System and method for matching a customer and a customer service assistant

Abstract

Matching a customer with a representative is performed for assisting the customer with an issue. Information related to the customer, the issue, historical information, and other customer information may be used to determine a likely issue. A representative may be selected in real-time to assist the customer in resolving the issue based on the customers experience in resolve the same or similar issues to the likely issue and the information related to the customer and the representative may be updated dynamically in real-time.

Having thus described various embodiments of the invention, what is claimed as new and desired to be protected by Letters Patent includes the following: 
     
         1 . A method of matching a user with a representative for providing support to the user, the method comprising:
 receiving user information relating to the user;   receiving issue-related information on a user-experienced issue of the user;   storing, on a storage device, the user information and the issue-related information;   calculating a plurality of representative rankings corresponding to a plurality of representatives based at least in part on a first success rate of the plurality of representatives in resolving issues that are similar to the user-experienced issue and an overall average time to resolve the issues;   automatically selecting a chosen representative from the plurality of representatives, based on the plurality of representative rankings;   receiving user feedback from the user based on a user experience of the user with the chosen representative; and   updating a representative profile of the chosen representative in real time based on a user satisfaction score from the user feedback, including updating a chosen representative ranking based on the user feedback and a length of time to resolve the user-experienced issue.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the user information is received via a graphical user interface, further comprising:
 receiving interaction information related to a user interaction with the graphical user interface.   
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 2 , further comprising:
 predicting a predicted issue based on a user profile of the user;   computing a confidence level that the predicted issue is the user-experienced issue;   updating the confidence level based on one or more responses received from the user comprising additional information relating to the user-experienced issue; and   determining a likely resolution to the user-experienced issue based at least in part on the user information, the issue-related information, the user profile, and the interaction information related to the user interaction with the graphical user interface.   
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 3 , further comprising:
 presenting to the user an option to select, in real time, between a highly-ranked representative in a tier that is above a representative threshold and a first-available representative, said first-available representative having a lower wait time than the highly-ranked representative but ranked lower than the highly-ranked representative; and   in response to presenting the option, receiving a user input from the user whether to engage with the highly-ranked representative or the first-available representative.   
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the user information is received from the user via a telephone interface. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 determining a plurality of category scores for each of the plurality of representatives corresponding to a plurality of categories.   
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 6 , wherein the plurality of categories comprises:
 an investments category,   a retirement category, and   an assets category.   
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 7 , further comprising:
 determining a category of the plurality of categories that corresponds to the user-experienced issue.   
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 determining a time availability for a respective representative of the plurality of representatives based at least in part on a current status of the respective representative and an average time to complete for the respective representative.   
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the user-experienced issue is associated with a tax application and the user information comprises tax information. 
     
     
         11 . The method of  claim 10 , wherein the plurality of representatives comprises tax professionals. 
     
     
         12 . One or more non-transitory computer-readable media including computer-executable instructions that, when executed on at least one processor perform a method of matching a user with a representative for providing support to the user, the method comprising:
 receiving user information relating to the user via a graphical user interface;   receiving issue-related information on a user-experienced issue of the user via the graphical user interface;   calculating a plurality of representative rankings corresponding to a plurality of representatives based at least in part on a first success rate of the plurality of representatives in resolving issues that are similar to the user-experienced issue and an overall average time to resolve the issues;   automatically selecting a chosen representative from the plurality of representatives, based on the plurality of representative rankings;   receiving user feedback from the user based on a user experience of the user with the chosen representative; and   updating a representative profile of the chosen representative in real time based on a user satisfaction score from the user feedback and a category of the user-experienced issue, including updating a chosen representative ranking based on the user feedback and a length of time to resolve the user-experienced issue.   
     
     
         13 . The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of  claim 12 , wherein the method further comprises:
 determining the category that corresponds to the user-experienced issue from a plurality of issue categories.   
     
     
         14 . The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of  claim 13 , wherein the chosen representative ranking is updated with respect to the category that corresponds to the user-experienced issue. 
     
     
         15 . The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of  claim 14 , wherein the plurality of issue categories comprises:
 an investments category,   a retirement category, and   an assets category.   
     
     
         16 . The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of  claim 12 , wherein the method further comprises:
 storing, on a storage device, the user information and the issue-related information.   
     
     
         17 . The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of  claim 12 , wherein the method further comprises:
 determining an amount of time since a last experience in resolving a class of issues that are similar to the user-experienced issue for the chosen representative; and   further updating the representative profile of the chosen representative based at least in part on the time since the last experience in resolving the class of issues that are similar to the user-experienced issue.   
     
     
         18 . The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of  claim 17 , wherein the method further comprises:
 determining a frequency of experience in resolving the class of issues that are similar to the user-experienced issue for the chosen representative,   wherein the representative profile is updated based further in part on the frequency of resolving the class of issues that are similar to the user-experienced issue.   
     
     
         19 . The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of  claim 12 , wherein the method further comprises:
 comparing a wait time associated with the chosen representative with one or more wait times of other representatives of the plurality of representatives.   
     
     
         20 . A system comprising at least one processor and at least one non-transitory computer-readable media storing computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, perform a method for matching a user with a representative for providing support to the user, the method comprising:
 receiving user information relating to the user via a graphical user interface;   receiving issue-related information on a user-experienced issue of the user via the graphical user interface;   storing, on a storage device, the user information and the issue-related information;   calculating a plurality of representative rankings corresponding to plurality of representatives based at least in part on a first success rate of the plurality of representatives in resolving issues that are similar to the user-experienced issue and an overall average time to resolve the issues;   automatically selecting a chosen representative from the plurality of representatives, based on the plurality of representative rankings;   receiving user feedback from the user based on a user experience of the user with the chosen representative; and   updating a representative profile of the chosen representative in real time based on a user satisfaction score from the user feedback and a category of the user-experienced issue, including updating a chosen representative ranking corresponding to the category of the user-experienced issue based on the user feedback and a length of time to resolve the user-experienced issue.