Patent Application
20220321517
The present invention is directed towards the field of online messaging and the facilitating of group browsing experiences. Currently, online shopping or website browsing are one of the most fundamental acquisition channels for businesses. Even though there are a number of online website viewing technologies, as well as a number of communication channels, there are nevertheless in both situations no solutions for an end user-to-end user communication scheme. Depending upon whether the communication channel on the website disclosed messaging systems enables either agent to end-user communication or agent to automatic chatbot communication. Providing that online shopping or browsing experiences remain focused on a single user, currently available workflows and solutions limit focus on multiple users' communication on site.
Regarding the online shopping experience, it is a day-to-day practice of end-users to share links to the product, service, or any viewed webpage, to discuss the purchase or exchange experience with other users or acquaintances. Consequently, the flow of interaction with the webpage is being distracted by the external communication system connecting the person with another.
The present invention is directed towards the idea of side end user to end user communication facilitated with the use of an open and accessible chat widget. Consequently, the area of art related to this invention is online communication via network and on-site use of chat widget to facilitate the communication between at least a first and second user.
At present, known solutions are not fully addressing the above-listed issues and, to the extent such solutions exist, they are cumbersome, ineffective, and tend to create a need for communication channels switching from the viewed webpage to the instant communication channel which distracts the user and makes it even more difficult to point at certain elements of the product presented on the webpage due to the external link and communication run on a separate communication channel. On the other hand, on-site communication is directed towards the end-user to an agent or end-user to the chatbot and consequently leaves no space for on-site end-user to end-user communication.
The present disclosure is directed to the area of on-site real-time communication directed towards consumer-to-consumer communication (or end-user to end-user communication). The present invention is directed to bridging the gap between the physical and online shopping experiences and also to transform the former into a more personal and inclusive form. In regular offline shopping or browsing, a person can experience the ability to talk with other participants, ask about products, and interact with persons being in the same area. The online experience is effectively emptied of this experience and as a consequence leaves the technological gap of consumer-to-consumer communication on site.
As the website is the natural environment of the online shops, this also serves as the right place to facilitate online communication between end-users viewing the page or particular product subpage. The present invention is technologically based on a chat widget that is located on-site and that is further enabled for all end-users viewing the page. The chat widget is configured in such a way that it enables the communication between viewers of the page with no need to log into the system or register and that further includes the possibility of asynchronous communication.
The disclosed invention is further configured in such a way as to enable to pin the chat widget communication to the particular element presented on the webpage, as for example a product displayed on the page, to initiate communication with other webpage viewers.
The present disclosure is designed in such a way as to enable other webpage viewers to join the communication and as an outcome to accept multiple users in one communication thread. What is more, the disclosed invention is designed in such a way as to enable one to leave the webpage and come back to it with the communication thread being continued.
Further advantages, features, and details of the various embodiments of this disclosure will become apparent from the ensuing description of a preferred exemplary embodiment and with the aid of the drawings. The features and combinations of features recited below in the description, as well as the features and feature combination shown after that in the drawing description or in the drawings alone, may be used not only in the particular combination recited, but also in other combinations on their own, without departing from the scope of the disclosure.
In the following, advantageous examples of the invention are explained with reference to the accompanying figures, wherein:
As used throughout the present disclosure, unless specifically stated otherwise, the term “or” encompasses all possible combinations, except where infeasible. For example, the expression “A or B” shall mean A alone, B alone, or A and B together. If it is stated that a component includes “A, B, or C”, then, unless specifically stated otherwise or infeasible, the component may include A, or B, or C, or A and B, or A and C, or B and C, or A and B and C. Expressions such as “at least one of” do not necessarily modify an entirety of the following list and do not necessarily modify each member of the list, such that “at least one of” “A, B, and C” should be understood as including only one of A, only one of B, only one of C, or any combination of A, B, and C. In the figures, the same or functionally identical elements have been provided with the same reference signs.
Solutions dedicated to real-time business-to-customer conversations are interesting to the field of customer-to-customer communication as well. This invention is directed to bridge the gap between the physical and online shopping experiences and also to transform the former into a more personal and inclusive form. The online browsing experience strips out the serendipity of various and seemingly random people's encounters by at least removing the chance to interact with other website visitors. Such solutions aim to socialize Internet browsing by making website visitors visible to one another as well as seeing each other's activity and interactions on the web page's canvas. Advantageously any website visitor may join the experience without downloading any additional software, thereby making the instant solution more readily accessible and unintimidating to a wide variety of potential and/or interested users. The functionalities are delivered through the code snippet embedded on the website.
Furthermore, the invention is directed towards the online co-browsing sphere that happens over the Internet via networked devices and engages both visitors and representatives of entrepreneurs (for example agents or customer support specialists). An aim of the present invention is not only to mitigate the human and/or interpersonal and/or social isolation of online browsing or shopping, but it is also a means to faster and more efficient communication between individuals in an online environment.
By way of example, the present invention is directed to a system that enables interactive multi-media chat communication over a webpage that shall be available for the webpage visitors and agents that operates between at least a first and a second processor. Starting with
As depicted in
As depicted in
By way of an embodiment of the present invention, the disclosed system facilitates communication between individuals over a webpage with a widget code (also referred to as a web live chat tracking code snippet). By the chat code, one should understand an element of the infrastructure of a website or web application that is responsible for invoking, communicating with, and recording transcripts of conversations conducted via a chat window. Chat code, regardless of its form, has a tunneling function for a given medium such as a website. Invoking a communication channel code (
The present invention benefits from instant channels of communication such as chat that introduces a chat code to the webpage and enables further communication with agents started directly from the chat widget (702). Consequently, further to the disclosed invention, a solution located within the context of a webpage (700) may serve for both end-user to end-user communication as well as agent to end-user. By agent, it should be understood as a representative of customer care of the company that delivers the webpage for the purpose of product or service promotion. This facilitates communication that begins on the webpage and may be attached to particular elements of the page canvas like images, drawings, content and start a conversation about an element displayed on the screen of the first user and further available for the plurality of users that operates on the same webpage with the invention applied. It enables messaging interactions for unlimited participants. Once the visitor starts a chat, business representatives may join, as well as other website visitors. Both the visitors and businesses may initiate the described communication channel. The solution covers several use cases:
a. customer to business communication (e.g., a customer requesting help with the product),
b. customer to customer communication (e.g., a customer asking for another customers' opinion), and/or
c. business to customer communication (e.g., a sales representative offering a limited discount for and/or to the customer(s)).
Any of these use cases may leverage the network of website visitors to facilitate interaction between them. As disclosed in
An embodiment of the present invention uses local storage and browser sessions to collect data from a plurality of users about their presence and activity on the webpage. To facilitate this, an embodiment of this invention provides any webpage with the chat code installed in a special interface where the user can define if his or her presence on the webpage should be visible to other users and if so, this embodiment further enables the user (also referred to as a visitor) to start a conversation with at least one of the agents representing a business or another visitor on the webpage. It further allows an agent that uses the webpage with the invention operating on it to start a conversation with the visitor. When the first embodiment of the user starts the conversation with, for example, another user (visitor) the conversation entered into the chat widget is saved on the physical remote storage (server) further communication between the server, invention's APIs, and databases enabling this embodiment of the invention to save the data entered in the conversation window in case of session stability drop, the exit of one of the users or future come back of at least one of the users taking part in the conversation to a thread. By looking at the chat structure, it is visible and understood that each chat is divided into threads and consequently every thread contains events, for example, sending messages or images. This construction enables distinction between a chat as a whole conversation, while threads are separate conversation topics.
The following is an example application with respect to an online store. Thread-based construction of a chat enables the embodiment of the invention to further continue communication in case of the following scenario: a customer starts a chat to ask about the shoes they bought. If they do not have any previous chat history, a new chat may be started. Within this chat, a new thread may be created (conversation topic). The messages they exchange with the customer service assistant are received by the thread as events. After solving the problem, the customer says goodbye and closes the chat, which automatically closes the thread. Let's say the customer does not end the chat effectively. In this case, the thread closes after 30 minutes of inactivity (other time periods being configurable by way of other embodiments), but the chat doesn't end. The next day, the customer returns to ask about his or her other purchase. A new thread starts in the context of the chat, which has been continuously open. Each time a customer returns and starts a new conversation topic, they need to click start a chat. Following our naming convention, that would start a thread. A message or any equivalent type of content is not the only event type. There are also special events for specific actions, like files, filled forms, systems, and custom messages. Various content and event types that are stored at the local storage and further passed to the data storage center enable the embodiment of the invention to continue communication that is pinned to the element or content by the first user and further facilitates the communication between at least the first and the second user. When a new chat is started, a new active thread is created within this chat.
New threads within a single chat are orchestrated on the server-side by the logic of the system. There is always only one active thread within a single chat. By way of an embodiment, only the last thread within a single chat can be the active one. Events are always added to the active thread. It is possible to have time gaps between threads in a chat, but once a chat is started, it's continuously open. Consequently, messages are sent and delivered even when the recipient (both Customer and Agent) is offline. Multiple Agents can participate in a single chat and every user can have multiple concurrent chats. To facilitate both asynchronous messages and real-time communication, API is provided in this embodiment of the invention which can be used either as Real-Time Messaging APIs (RTM APIs) or Web APIs using a structure of webhooks or pushes that communicates respectively over a WebSocket or stateless, via XHR requests.
Furthermore, the invention enables group browsing that facilitates the participants to join co-browsing sessions. When in a session, the host browses the website, while other participants automatically follow. Co-browsing is defined as being present on the webpage during one session while other visitors are viewing the same webpage and following the host's actions. In this disclosure of the embodiment, the processor of a first user operates with a browser and all its native APIs that further use sessions to save data in its cache memory. Once the first user, also referred to as a visitor, agrees to be visible as browsing, other visitors with the same browsing session can see the first user and see the cursor of the person during browsing to preview the focus. Co-browsing covers the following use cases:
a. customer support (e.g., a customer service representative explaining product features to a customer),
b. sales (e.g., a sales representative showing around offerings to multiple customers at once, in the form of an online event), and/or
c. affiliate & influencers marketing (e.g., a customer reviewing the product for other customers).
Aside from starting a chat and browsing, the system enables the pinning of the conversation to specific parts of the website, which transforms static web pages into interactive canvases for human conversations. While starting a conversation, the participant may pin a chat widget down to a specific part of the web page. The conversation then remains in a particular spot (called chat anchor). The participants may then decide if the pinned chat is persistent or ephemeral. Persistent chats remain pinned to the web page and are available to be joined asynchronously for days after the chat was started. They may serve the following use cases:
a. customer community & reviews (e.g., persistent pinned chats act as social proofs or product reviews),
b. business workload optimization (e.g., customers help each other, without the need of the business to engage), and/or
c. customer support (e.g., customers ask a question regarding a specific product).
The pinning functionality relies on the native structure of websites and web apps. While pinning a chat, a specific element of the website is selected: text node of a paragraph, an image, or other objects. The selected object has its unique parameters, including the visual location on the page and also position within the cross-platform Document Object Model (DOM) interface. These parameters are associated with the chat and stored securely to be retrieved every time the pinned chat is being rendered. This embodiment of the invention further refers to the canvas of a webpage where chat code installed can distinguish a particular element, as for example—an image, and further display this image along with content or reaction performed by the first user to a second user.
What is more, the next disclosure of the invention, enables visitors of the webpage (being at least the first or second user of the invention) to create an activity feed that makes it possible for the visitors to receive updates on their activities. The appropriate information is presented inside the chat widgets. The activity feed is central to the real-time experience and may act for the following use cases:
a. visitor notifications (e.g., a new participant joins, a new chat is started),
b. audience engagement (e.g., a participant is encouraged to join a chat that just started), and/or
c. archives analysis (e.g., a business owner reviews the session after it ended).
Activity feed enables users to view other users that are currently browsing the same page within one session. This embodiment of the invention allows users to view activities of other users that are presented in a form of a log concerning certain actions. In the case of user A doing action B on the webpage, it leaves an entry in the activity feed marked with a timestamp. Actions taken by user A are saved within local storage and transferred to remote storage of the system if necessary. Then they're displayed in a form of a widget displaying entries about the activity.
Furthermore, an embodiment of the invention enables visitors to express their opinions about particular parts of the web page. Once a visitor selects an element or piece of text, they're presented with a list of emojis to pick as their reaction. Reactions cover the following use cases:
a. engagement (e.g., visitors express their opinions in a web-native way with emojis), and/or
b. feedback collection (e.g., a business representative reviews their customers' reactions).
By way of further example, the present invention is directed to a system that transforms a static business website into an interactive and living community of and for its visitors. Thanks to the combination of synchronous and asynchronous ways of expressing thoughts, emotions, and opinions, the present invention provides a set of tools for business owners to improve the quality of their customer service. The present invention transforms the current landscape of online shopping into a more social and human experience, empowering consumers to form communities and interact with brands like never before.
Having described some aspects of the present disclosure in detail, it will be apparent that further modifications and variations are possible without departing from the scope of the disclosure. All matter contained in the above description and shown in the accompanying drawings shall be interpreted as illustrative and not in a limiting sense.
This application claims priority to US Provisional patent application filed Apr. 5, 2021 and assigned Application No. 63/170,583, the content of which is herein incorporated by reference.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 63170583 | Apr 2021 | US |
