disclosed. Raw transcripts representing textual form of interactions between the agents and customers of the enterprise are transformed to generate transformed transcripts. An interaction summary is generated in relation to each transformed transcript. A plurality of intent-based interaction clusters are derived using the interaction summary generated in relation to each transformed transcript. The plurality of interactions are classified based on the plurality of intent-based interaction clusters and an interaction flow map is generated for each intent-based interaction cluster based on the interactions classified into the respective intent-based interaction cluster. The generated interaction flow map is capable of facilitating training of agents for interacting with the customers of the enterprise.

Abstract: A method and an apparatus for provisioning optimized content to customers are disclosed. The method includes determining at least one attribute associated with a customer active on a web interface associated with an enterprise. A plurality of baseline contents and a plurality of content elements are accessed from a database and at least one baseline content and at least one content element are selected based on the at least one attribute associated with the customer. A customized advertisement is generated using the at least one baseline content and the at least one content element.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for facilitating a turn-based interaction between a virtual agent and a customer of an enterprise are disclosed. The method includes receiving a conversational input provided by the customer during a turn-based interaction between the customer and the agent. One or more conversational inputs exchanged between the customer and the agent prior to the customer's conversational input are identified by positioning a virtual bounding box of fixed width over textual representation of the turn-based interaction. The conversational input and the one or more conversational inputs configure a set of conversational inputs. At least one context vector representation is generated based on an encoding of the set of conversational inputs. Each word of a virtual agent reply is predicted based on the at least one context vector representation. The virtual agent reply is provided to the customer in response to the conversational input of the customer.

Abstract: An enterprise application integration system (EAIS) is disclosed that enables customer service applications to access and share data with enterprise information systems in real time.

Abstract: A system and a process using that system is provided for creating, analyzing and optimizing a customer journey. The process includes real-time creation and continuing analysis of an “Event Sequence Index,” (ESI) corresponding to a time-stamped labeled set of data points representing cumulative events along the customer journey. The data points are further associated with channels, which are modes of interaction between the customer and the organization, and mapped into a linked directed graph which is amenable to analysis through a recursive pattern matching method, such as a non-deterministic finite automaton, employing DQL (Distributed Query Language). Selected portions of these graphs can be identified, either statistically or causally, as signatures of highly satisfactory or unsatisfactory outcomes and may be stored in memory as real-time predictors of the course of a present customer experience and to suggest statistically feasible and effective interventions.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for facilitating persona-based agent interactions with online visitors is disclosed. A plurality of persona related attributes is extracted from a textual transcript of each interaction between an agent of an enterprise and an online visitor. A feature vector data representation is generated based on the plurality of persona related attributes extracted from each interaction to configure a plurality of feature vector data representations. The plurality of feature vector data representations is classified based on a plurality of persona-based clusters, which enables classification of the plurality of online visitors into the plurality of persona-based clusters. A learning model is trained for each persona-based cluster using utterances of online visitors classified into a respective persona-based cluster. The learning model is trained to mimic a visitor persona representative of the respective persona-based cluster.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for managing agent interactions with customers of an enterprise are disclosed. The method includes generating a value representative of an emotional state of a customer engaged in an ongoing interaction with a virtual agent (VA) associated with the enterprise. The value is generated based, at least in part, on one or more inputs provided by the customer during the ongoing interaction. The value is compared with a predefined emotional threshold range to determine whether the emotional state of the customer is a non-neutral state. The ongoing interaction is deflected to one of a human agent and a specialized VA capable of empathetically handling the ongoing interaction if it is determined that the emotional state of the customer is the non-neutral state.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for selecting treatment for visitors to online enterprise channels are disclosed. The method includes receiving information related to a visitor and a current activity of the visitor on an online enterprise channel. The information is transformed to generate transformed data and a plurality of features is extracted from the transformed data. Using the plurality of features, it is determined whether a treatment when rendered to the visitor is capable of increasing a likelihood of the visitor performing a desired action during a current visit to the online enterprise channel. The treatment is selected and rendered if it is determined that the treatment is capable of increasing the likelihood of the visitor performing the desired action. No treatment is rendered if it is determined that no treatment from among the plurality of treatments is capable of increasing the likelihood of the visitor performing the desired action.

Abstract: A computer-implemented method and an apparatus reserve agents for enabling zero-waiting time agent interactions for customers requiring agent assistance. The method includes determining if a customer requires agent assistance. If it is determined that the customer requires agent assistance, then it is determined whether an agent associated with relevant skill is capable of being reserved for providing assistance to the customer. The determination of reservation of the agent is performed, at least in part, by generating a data structure representation. The agent is reserved for assisting the customer if it is determined that the agent is capable of being reserved for providing assistance to the customer. An offer for assistance is provisioned to the customer on at least one enterprise related interaction channel subsequent to the reservation of the agent. The reservation of the agent provides wait-less customer interaction with the agent upon customer acceptance of the offer.

Abstract: A mechanism for facilitating customer interactions within a customer service environment provides prompt and accurate answers to customer questions. A smart chat facility for use in a customer service environment to predict a customer problem examines a customer chat transcript to identify customer statements that set forth a customer issue and, responsive to this, can route the customer to an agent, an appropriate FAQ, or can implement a problem specific widget in the customer UI. Customer queries are matched with most correct responses and accumulated knowledge is used to predict a best response to future customer queries. The iterative system thus learns from each customer interaction and can adapt to customer responses over time to improve the accuracy of problem prediction.

Abstract: A mechanism for facilitating customer interactions within a customer service environment provides prompt and accurate answers to customer questions. A smart chat facility for use in a customer service environment to predict a customer problem examines a customer chat transcript to identify customer statements that set forth a customer issue and, responsive to this, can route the customer to an agent, an appropriate FAQ, or can implement a problem specific widget in the customer UI. Customer queries are matched with most correct responses and accumulated knowledge is used to predict a best response to future customer queries. The iterative system thus learns from each customer interaction and can adapt to customer responses over time to improve the accuracy of problem prediction.