Patent Description:
With the development of the Internet and communication technologies, users may communicate through the network or telephones, ask about some problems during the communication, and obtain related answers. For example, there are increasingly more customer service systems employing Interactive Voice Response (IVR) manners to communicate with users, so that the users can ask about some problems, and provide related answers for the users.

The process of using the IVR includes: a user is connected to a service center of IVR through a telephone, selects a service channel according to a voice prompt of the service center, and asks about a problem by using the selected service channel, where the selected service channel may be a manual service channel or an intelligent service channel. At present, the service mode of the IVR is monotonous, the service manner is not flexible enough, and thus the service quality of the IVR is low.

<CIT> discloses a call processing apparatus comprising a device for answering an incoming call, an interactive voice unit for eliciting information about the call from the customer, a device for analyzing the caller's response according to predetermined criteria to identify callers having certain behavioral characteristics, and a device for routing callers identified as having these characteristics to predetermined attendant stations.

<CIT> discloses a call center system for dynamically determining an appropriate customer service representative, with particular embodiments of the invention including methods, apparatuses, and computer program products for providing a match between a customer and a customer service representative based on indicators from both the customer and the customer service representative.

<CIT> discloses a behavioral adaptation engine integrated with a voice application creation and deployment system, capable of receiving XML-based client interaction data including audio files attached to the data; sending data to and receiving data from external data systems and modules; a logic processing component including an XML reader, voice player, and analyzer for processing received data; and a decision logic component for processing result data against one or more constraints.

The invention provides a method and an apparatus as set out in the accompanying claims.

In the present application, voice data of a user is obtained, an emotion analysis is performed on the voice data to determine the priority of the voice data, and the user is connected to a corresponding service channel according to the priority of the voice data. Compared with the prior art, the present application can connect the user to the corresponding service channel according to the priority of the voice data, and in this way, users can be connected to different service channels flexibly and timely. For example, a user having higher-priority voice data may be connected to a high-priority service channel, thus being conducive to improving the user experience and the speed of solving problems, and at the same time, expanding the service mode of the IVR, improving the flexibility of the service, and being conducive to improving the service quality of the IVR.

In order to describe the technical solutions in the embodiments of the present application more clearly, the accompanying drawings to be used in the description about the embodiments or the prior art are introduced briefly in the following. It is apparent that the accompanying drawings in the following description are some embodiments of the present application, and those of ordinary skill in the art can also obtain other accompanying drawings according to the accompanying drawings without creative efforts.

In order to make the objectives, technical solutions and advantages of the embodiments of the present application clearer, the technical solutions in the embodiments of the present application will be clearly and completely described below with reference to the accompanying drawings in the embodiments of the present application. It is apparent that the embodiments described are merely some, instead of all, of the embodiments of the present application, variations and modifications are possible within the scope of the claims.

<FIG> is a schematic flowchart of a method for processing voice information according to an embodiment of the present application. As shown in <FIG>, the method includes:.

This embodiment provides a method for processing voice information, which can be executed by an apparatus for processing voice information. During specific implementation, the apparatus for processing voice information may be any apparatus or device having a certain processing capability, and applicable to a customer service system providing a voice service, such as an IVR.

Specifically, the apparatus for processing voice information obtains voice data of a user, performs an emotion analysis on the voice data to determine the priority of the voice data, and then connects the user to a corresponding service channel according to the priority of the voice data.

It should be noted that, the priority of the voice data, to some extent, can indicate or reflect the priority of the user.

This embodiment performs the emotion analysis on the voice data to determine the priority of the voice data, and therefore, users can be connected to different service channels flexibly and timely according to the priority of the voice data. For example, the user having higher-priority voice data may be connected to a high-priority service channel, rather than selecting a service channel by the user according to a voice prompt in the prior art; therefore, the service mode of the IVR is expanded, and the service quality of the IVR is improved.

In an optional implementation, the voice data of the user may be voice data for describing a problem asked about by the user.

In an actual application, each application may generally provide a customer service system used for providing a communication platform for users using the application, for the users to ask about problems, learn related information, feedback suggestions, and the like.

In this embodiment, the customer service system provides at least one service channel (or service manner). For example, it may include a manual channel and an intelligent channel. The manual channel mainly refers to that a customer service representative provides a service for the user in a voice manner; and the intelligent channel refers to a non-manual service manner including, for example, an online chatting service, an online self-service, and the like.

In this embodiment, the service channel is classified according to the priority. The priority of the manual channel should be higher than that of the intelligent channel. In addition, the manual channel may be further classified into a common manual channel, a specialist manual channel, and the like. The priority of the specialist manual channel is higher than that of the common manual channel. The higher the priority of the service channel is, the better the provided service quality is. For example, the service quality that can be provided by the specialist manual channel is higher than that of the common manual channel. The service quality of different service channels may be determined by multiple factors such as the complexity of solvable problems, service attitude, speed of solving problems, and flexibility of solving problems.

A specific process of applying the method provided in this embodiment to a customer service system includes: when a user needs to ask about a problem, voice data for describing the problem asked about by the user is obtained, an emotion analysis is performed on the voice data to obtain an emotion of the user when the user describes the problem asked about and determine the priority of the voice data according to the emotion of the user when the user asks about the problem, and then the user is connected to a corresponding service channel according to the priority of the voice data.

It can be seen that, this embodiment, by performing the emotion analysis on the voice data of the user when the user asks about the problem, can embody the priority of the user through the priority of the voice data, thus distinguishing users, and then connecting users with different priorities to different service channels, which is conducive to improving the user experience and the speed of solving problems, and conducive to improving the service quality of the customer service system. In addition, compared with the prior art, the method provided in this embodiment can embody the priority of the user through the priority of the voice data, which is equivalent to distinguishing the users, for example, rather than treating all users uniformly as in the prior art. A user having an urgent request may be connected to a manual channel preferentially, thus expanding the service mode of the customer service system, and improving the flexibility of the service.

In an optional implementation, an implementation of step <NUM> is as shown in <FIG>, specifically including:.

In an optional implementation, the voice prompt may be a problem description prompt for instructing the user to describe the problem asked about. Correspondingly, the user may, under the prompt of the problem description prompt, send voice data for describing the problem asked about.

Specifically, for some customer service systems providing voice services for users, such as the IVR, when the user asks about a problem to the customer service system, the user generally dials a corresponding customer service hotline through a communication terminal such as a mobile phone and a fixed telephone, to send a communication request to an apparatus for processing voice information in the customer service system, and the apparatus for processing voice information receives the communication request to establish a voice communication with the user. Then, the apparatus for processing voice information plays a problem description prompt for the user, to prompt the user to describe the problem asked about. For example, the problem description prompt may be voices such as "please describe your problem with one sentence" and "what is the problem you want to ask about". The user describes the problem asked about according to the problem description prompt, to form voice data describing the problem asked about. For example, the voice data may be voices such as "I forget the password" and "I cannot log in normally after entering the account and the password".

It should be noted that, in addition to employing the above manner to obtain the voice data for describing the problem asked about by the user, the apparatus for processing voice information may also employ other manners. For example, the apparatus for processing voice information may obtain, from another device (for example, a user terminal), the voice data for describing the problem asked about by the user.

The apparatus for processing voice information, after obtaining the voice data, performs an emotion analysis on the voice data to determine the priority of the voice data. An implementation of step <NUM> is as shown in <FIG> specifically includes:.

The emotion analysis is a kind of semantic analysis, and belongs to the prior art. Various methods capable of analyzing the volume and pacing are applicable to this embodiment. For example, the process of analyzing the pacing may be: calculating a short-time average amplitude of the voice data after the voice data is obtained, and then analyzing start and end points of the voice data according to the short-time average amplitude to calculate the pacing of the voice data.

A sound is formed by several (or infinite) frequency components. A frequency spectrum is generally used to detect and describe characteristics of the sound. Therefore, the process of analyzing the volume may be: converting the voice data from a time-domain signal into a frequency-domain signal, dividing the octave, and converting the frequency-domain signal from an absolute magnitude into a relative magnitude, that is, decibel (DB), to obtain the volume of the voice data.

The apparatus for processing voice information performs the emotion analysis on the voice data to obtain the pacing and/or volume of the user when the user describes the problem asked about. The pacing and the volume may reflect the emotion of the user, such as, anxiety, anger, and calmness.

For the volume, when the volume is between <NUM> DB and <NUM> DB, it is very quiet and is hardly heard. When the volume is between <NUM> DB and <NUM> DB, it is quiet and sounds like a whisper, indicating that the user is relatively peaceful. When the volume is between <NUM> DB and <NUM> DB, it is a general and common indoor talk, indicating that the user is emotionally stable. When the volume is between <NUM> DB and <NUM> DB, it is noisy and harmful to nerves, indicating that the user is anxious or angry.

For the pacing, the pacing of a normal person is <NUM>-<NUM> words per minute in a common context, and if the time for describing the problem asked about with one sentence is <NUM> seconds, about <NUM>-<NUM> words should be included. If the pacing of the user when the user asks about the problem is fewer than or about <NUM>-<NUM> words, it indicates that the user is relatively peaceful, and the problem asked about may not be urgent. On the contrary, if the pacing of the user when the user asks about the problem is more than <NUM> words, for example, the pacing when asking about the problem is about <NUM>-<NUM> words, it indicates that the user is rather anxious, and the problem asked about may be urgent.

Based on this, the apparatus for processing voice information, after obtaining the volume and/or pacing of the user when the user describes the problem asked about, further obtains the emotion value of the user according to the volume and/or pacing.

Optionally, numerical processing may be performed on the volume and/or pacing, and the result of the numerical processing is used as the emotion value of the user. The manner of numerical processing may be weighted averaging, weighting, or the like.

For example, an implementation includes: using, by the apparatus for processing voice information, a product of the volume and a weight as the emotion value of the user. When the weight is <NUM>, the volume may be directly used as the emotion value of the user.

For another example, an implementation includes: using, by the apparatus for processing voice information, a product of the pacing and a weight as the emotion value of the user. When the weight is <NUM>, the pacing may be directly used as the emotion value of the user.

For another example, an implementation includes: performing, by the apparatus for processing voice information, numerical processing on the volume and the pacing, and using the result of the numerical processing as the emotion value of the user. For example, the apparatus for processing voice information multiplies the volume and the pacing, and uses the result of multiplication as the emotion value of the user; or, the apparatus for processing voice information may perform weighted averaging on the volume and the pacing, and use the result as the emotion value of the user. The manner of the numerical processing is not limited to multiplying and weighted averaging.

After the emotion value of the user is obtained, the apparatus for processing voice information matches the emotion value of the user in the preset mapping relationship between the emotion value and the priority, and the priority matched is used as the priority of the user.

It should be noted that, the mapping relationship between the emotion value and the priority may specifically be: a correspondence between an emotion value range and the priority, for example, an emotion value range <NUM>-<NUM> corresponds to the priority -<NUM>, an emotion value range <NUM>-<NUM> corresponds to the priority <NUM>, an emotion value range <NUM>-<NUM> corresponds to the priority <NUM>, and an emotion value range above <NUM> corresponds to the priority <NUM>. Alternatively, the mapping relationship between the emotion value and the priority may specifically be: a correspondence between an emotion value threshold and the priority, for example, an emotion value threshold <NUM> corresponds to the priority -<NUM>, an emotion value threshold <NUM> corresponds to the priority <NUM>, an emotion value threshold <NUM> corresponds to the priority <NUM>, and an emotion value threshold corresponding to the priority <NUM> is not limited.

In an optional implementation, the apparatus for processing voice information presets a mapping relationship between the priority and the service channel, and the service channel includes a manual channel and an intelligent channel. Further optionally, the manual channel may be further classified into a common manual channel and a specialist manual channel. The apparatus for processing voice information specifically matches the priority of the user in the preset mapping relationship between the priority and the service channel; when a manual channel is matched, the user is connected to the manual channel, and specifically, a call request of the user is connected to a client of a customer service representative in the manual channel. When an intelligent channel is matched, the user is connected to the intelligent channel, and specifically, the apparatus for processing voice information may guide, in a manner of voice broadcast, the user to solve the problem.

For example, the priority <NUM> corresponds to the specialist manual channel, the priority <NUM> corresponds to the common manual channel; and the priority <NUM> and the priority -<NUM> correspond to the intelligent channel. It is assumed that the priority of the user is <NUM>, then the apparatus for processing voice information needs to connect the user to the specialist manual channel.

Further, the apparatus for processing voice information may further generate, according to the voice data, reference information for responding to the problem asked about by the user, and provide the reference information for the customer service representative corresponding to the manual channel, so that the customer service representative responds to the problem for the user according to the reference information, thus improving the efficiency and quality of responding to the problem.

The manner of generating the reference information includes, but not limited to that: a semantic information processing apparatus performs text conversion on the voice data, recognizes text information to determine a category of the problem asked about by the user, acquires account information of the user, and dynamically assembles the category of the problem asked about by the user and the account information of the user to generate the reference information. The reference information may be in a form of voice, or a form of text.

It should be noted that, although the above embodiment emphasizes how the priority of the user is used to determine the service channel to which the user should be connected, the embodiment of the present application is not limited to separately using the priority of the user to determine the service channel to which the user should be connected, and the priority of the user may be further used in combination with other information. For example, the priority of the user may be combined with a method, which has been implemented in the existing IVR, for determining a service channel to which the user is connected (for example, determining, based on the category of the problem asked about by the user, the service channel to which the user should be connected). The specific combination manner may include: considering the priority of the user first, and then considering the category of the problem asked about by the user; or considering the category of the problem asked about by the user first, and then considering the priority of the user; or, considering the category of the problem asked about by the user and the priority of the user at the same time.

The following embodiment shown in <FIG> provides a detailed flow of determining a service channel for a user by using the priority of the user. In the embodiment shown in <FIG>, modules may specifically construct the apparatus for processing voice information.

<FIG> is a schematic flowchart of a method for processing voice information according to an embodiment of the present invention. As shown in <FIG>, the method includes:.

In this implementation, the CSACCURATE module considers the category of the problem and the priority of the user at the same time, to determine the service channel to which the user should be connected.

For example, it is assumed that the user is determined as an invalid user according to the category of the problem asked about by the user, and the priority of the user is determined as -<NUM> according to the volume and pacing of the user when the user asks about the problem, the user may be connected to the intelligent channel. It is assumed that the user is determined as an asking user according to the category of the problem asked about by the user, and the priority of the user is determined as <NUM> according to the volume and pacing of the user when the user asks about the problem, the user may be connected to the intelligent channel. It is assumed that the user is determined as a service requesting user according to the category of the problem asked about by the user, and the priority of the user is determined as <NUM> according to the volume and pacing of the user when the user asks about the problem, the user may be connected to the common manual channel. It is assumed that the user is determined as a user with urgent requests according to the category of the problem asked about by the user, and the priority of the user is determined as <NUM> according to the volume and pacing of the user when the user asks about the problem, the user may be connected to the specialist manual channel.

<NUM>: If the service channel is the intelligent channel, the CSIVR module generates corresponding voice play data according to the account information of the user, the category of the problem and the priority of the user, and returns the voice play data to the IVR module, for the IVR module to guide the user to solve the problem.

<NUM>: If the service channel is the manual channel, the CSIVR module generates reference information according to the account information of the user, the category of the problem and the priority of the user, connects the user to the manual channel, and at the same time, provides the reference information for a customer service representative in the manual channel.

In this embodiment, the priority of the user may be determined according to the emotion of the user when the user asks about the problem, and the user is connected to a corresponding service channel based on the priority; in this way, users of different priorities may be connected to different service channels flexibly and timely. For example, a user of the higher priority may be connected to the high-priority service channel, thus being conducive to improving the user experience and the speed of solving problems, and meanwhile, expanding the service mode of the IVR, improving the flexibility of the service, and being conducive to improving the service quality of the IVR.

It should be noted that, for ease of description, the method embodiments mentioned above are all described as a combination of a series of actions; however, those skilled in the art should know that the present application is not limited to the action order described herein, this is because some steps may be performed in other orders or simultaneously according to the present application. Next, those skilled in the art should also know that the embodiments described in the specification are all preferred embodiments, and actions and modules involved therein are not necessarily required by the present application.

In the above embodiments, the descriptions on the embodiments have respective emphasis, and for parts that are not described in detail in an embodiment, one may refer to related descriptions in other embodiments.

<FIG> is a schematic structural diagram of an apparatus for processing voice information according to an embodiment of the present application. As shown in <FIG>, the apparatus includes: an obtaining module <NUM>, an analysis module <NUM>, and a service connection module <NUM>.

The obtaining module <NUM> is configured to obtain voice data of a user.

The analysis module <NUM> is connected to the obtaining module <NUM>, and configured to perform an emotion analysis on the voice data obtained by the obtaining module <NUM>, to determine the priority of the voice data.

The service connection module <NUM> is connected to the analysis module <NUM>, and configured to connect the user to a corresponding service channel according to the priority of the voice data determined by the analysis module <NUM>.

In an optional implementation, the voice data of the user may be voice data for describing the problem asked about by the user.

In an optional implementation, the obtaining module <NUM> is specifically configured to: receive a communication request of the user, to perform voice communication with the user; play a voice prompt for the user; and receive voice data sent by the user under the prompt of the voice prompt.

In an optional implementation, the voice prompt may be a problem description prompt, for instructing the user to describe the problem asked about. Correspondingly, the user can, under the prompt of the problem description prompt, send the voice data for describing the problem asked about.

The analysis module <NUM> is specifically configured to: perform an emotion analysis on the voice data, to determine the volume and/or pacing of the user when the user sends the voice data; obtain an emotion value of the user according to the volume and/or pacing; and obtain the priority of the user according to the emotion value of the user and a preset mapping relationship between the emotion value and the priority.

The analysis module <NUM> is specifically configured to: perform an emotion analysis on the voice data, to determine the volume and/or pacing of the user when the user sends the voice data; perform numerical processing on the volume and/or pacing, and use the result of the numerical processing as an emotion value of the user, and obtain the priority of the voice data according to the emotion value of the user and a preset mapping relationship between the emotion value and the priority.

In an optional implementation, the service connection module is specifically configured to: match the priority of the voice data in a preset mapping relationship between the priority and the service channel; and when a manual channel is matched, connect the user to the manual channel.

In an optional implementation, the apparatus for processing voice information further includes: a reference processing module configured to generate reference information according to the voice data, and provide the reference information for a customer service representative corresponding to the manual channel.

It should be noted that, in addition to employing the implementation structure shown in <FIG>, the apparatus for processing voice information may further employ the implementation structure in the embodiment shown in <FIG>, to form an IVR system.

The apparatus for processing voice information according to this embodiment can connect the user to the corresponding service channel according to the priority of the voice data, and in this way, users can be connected to different service channels flexibly and timely, for example, a user having higher-priority voice data may be connected to a high-priority service channel, thus being conducive to improving the user experience and the speed of solving problems, and at the same time, expanding the service mode of the IVR, improving the flexibility of the service, and being conducive to improving the service quality of the IVR.

Those skilled in the art can clearly understand that, for convenience and clarity of description, specific working processes of the system, apparatus and units described in the above may be obtained with reference to the corresponding processes in the foregoing method embodiment, and are not repeated herein.

In the several embodiments provided in the present application, it should be understood that, the disclosed system, apparatus and method may be implemented in other manners. For example, the apparatus embodiment described in the foregoing is merely schematic, for example, the division of units is merely division of logic functions, and in fact, there may be other division manners during implementation, for example, multiple units or components may be combined or may be integrated into another system, or some features may be omitted or not be executed. On the other hand, the displayed or discussed mutual coupling or direct coupling or communication connection may be implemented through indirect coupling or communication connection between some interfaces, apparatuses or units, and may be in electrical, mechanical or other forms.

Units described as separate parts may or may not be physically separated, parts displayed as units may or may not be physical units, that is, they may be located at the same place, or be distributed to multiple network units. The objective of the solution of this embodiment may be implemented by selecting a part of or all units thereof according to actual requirements.

In addition, various function units in the embodiments of the present application can be integrated in one processing unit, each unit may also exist as a separate physical unit, and two or more units may also be integrated in one unit. The integrated unit may be implemented in a form of hardware, and may also be implemented in a form of hardware plus a software function unit.

The integrated unit implemented in a form of a software function unit may be stored in a computer readable storage medium. The software function unit is stored in a storage medium, and includes several instructions used to enable a computer device (which may be a personal computer, a server, a network device, or the like) or processor to execute a part of steps of the methods in the embodiments of the present application. The storage medium includes: a USB flash disk, a mobile hard disk, a Read-Only Memory (ROM), a Random Access Memory (RAM), a magnetic disk, an optical disc, or other media that can store program codes.

Claim 1:
A method for processing voice information carried out at an apparatus, comprising:
obtaining (<NUM>-<NUM>) voice data of a user;
performing (<NUM>) text conversion on the voice data to obtain text information of a sentence representing a question asked by the user;
performing (<NUM>) a semantic analysis on the text information of the sentence representing the question to determine a category of the question asked by the user;
performing (<NUM>) an emotion analysis on the voice data to determine the priority of the voice data; and
connecting (<NUM>, <NUM>) the user to a corresponding service channel according to both the priority of the voice data and the category of the question asked by the user, by connecting the user to the corresponding service channel that is a manual service channel for a representative responding to the user responsive to it being determined that the priority of the voice data indicates a first priority level and it is determined that the category of user is a service requesting user or an urgent request user according to the category of the question asked by the user; and connecting the user to the corresponding service channel that is a non-manual intelligent service channel in which an apparatus having processing capability generates voice play data for responding to the user responsive to it being determined that the priority of the voice data indicates a second priority level lower than the first priority level and it is determined that the category of user is an asking user according to the category of the question asked by the user, wherein the performing an emotion analysis on the voice data to determine the priority of the voice data comprises:
performing an emotion analysis on the voice data to determine the volume and/or pacing of the user when the user sends the voice data;
obtaining an emotion value of the user according to the volume and/or pacing; and
obtaining the priority of the voice data according to the emotion value of the user and a preset mapping relationship between the emotion value and the priority.