A framework for rapid development of conversational natural language call routing systems for call centers

A framework for rapid development of conversational natural language call routing systems is proposed. The framework cuts costs by using only scantily prepared business requirements to automatically create an initial prototype. Besides clear targets (terminal routing classes), vague targets which are variations of users' incomplete (semantically overlapping) sentences are enumerated. The vague targets can be derived from the confusion set of the semantic tokens of the clear targets. Also automatically generated for a vague target is a disambiguation dialogue module, which consists of a prompt and grammar to guide the user from a vague target to one of its associated clear targets. In the final analysis, our framework is able to reduce the human labor associated with developing an initial natural language call routing system from a few weeks to just a few hours. The experimental results from a deployed pilot system support the feasibility of our proposed approach. Copyright © 2009 ISCA.