JPH07303158A - Telephone counseling system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To allow a customer to quickly acquire a required expert intelligence by selecting service information storing in advance replies of experts with classification and sending the information automatically to the customer when the customer makes a request or an inquiry with a selection code through a telephone set or a facsimile equipment. CONSTITUTION:When a customer desired to know required information, the customer divides contents of a question or consult for each item and adds a selection code to each item and uses a customer operation manual 5 represented dividedly as a tree like, for example to select each item. An answer of each item on the manual 5 is stored in advance in a service center SC and the customer extracts required information from a service information management box designated by the customer and the information is replied to the customer. Furthermore, when the customer cannot understand a selection code for a small item, the customer requests the delivery o a guide list designating a large index items and the guide list 6 with each detailed items described thereon is sent to the customer facsimile equipment F as an image signal based thereon.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention, when a service request or inquiry is made to a service center through a telephone or a facsimile, an answer to the request exists in a voice message or image information stored in advance in the service center. In the case of doing so, immediately and automatically replying to the customer, while if there is no answer, select the optimum consultant from the plurality of consultants registered in advance at the service center and request or inquire to that consultant. Related to the telephone counseling system with a new configuration that notifies the customer of the acceptance of the request and returns the answer received from the consultant to the customer.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Various kinds of specialized knowledge are indispensable in recent years when the economy and laws have become complicated. Individuals and companies who do not have such specialized knowledge can survive economic competition by themselves. I can't do that, and I have to be defeated. However, such specialized knowledge can only be understood by specialists who are familiar with the way, and specialists are being widely demanded. However,
Having such specialists as advisors is almost impossible for general individuals and small companies in terms of cost, and there is a strong demand for good advisors who can respond quickly and at low cost.

Therefore, in recent years, a service industry has appeared in which various consulting services are provided to member members such as general individuals and small businesses that are registered in advance. However, this service system is designed so that when a member member calls the secretariat when he or she wants to make a request or inquiry to a consultant, the consultant person will go to the secretariat and consult with the member member each time. It is extremely inefficient, and you must go to the secretariat one by one, even for basic or elementary consultation contents,
It's very troublesome.

[0004]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The object of the present invention proposed in view of the above circumstances is that even an ordinary individual or a small business can
It is an object of the present invention to provide a telephone counseling system that enables easy access at any time using a telephone or a facsimile communication terminal at home or office to receive expert advice.

[0005]

A telephone counseling system of the present invention proposed to achieve the above object responds to a call from a communication terminal such as a telephone set by a customer with a voice message to make a request or inquiry. A telephone counseling system that automatically accepts and responds to customers by classifying the questions and consultation items predicted in advance on the customer side, and for each item, adds a selection code that can be input by the telephone and classifies A customer operation manual was set up, and the service center side was equipped with an automatic calling / receiving function.
When a call is received from a communication terminal such as a telephone, a voice response processing device that receives and processes the voice and tone signals that are received and transmitted, and the reply contents to the request and inquiry items specified by the customer are displayed as voice messages and A service information management box prestored by image information and the voice response processing device are connected, and the request and inquiry information sent from the communication terminal in the form of voice and tone signals is discriminated, and the response contents are stored. After searching the stored service information management box, the customer's telephone number to be answered by the voice response processing device is called, and the reply content recorded in the service information management box is returned to the customer's telephone or facsimile. It has a configuration including an information processing unit.

Such a telephone counseling system is embodied in various variants. That is,
According to the first aspect, a credit information database of registered member members is prepared in advance, and an information processing apparatus connected to this credit information database confirms a credit to a customer who calls a service center and requests a service. Or whether to accept the telephone counseling service for the customer who made the inquiry. Thereby, the payment for the service can be surely performed (claim 4).

In the second aspect, the service information management box is provided with a telephone number management table in which telephone numbers of consultants' offices and the like are stored, and an appropriate reply to a customer request or inquiry is provided in the service information management box. If it is not prepared and stored in the phone, a consultant suitable for the contents of the customer's request or inquiry is called by the telephone by referring to the telephone number management table, and the consultant is informed that the request or inquiry from the customer has been received. Automatically responds (claim 5).

The notification to the office of the consultant may be automatically performed in the form of a document notification by facsimile instead of the voice message by the telephone (claim 7). In this case, the consultant does not have to pick up the receiver one by one. In particular, when a request or inquiry from a customer is transmitted in the form of a document through a facsimile, the voice response processing device transfers the received image information to the consultant's office by facsimile (claim 8).

On the other hand, after notifying the consultant's office etc., the consultant who should be in charge of the response calls the communication terminal, and the voice response processing device responds with a voice message to automatically accept the response from the consultant. In such a case, it is once registered in the corresponding service information management box, and then the reply is returned by the method specified by the customer.

Regarding the payment for the telephone counseling service, the payment is automatically settled from the withdrawal account registered in advance when the reply to the customer is completed (claim 9). On the other hand, for a non-member general member customer, an information fee charging collection service company collects usage charges. When the customer makes a request or inquiry to the service center, various means can be adopted as necessary.

First, when the customer wants to know the necessary information, he / she consults the customer operation manual by classifying the question and consultation contents into items and adding a selection code to each item. Then, if desired commands are sequentially transmitted as tone signals using a touch-tone telephone based on the voice message instruction from the service center, the required information is retrieved from the service information management box specified by the customer and immediately returned to the customer. (Claim 1). At this time, if you do not know the selection code of a subitem, specify the heading item and request the command list, and the guide list with the selection code attached to each item that subclassifies the item will display the image signal. Is sent to the customer's facsimile.
The customer can specify a detailed item by inputting a desired selection code based on this guide list (claim 2).

[0012] Secondly, when it is desired to consult about special contents or to give a message to a consultant in charge, after specifying a message message selection code with a tone signal, the question and consultation contents are recorded as a message message of the customer. . The content of the consultation by the message is recorded in the designated service information management box, and then the consultant in charge is notified and taken out (claim 3).

Thirdly, the contents of the request and the inquiry can be sent as image information by fax. In this case, the same process as in the case of using voice is performed and the consultant in charge is notified.

[0014]

According to the telephone counseling system of the present invention, when a request or inquiry for service provision is received from the customer to the service center through the telephone, when the request or inquiry is instructed by the selection code by the tone signal, the information is displayed. The processing device selects an appropriate answer from voice messages and image information for reply registered in advance in the service information management box, calls the telephone number of the customer who should reply by the voice response processing device, Answer by voice message or image information
Send to customer's phone or fax. Thereby,
2 for inquiries with predictable content
You can reply immediately when you need it at any time of the day.

Further, when the consultation or the message contents are transmitted by the voice or image signal of the customer, they are once stored in the service information management box designated by the customer and then notified to the office of the corresponding consultant. . In response to this, when the consultant sends a voice message or a response by image information to the service information management box, the voice response processing device sends it to the customer.
Therefore, even if the inquiry is relatively complicated and the reply is not prepared in the service information management box, it is possible to accurately and promptly respond without requiring special labor.

[0016]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the system of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a basic configuration diagram of a telephone counseling system of the present invention. In this telephone counseling system, the customers H1 to H3 can access the service center to receive appropriate expert consulting regarding various items. For example, consultation on each operation related to efficient operation of real estate, taxation, all kinds of construction, intellectual property rights such as patents, management, auditing work, acquisition of companies, auditing work, accounting and finance, and information processing.

From customers H1 to H3 to service center SC
A communication terminal such as a telephone TEL, a facsimile F, or a bar code reader 1 is used as an access means for accessing. When the telephone TEL is used, the request and inquiry contents are transmitted by tone signals or voice. When the facsimile F is used, the request and inquiry contents are transmitted as an image signal. When using the pencil-type barcode reader 1, use the operation manual 3 in which each consultant item has a barcode attached, and rub the barcode attached to the required consultation item with the barcode reader 1 and the reader 1 The bar code signal is transmitted by reading the code, and the command is automatically transmitted from the bar code terminal 2. When any of the above communication terminals is used, it is transmitted to the service center SC through the public line network L.

At the service center SC, the public line network L
Requests and inquiry contents sent via the above are fetched and accumulated in a computer CI for transmission and reception capable of voice response, and the contents are dealt with by a customer by a voice message. In response to a tone signal or voice request or inquiry from a customer, the host computer HC decodes the content specified by the customer, discriminates it, and stores it in a predetermined external memory 4. On the other hand, when an image signal is sent from the customer by the facsimile F, the image data is converted into code data that can be processed by the computer by the fax OCR (FA) via the fax server FS, and then the host computer HC. Are stored in the required external memory 4 in the same manner.

On the other hand, when replying from the service center SC to the customer, for example, when the reply is transmitted as image information, the image data read by the facsimile F is converted into data that can be processed by a computer by the fax server FS. After that, the data is sent from the transmitting / receiving computer CI to the public line network L. If the customer's voice accepts the consultation content or message, the answer is not registered, so the service center SC consults with the consultant C1.
The fact that the customer has accepted the service request is automatically notified to the Cn telephone, the facsimile F or the personal computer P. In response to this notification, the consultant retrieves the information from the designated customer from the service center SC and returns the response to the service center SC.
When the service center SC receives the reply, it automatically sends it to the customer.

Further, when the customer wants to know the necessary information, as shown in FIG. 2, the question and consultation contents are divided into items, and a selection code is added to each item, for example, a tree shape. Use the customer operation manual 5 classified as described in.
That is, the required command codes are sequentially selected from the customer operation manual 5 based on the voice message instruction,
The code is transmitted as a tone signal using a touch-tone phone. With respect to the items described in the customer operation manual 5, the answers are stored in advance in the service center SC, so the required information is retrieved from the service information management box designated by the customer and returned to the customer ( Claim 1).

If the customer does not know the selection code of a subitem, he / she requests the guide list of the item by designating the main item and, as shown in FIG. 3, the item is subdivided into subitems. The guide list 6 to which each selection code is attached is sent as an image signal to the facsimile F on the customer side. The customer can input a required selection code in sequence based on the guide list 6 and can specify even fine items.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing the system configuration of the service center SC. The line control unit 7 processes outgoing / incoming of dozens of lines to the public line network L in time series. The voice control unit 8 recognizes the tone signal received from the line control unit 7 through the voice bus, selects the corresponding voice message from the audio memory 12, and sends it from the line control unit 7 to the public line network L. The system control unit 9 stores the voice information received from the voice control unit 8 in the voice disk 13 or records it in the tape recorder 14, and also stores the image information (including character information) in the floppy disk 15. The host control unit 10 converts the information received from the system control unit 9 via the system bus into a binary signal and sends it to the host emulator 11.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing the overall configuration of the system of the present invention. The service center SC, which is the main body of this telephone counseling system, is configured to include a voice response processing device 16, a service information management box 17, and an information processing device 11. The voice response processing device 16 has an automatic call originating / receiving function, and the telephone TEL of the customer.
When a call is received, the incoming call is received and the transmitted voice or tone signal is received and processed. The service information management box 17 stores the answers from the specialized consultants C1 to Cn to the predicted requests and inquiries as voice messages and image information.

The information processing device 3, which is a host emulator, is connected to the voice response processing device 16 and determines the contents of the request or inquiry sent from the voice response processing device 16 as a voice or tone signal to determine the response contents. After retrieving the stored information management box 17, the telephone number of the customer who should respond is called and the retrieved response content is transmitted.

The service information management box 2 is a voice disc 1 in which voice information for replying to expected requests and inquiries from a plurality of pre-registered consultants C1 to Cn is divided and stored for each consultant.
3, a tape recorder 14 for recording voice of customer's consultation contents and messages, and a floppy disk 15 for storing image information. In addition, the floppy disk 15
The telephone numbers of the offices of the consultants and the member members are stored in advance and are also used as a telephone number management table (claim 3).

The information processing device 3 is connected to a credit information database 18 in which credit information of individual member members registered in advance is accumulated and stored (claim 2). Each time the information processing device 11 receives a call from a customer, the information processing device 11 refers to the credit information database 18 to confirm the credit to the customer who called the service center CS, and whether or not to accept the telephone counseling service for the customer. Therefore, it is possible to surely collect the price for the service. Next, various processes of the above embodiment will be described with reference to the flowcharts of FIGS. 6 to 11.

FIG. 6 shows the overall processing operation procedure of the system of the present invention. Steps 100 to 102 show processing when a command is input by a tone signal from the customer by the telephone. Since the answer to the consultant item designated by the command is always registered in the service information management box 17, the answer is selected and returned to the customer online. Therefore, the customer can immediately obtain the necessary information at any time.

On the other hand, steps 103 to 105 show a response when the consultation content or message from the customer is received as voice information or image information. In this case, since there is no appropriate answer in the service information management box 17, the corresponding consultant is automatically notified by voice message or facsimile that the request or inquiry from the customer has been accepted. When the answer from the consultant is sent to the service center, the service center automatically sends the answer to the customer. After receiving the inquiry from the customer, the notification to the consultant and the reply from the consultant to the customer may be made online or offline.

FIG. 7 shows a process of accepting a telephone request or inquiry from a customer. First, step 10
6 to 112 will be described. When a call from a customer arrives, the customer responds with a voice message to instruct the customer to enter a command. For example, "Please enter the registration number", "Enter the department code to be consulted", "Select the box code", "For detailed consultation, reply by fax or telephone. Please select the answer method. 1 for fax, 0 for telephone "," Please enter the telephone number because the tax accountant in charge will answer by the next day ", etc. . When the customer sends a command by a tone signal while referring to the operation manual according to the instruction, the registration and confirmation processing of each code is performed until all the information is input.

When the reception code is entered as the selection code based on the customer operation manual, steps 114 to 117 are executed.
As shown in (4), since the answer to this is registered in the service information management box, the answer to the selection code designated by the customer is selected, and this answer is transmitted by the answer method designated by the customer. When the customer requests the list because the code of the detailed item is not known, the code list is transmitted to the customer's facsimile as image information. On the other hand, if the message is a voice message, step 119-
As indicated by reference numeral 123, in response to the voice message, the customer is instructed to transmit the consultation content or message by his / her own voice. The voice message from the customer is stored in the service information management box designated by the customer by the command and accepted.
The telephone number of the consultant in charge of the received contents is retrieved by extracting the telephone number management table, and the reception of the inquiry is temporarily recorded in the telephone number management table.

Steps 200 to 206 in FIG. 8 show a process for automatically notifying the consultant in charge of the acceptance of a request or consultation from a customer. The telephone management table is searched to check whether or not there is an inquiry acceptance, the telephone number of the consultant storing the inquiry is read from the telephone number management table, and the consultant is called. When the consultant side receives the call in response to this call, the service center notifies that the inquiry has been accepted. This notification may be performed by a voice message by a telephone, or a required notification slip may be transmitted by image information by facsimile.

Steps 300 to 307 of FIG. 9 show the processing in the case where the consultant asks the inquiry contents in response to the acceptance notice from the service center. After receiving the telephone call from the consultant, the user responds with a voice message to instruct designation of the required service information management box. In response to this, when the command transmitted by the tone signal from the consultant is received, the designated service information management box is searched to find the voice information of the customer, and the recorded voice information is reproduced and transmitted to the consultant. After that, the transmitted voice information is deleted from the service information management box, but the inquiry content from the consultant is automatically handled without the need for an operator or the like.

Steps 400 to 408 of FIG. 10 show the processing for accepting the reply sent from the consultant.
After receiving the telephone call from the consultant, respond with a voice message and specify the corresponding service information management box. In response to this, when the command sent from the consultant is received, next, in response to the voice message, the response contents are instructed, and the service information management box corresponding to the command previously received from the consultant is set in advance. Search for. The consultant sends the answer in the form of information specified by the customer, such as voice or image. When this answer is received, the answer as voice information or image information is received and stored in the searched service information management box.

Steps 500 to 507 of FIG. 11 show a process of transmitting an answer accepted from the consultant to the customer. The information processing unit 11 uses the service information management box 17
Is always searched to determine whether the answer from the consultant is stored, and when it is determined that the answer is stored, the corresponding customer's telephone number is read from the telephone number management table and Call customers by phone. When the customer receives the call, it sends an answer to the customer,
In this case, either voice information or image information is returned according to the method specified by the customer. After making this reply, the transmitted reply is deleted from the service information management box 17.

After the transmission of this response, the price for the transaction is calculated, and the credit company is notified of the withdrawal account number and the price managed corresponding to the customer's telephone number.
Payment is automatically made (Claim 7). Even when the above guide list is sent to the customer, the same price settlement is performed.

[0036]

As can be understood from the above description, the telephone counseling system of the present invention is expected to be used when a customer requests or makes an inquiry with a selection code through a telephone or a facsimile at home or office. Since the expert's response to a request or inquiry is divided and an appropriate response is selected from the service information management box stored in advance, the response is automatically sent to the customer as a voice message or image information. You can quickly obtain the necessary specialized knowledge at any time of day. Further, regarding the consultation content or the message to the consultant, which cannot be designated by the selection code, if the detailed content is transmitted by the image information or the voice of the customer himself, the appropriate answer by the specialized consultant can be automatically received. Moreover, since computer processing can be performed using a general public line network without using a special line such as a digital line, there is an advantage that the construction can be performed at a relatively low cost.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a basic conceptual diagram of a system of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a perspective view showing an example of a customer operation manual used on the customer side.

FIG. 3 is a perspective view showing an example of a guide list transmitted to a customer side.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing a basic configuration of a service center.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing a basic configuration of the system of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing an outline of a basic processing procedure in the system of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a flow chart showing a procedure for accepting a request or inquiry from a customer using a telephone.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure for automatically notifying a consultant in charge of acceptance of a request or consultation from a customer.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure in the case where a consultant asks for inquiry contents in response to an acceptance notification from a service center.

FIG. 10 is a flowchart showing a procedure for accepting an answer returned from a consultant.

FIG. 11 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure for transmitting an answer received from a consultant to a customer.

[Explanation of symbols]

 SC ... Service center C1-Cn ... Consultant H1-H3 ... Customer L ... Public line F ... Facsimile TEL ... Telephone CI ... Communication processing computer HC ... Host computer 1 ... Bar Code Reader 16 ... Voice Response Processing Device 17 ... Service Information Management Box 11 ... Information Processing Unit 18 ... Credit Information Database 5 ... Customer Operation Manual 4 ... External Storage Device

 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (72) Inventor Takeo Nagashima 7-2-912 Minamiogimachi, Kita-ku, Osaka City Consultants Mawauchi Co., Ltd. (72) Inventor Isamu Nishino 7-2-912 Minamiogi-machi, Kita-ku, Osaka Company Consultants Mawauchi (72) Inventor Haruo Hirose 7-2-912 Minamiogi-cho, Kita-ku, Osaka City Consultants Mawauchi (72) Inventor Fukue Iwasaki 7-2-912 Minamiogi-machi, Kita-ku, Osaka Consultants Mawauchi (72) Inventor Yuji Maruyama 1-12-3 Kudankita, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo Inside Horoson Tech Co., Ltd.

Claims (9)

[Claims] 1. A telephone counseling system for automatically responding to a call from a communication terminal such as a telephone set by a customer with a voice message, automatically accepting a request or inquiry, and replying to the call. There is a customer operation manual that divides the questions and consultation items that are asked, and adds a selection code that can be entered by the telephone to each item and classifies them, and the service center side has an automatic call sending and receiving function, When a call is received from a communication terminal such as a telephone, a voice response processing device that receives and processes voice and tone signals that are received and transmitted, and reply contents to requests and inquiries specified by customers are displayed as voice messages and The service information management box stored in advance as image information is connected to the voice response processing device, and the voice is transmitted from the communication terminal. After determining the request or inquiry information sent in the form of a tone signal and searching the service information management box in which the reply contents are stored, the telephone number of the customer to be answered by the voice response processing device is called, A telephone counseling system having a configuration including an information processing unit for returning the reply content recorded in the service information management box to the customer's telephone or facsimile. 2. In the customer operation manual, questions and consultation items predicted in advance are classified, and in addition to the selection code that can be input by the telephone, the questions and consultation items are classified into each question and consultation item. The guide list of the listed selection codes is additionally provided, and the service information management box stores in advance a guide list in which headings of questions and consultation items are described.
Telephone counseling system described in. 3. The customer operation manual further includes a message message selection code for inquiring arbitrary questions or consultations as a message message, and the service information management box specifies the message message selection code. The telephone counseling system according to claim 1, wherein a stored message reception box is stored in advance. 4. The information processing unit is connected to a credit information database prepared in advance, and has a function of determining whether or not to accept a telephone counseling service after confirming a credit to a customer who calls a service center. The telephone counseling system according to claim 1, which is provided. 5. The service information management box further comprises a telephone number management table in which telephone numbers of consultants to be dealt with are stored. The voice response processing device receives the request and inquiry from the customer, 3. The telephone counseling system according to claim 1, wherein the telephone number of the consultant stored in the telephone management table is called to automatically notify the customer of the request or inquiry through the telephone. 6. The voice response processing device, after responding to a call from a communication terminal such as a telephone set by a consultant who should be in charge of the response with a voice message, automatically accepts the response, and a corresponding service information management box. The telephone counseling system according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the telephone counseling system has a function of registering with the telephone counseling. 7. The telephone counseling system according to any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein a reception notice for a request or inquiry from a customer is automatically transmitted to a corresponding consultant through a facsimile instead of a telephone. . 8. A request or inquiry from a customer is transmitted through a facsimile instead of a telephone, and the voice response processing device receives the request or inquiry transmitted as image information by facsimile, and then the corresponding consultant's office work. The telephone counseling system according to any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein the telephone counseling system is configured to transmit the image information received at the place. 9. The information processing apparatus has a function of automatically paying the price from a pre-registered withdrawal account when a customer who calls a service center and makes a request or inquiry is answered. The telephone counseling system according to claim 1.