Analyzing and Enhancing Clarification Strategies for Ambiguous References in Consumer Service Interactions (2024)

Abstract: When customers present ambiguous references, service staff typically need to clarify the customers’ specific intentions. To advance research in this area, we collected 1,000 real-world consumer dialogues with ambiguous references. This dataset will be used for subsequent studies to identify ambiguous references and generate responses. Our analysis of the dataset revealed common strategies employed by service staff, including directly asking clarification questions (CQ) and listing possible options before asking a clarification question (LCQ). However, we found that merely using CQ often fails to fully satisfy customers. In contrast, using LCQ, as well as recommending specific products after listing possible options, proved more effective in resolving ambiguous references and enhancing customer satisfaction.

## introduction clarification questions (cq) have long been a focal point in dialogue research due to their various functions, with resolving ambiguities being one of the most crucial @xcite @xcite @xcite @xcite . previous studies have primarily examined whether models are capable of generating suitable clarification requests in response to ambiguities @xcite @xcite . however, little attention has been paid to determining the most effective type of clarification request @xcite . this gap in research prompts a significant question: what type of clarification request should intelligent customer service systems generate when addressing ambiguous references? before addressing this issue, it is necessary to clarify the definition of a cq. @xcite defines a 'clarification question/request' in dialogue systems as a type of communicative action where one participant asks another to provide more information or to make their previous statement clearer. this typically occurs when the listener does not fully understand the speaker's message due to ambiguity, vagueness, or missing information. in dialogue 1 of besides, we must define what an ambiguous reference is. an "ambiguous reference" in communication refers to a statement, word, or phrase whose meaning is not clear due to multiple possible interpretations @xcite . in consumer service settings, an ambiguous reference can lead to confusion about product specifications, pricing, or customer intentions, which may hinder effective communication between the service staffs and customers. effective clarification questions are essential in these scenarios to resolve ambiguities @xcite . figure 1 illustrates an example of an ambiguous reference: a customer at a restaurant that serves various types of pizza orders a pizza but does not specify which kind. the figure also demonstrates several potential responses that the server might use to clarify this ambiguity. it is important to identify which response methods are commonly used by service staff and are favored by customers in practical scenarios. addressing these questions is vital for the development of intelligent customer service systems. to answer these questions, we collected 1,000 chinese conversations from real-world consumer environments. nearly every customer in these dialogues initiated at least one ambiguous reference. after organizing the data, we annotated each sentence to prepare the dataset for several uses: (1) training or evaluating a model's capability to identify ambiguous references in conversations; (2) training or evaluating a model's ability to resolve ambiguous references effectively through dialogue; our dataset highlights the response strategies typically used by service staff, yet these may not always align with what customers consider optimal. to gain deeper insights into customer preferences, we developed a questionnaire based on three response methods illustrated in figure 1 and surveyed customers on their satisfaction with each response. the findings show that customers' satisfaction levels with responses b and c are comparable and notably higher than with response a. this indicates that direct clarification questions are not the sole effective approach for addressing ambiguous references. ## dataset construction we gathered dialogue data from actual online and offline consumer interactions to explore how service staff addresses ambiguous references in customer inquiries. we compiled a dataset of 1,000 chinese conversations, which were collected by four undergraduates over a period of three months, drawing on their personal shopping experiences and those of their peers. ## conclusion this study analyzed service staff responses to ambiguous references using data from 1,000 customer interactions and feedback from 413 customer questionnaires. the results show that while simple clarification questions resolve ambiguities, they do not achieve high customer satisfaction. in contrast, strategies combining listing with clarification questions or others increase customer satisfaction. future research should continue to analyze our dataset to develop more sophisticated responses that could outperform those by human service staff.