Patent ID: 9177283
Filing Date: 2015-11-03
Classification: G06F,G06Q,Y10S

Abstract:
1. A method comprising: establishing, by an apparatus, a plurality of chat sessions corresponding to customer support service among a plurality of users and one or more agents of a service provider; retrieving, by the apparatus, profiles of the plurality of users; dynamically including in a community, by the apparatus, one or more of the plurality of users that are participating in at least one of the plurality of chat sessions, based on a context of customer support inquiries raised in the chat sessions and the profiles of the plurality of users; determining one or more applications specifically provided for the community, wherein the one or more applications are enabled and available for the users when waiting for the agents during the chat sessions, and the one or more applications include a message board application displaying in a graphical user interface postings of at least the customer support inquiries during the chat sessions; in response to the waiting for the agents during the chat sessions, selecting a list of communities by the apparatus based on the context of customer support inquiries and the profiles of the plurality of users, and initiating a display of the list of communities on the graphical user interface, wherein the list of communities includes the community and at least one external community over which the service provider has no control; linking to the postings, during the chat sessions, one or more other postings from the list of communities and applications the one or more users are associated with; determining one or more answers within the postings in response to a search query by the one or more users during the chat sessions; and providing in the graphical user interface an on-line auction service for the list of communities via the message board application during the chat sessions.