Patent Application
20100131876
n/a
n/a
The present invention relates generally to virtual reality worlds, and in particular to a method and system for creating, selecting, and adapting the environment of a virtual reality contact center using a dynamic user interface.
Virtual reality communities provide a useful three-dimensional social networking interface that allows their users, known as residents, to interact with each other for social, entertainment, and business purposes. A virtual reality world, known as a metaverse, includes many characteristics of a real world environment, including buildings, roads, landscaping, weather, sights, sounds, and diverse groups of residents. The residents interact with each via their three-dimensional virtual images, known as avatars, providing an advanced interface for communication, mobility, and interaction with other residents in the virtual world. Residents can explore the metaverse, participate in virtual activities, create, buy, and sell goods, as well as provide services to other residents and groups in the virtual community.
In one virtual reality world, known as Second Life®, resident avatars typically have human characteristics. That is, avatars may be sized proportionally to the virtual environment and may have diverse features such as different clothes, weight, height, facial appearances, color, and other features that distinguish the avatars from one another. Traditionally, a resident selects an avatar from a stored database of avatars and uses that avatar to interact with the other residents. The avatars are typically monotone, and do not reflect the tone, mood, or experience of the resident. As such, when two or more avatars are communicating in Second Life®, the audible aspects of the communication are devoid of the emotions and experience of the residents.
The economy of Second Life® is conducted like real life commercial markets. Residents can buy or sell virtual goods, own virtual land, offer virtual services, and bargain. Virtual commercial establishments, known as contact centers, are locations where resident customers conduct business with each other via one or more avatars that operate the contacts centers. A contact center can also be any place a resident goes, whether to a bank, grocery store, or library. When a customer enters into a virtual contact center, the environment is pre-selected by the proprietor of contact center. For example, the design of the contact center, from the color of the walls, to the appearance of the waiting room seats, and even the customer service representative avatar, are all pre-selected by the contact center. As such, contact centers offer the same experience to every customer, regardless of their individual preferences.
Virtual contact centers also fail to provide personalized services to their virtual customers that are responsive to their individual needs and preferences. For example, a customer who is dissatisfied with a contact center service will receive the same experience from a customer service avatar as would a satisfied customer. Moreover, virtual contact centers also lack a dynamic environment that recalls the past experiences of their customers and adapts to their preferences, the result is that virtual contact centers fail to provide personalized service based on a customer's purchase history, avatar preferences, and overall contact center experience.
Therefore, what is needed is a system and method for creating, selecting, and adapting the customer representative, as well as the overall environment of a virtual contact center, based on a customer's preferences. Additionally, a method and system is needed that dynamically changes the environment of the contact center based upon a customer's preferences and past experiences, to offer personalized service at virtual contact centers.
It is to be understood that both the following summary and the detailed description are exemplary and explanatory and are intended to provide further explanation of the invention as claimed. Neither the summary nor the description that follows is intended to define or limit the scope of the invention to the particular features mentioned in the summary or in the description
In accordance with an aspect, the present invention provides a system for creating, selecting, and adapting the environment of a virtual reality contact center using a dynamic user interface. The system includes a central processing unit operating to provide a virtual world having a virtual contact center. A database is in operative communication with the central processing unit to store one or more established environmental characteristics based on a user's interactions with the virtual world. The central processing unit and the database further operate to present the virtual contact center having the one or more established environmental characteristics based on a user's interactions with the virtual world.
In accordance with another aspect, the present invention provides a method for creating, selecting, and adapting the environment of a virtual reality contact center using a dynamic user interface. The method includes evaluating a user's interaction with a virtual world. One or more environmental characteristics are established based on this interaction. A virtual contact center is provided having the one or more environmental characteristic based on the user's interaction with the virtual.
In accordance with yet another aspect, the present invention provides a method creating, selecting, and adapting the environment of a virtual reality contact center using a dynamic user interface. The method includes evaluating a first user interaction with a virtual world. One or more environmental characteristics are established based on this first interaction. A second interaction with the virtual world is evaluated. The one or more environmental characteristics are updated based on the second interaction with the virtual world. A virtual contact center is provided having the updated one or more environmental characteristics.
A more complete understanding of the present invention, and the attendant advantages and features thereof, will be more readily understood by reference to the following detailed description when considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings wherein:
Before describing in detail exemplary embodiments that are in accordance with the present invention, it is noted that the embodiments reside primarily in combinations of apparatus components and processing steps related to implementing a system and method for creating a dynamic virtual contact center. Accordingly, the system and method components have been represented where appropriate by conventional symbols in the drawings, showing only those specific details that are pertinent to understanding the embodiments of the present invention so as not to obscure the disclosure with details that will be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of the description herein.
As used herein, relational terms, such as “first” and “second,” “top” and “bottom,” and the like, may be used solely to distinguish one entity or element from another entity or element without necessarily requiring or implying any physical or logical relationship or order between such entities or elements.
Referring now to the drawings in which like reference designators refer to like elements, there is shown in
Continuing to refer to
Continuing to refer to
Operation of the present invention is described with reference to
For example, as shown in
The level of interest or preference that a user shows for a particular environmental characteristic 20 that may trigger a response from the server 12 may be variable. The server 12 response may be based on a pre-determined threshold, a dynamic threshold, or may be triggered by a user's selection. For example, when interacting with the plants, the server 12 may prompt the user as to whether the user would like to store the plants as an established environmental characteristic 20. The server 12 may also prompt the user to select environments where the user would like the plants to appear, such as a virtual contact center 16. Alternatively, the user may show sufficient interest in the plants, such that the server 12 establishes an environmental characteristic 20 without prompting the user for a selection.
Additionally, the established environmental characteristics 20 are not limited to visible virtual features 28 of the virtual world 14. For example, the environmental characteristics 20 may include the mood or tone of a customer service agent avatar 22. The user may prefer a customer service agent avatar in the virtual contact center 16 that speaks in a certain tone or calls the user by a certain name. The server 12 may store such environmental characteristics 20 in the database 18 and update the virtual contact center 16 to incorporate these features.
Now referring to
An exemplary method for creating a dynamic virtual contract in accordance with the principals of the present invention is discussed with reference to
These interactions are evaluated, for example by server 12, and one or more environmental characteristics 20 are established based on the user's interaction with the virtual world 14 (Step S102).
Alternatively, if the user had not selected a virtual feature 28, a determination can be made, based on predetermined criteria, which features may be established environmental characteristics 20 (Step S114). A user's interaction with a virtual contact center 16 customer service agent avatar may be observed and the user's mood or tone in response to various stimuli. The user may respond favorably to a female avatar with a soft tone and unfavorably to a male avatar with a firm tone. Interactions are monitored and observed to determine the established environmental characteristics 20 for each particular user. If the user then re-enters the same virtual contact center 16 or any other venue with a customer service representative, the method updates the customer service representative to incorporate the user's established environmental characteristics 20.
As the user gains experience in the virtual world 14, the established environmental characteristics 20 may be narrowly tailored to a specific user's behavior. For example, if during a first interaction with the virtual contact center 16 the user selected blue walls, the method may update the virtual contact center 16 to have all blue walls. However, if during a second interaction with the virtual contact center 16 the user selects yellow walls, the method may then compare the current selections with any prior selections and update the established environmental characteristics 20 (Step S116). In this example, the method may present a mix of either blue and yellow walls, green walls as the average of blue and yellow walls, or blue or yellow walls exclusively, depending on the frequency of prior selections or prior experience the user has with colors.
Now referring again to
If the user has limited or no experience with the virtual world 14 before entering the virtual contact center 16, a predetermined virtual contact center 34 is initialized with predetermined environmental characteristics 36. The predetermined environmental characteristics 36 may be, for example, based on a template or based on other virtual world 14 users' preferences. The predetermined virtual contact 34 may have an aggregate of user preferences and experiences within the virtual world 14 that may be updateable and tailored for each individual user. As the user gains experience in the virtual world 14 or in the virtual contact center 16, the predetermined environmental characteristics 36 are updated to incorporate the established one or more environmental characteristics 20.
The established environmental characteristics 20 for each virtual world 14 user can be stored (Step S106). The established environmental characteristics 20 may be stored in the database 18 and may further be organized into one or more categories. For example, avatars 22, colors 24, layouts 36, and virtual features 28, may all be stored separately for each user, or one or more these features may be merged to form a complex virtual contact center 16 that incorporates one or more of these merged features depending on the situation. For example, a user may prefer a female virtual contact center representative while experiencing one set of variables, or prefer a male while experiencing another set of variables. One or more of these environmental characteristics 20 may be stored as a categorized group that represents particular situations, and dynamically update these categories by adding or removing one or more of the environmental characteristics 20. For example, a user may prefer a female avatar with blue hair during the first interaction with the virtual world 14, but may prefer a female avatar with red hair during the second interaction with the virtual world. Moreover, as the user gains experience in the virtual world 14, the environmental characteristics may be updated in real time or updated in the database 18 (Step S108). Through several iterations, the virtual contact center 16 can be updated to incorporate the environmental characteristics for one or more situations (Step S110). The entire virtual contact center 16 may also be stored in the database 18 to provide for fast updating.
The addition of the established environmental characteristics 20 to the virtual contact 16 may improve the overall customer satisfaction at virtual contact centers 16 as the environment may be updated to reflect the user's preferences. For example, the user's mood may be detected or a user's behavior observed in real-time. If the user appears agitated, the virtual contact center 16 may be updated to present a female avatar with a soft tone if the user had responded positively that established environmental characteristic 20. As such, the virtual world 14 and the virtual contact 16 may become personalized for the individual user and adaptive to the user's selections and experience.
The present invention can be realized in hardware, software, or a combination of hardware and software. Any kind of computing system, or other apparatus adapted for carrying out the methods described herein, is suited to perform the functions described herein.
A typical combination of hardware and software could be a specialized or general purpose computer system having one or more processing elements and a computer program stored on a storage medium that, when loaded and executed, controls the computer system such that it carries out the methods described herein. The present invention can also be embedded in a computer program product, which comprises all the features enabling the implementation of the methods described herein, and which, when loaded in a computing system is able to carry out these methods. Storage medium refers to any volatile or non-volatile storage device.
Computer program or application in the present context means any expression, in any language, code or notation, of a set of instructions intended to cause a system having an information processing capability to perform a particular function either directly or after either or both of the following a) conversion to another language, code or notation; b) reproduction in a different material form.
In addition, unless mention was made above to the contrary, it should be noted that all of the accompanying drawings are not to scale. Significantly, this invention can be embodied in other specific forms without departing from the spirit or essential attributes thereof, and accordingly, reference should be had to the following claims, rather than to the foregoing specification, as indicating the scope of the invention.
