Device and method for collecting, storing and analysing customer voice reviews

Abstract

Customer voice reviews 100 of a business (eg. a hotel or restaurant) are analysed by receiving voice message from a customer and transmitting a signal corresponding to the voice message to a server 200 which generates a text message corresponding to the voice message, its sentiment and translation to other language. This server signal is sent to a display or interface of the owner or manager of business 300 (eg. a real time dashboard or website) along with feedback, reports, alerts and ratings, such that the temperature or music volume can be changed if it is too warm or loud.

Description

This invention relates to a device and a method for collecting, storing and analysing customer voice reviews, and more particularly to a device and method for collecting, storing and analysing reviews from hotels, restaurants and other hospitality businesses. A customer's honest, unfiltered opinion can be quite valuable to businesses such as cafes, restaurants, hotels, taxis, etc. However, customers often do not fully express opinions about the business in a way that is useful to the business. Customers may not give valuable feedback to businesses for any of several reasons, including the customers are shy or otherwise reluctant to express their opinion or think one will listen anyways, the employees of the business are too busy to bother to ask, or the employees of the business do not want to hear any bad news. Other reasons can be that the customer is busy and has no time to explain or feels that it is not polite to explain undesirable things. Known techniques for leaving feedback (such as that on TripAdvisor or Google) can be too complicated as they require registration and typing. It would therefore be desirable to provide an improved device and method for collecting, storing and analysing customer reviews which would serve to enhance customer experience of the business and provide useful feedback to a business to allow it to improve its customer service. In accordance with a first aspect, a device for collecting, storing and analysing customer voice reviews of a business, comprises a microphone, a button, a wireless connection to a server, and may have a display, a user interface and a speaker. The microphone receives a voice message from a customer and transmits a signal corresponding to the voice message to the server, the signal is stored on the server and processed to create a text message corresponding to the voice message and it's translation to other language (if necessary), and the server generates a sentiment of customer corresponding to the voice message, and the server analyses voice messages and generates reports, alertsand ratingsand send the server signal to one ofthe display and / oranother interface of the owner or manager of the business. From the foregoing disclosure and the following more detailed description of various embodiments it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that the present invention provides a significant advance in the technology of tablets. Particularly significant in this regard is the potential the invention affords for providing an easy-to-use device for leaving valuable customer reviews of businesses. Additional elements and advantages of various embodiments will be better understood in view ofthe detailed description provided below. Figure 1 shows a device for collecting, storing and analysing customer voice reviews in accordance with a pair of embodiments. Figure 2 is a schematic flow chart of a method of collecting, storing and analysing customer voice reviews in accordance with one embodiment. It should be understood that the appended drawings are not necessarily to scale, presenting a somewhat simplified representation of various features illustrative of the basic principles of the invention. The specific design features of the device and method for collecting, storing and analysing customer voice reviews disclosed here, including, for example, the specific dimensions of the wireless microphone device, will be determined in part by the particular intended application and use environment. Certain features of the illustrated embodiments have been enlarged or distorted relative to others to help provide clear understanding. In particular, thin features may be thickened, for example, for clarity of illustration. All references to direction and position, unless otherwise indicated, refer to the orientation illustrated in the drawings. It will be apparent to those skilled in the art, that is, to those who have knowledge or experience in this area of technology, that many uses and design variations are possible for the device and method for collecting, storing and analysing customer voice reviews disclosed here. The following detailed discussion of various alternate elements and embodiments will illustrate the general principles of the invention with reference to a device suitable for use in hotels, restaurants and other hospitality businesses. Other embodiments suitable for other applications will be apparent to those skilled in the art given the benefit of this disclosure. Customers' direct and honest opinion is very valuable for owners and managers of various businesses: restaurants, hotels, taxis etc. However, customers rarely make reviews and express direct and honest opinion, because sometimes customers or staff have no time, or staff is not interested in getting feedback or review (especially negative), or customers are shy or feel impolite to express negative opinion in person. Online systems for written reviews (Google Maps, TripAdvisor, Trustpilot, Facebook, etc.) are sometimes complicated and not anonymous. The proposed device and method disclosed herein is aimed at collecting customers' reviews, opinion and any thoughts in the form of anonymous voice messages, storing and analysing the voice messages with the purpose of reporting to owner or manager of businesses in the form of realtime dashboard, periodic reports, or alerts for actions, or rating the business with the possibility to publish such ratings. Turning now to the drawings, Figure 1 shows representative examples of what the device may look like. Typically, the device is a relatively small and may have an aesthetically pleasing shape as shown, and can be placed on a table or other surface used by customers. The device should be pleasing to the touch and easy to operate, with very few buttons / switches, etc. The device can comprise a button for a user interface, a battery or other source of electricity, a microphone, a display, a speaker and a wireless connection. The wireless connection operatively connects the device to a receiver which can in turn transmit data to a remote server, or the device can transmit data directly to a remote server. Data or a signal from each device is sent to a receiver. Advantageously these signals can be stored and analysed and / or processed through a machine learning algorithm, for example. The server can process the signal to generate a text message corresponding to the voice message and translation of the text message to other language (if necessary) and define the sentiment of the voice message. The server can process and analyse the voice messages using machine learning to generate reports, alerts and ratings to be sent to the owner or manager of the business. The step of processing can include sending messages to the devices of the owner or manager of the business. These messages are shown in four representative categories - a real time dashboard, an immediate actions alert, periodic reports and / or an online rating. The immediate actions alert can comprise, for example, an alert to the business that the room is too dark, too cold, or too hot, that the service is slow or that the music is loud, etc. Such alerts can be connected to smart systems, that automatically change, for example, the room temperature music volume. The periodic reports which collate data about the various users of the devices may be generated at any one of several periods of time - urgently (immediately), hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, etc. The online rating may be presented in one of several ways. For example, the rating may be released to various websites which list the business at the option of the business, for example, or the online rating may be made at an independent website. Also, the online rating may allow for online feedback, and / or may be operatively connected to a website where the information about the business can be found, such as Facebook, or Google maps, for example. Other representative categories of messages to send out based on the data received from customer input to the device will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art given the benefit of this disclosure. Analysed data can be displayed on a real time dashboard presented on the device to the owner or manager of the business. The dashboard may have several sections and display the identification or location of the device where customer left the review, date and time of the customer review, it's content (text message transcript corresponding to the voice message), sentiment of the review, translation to other language, and a link to listen the voice message with the review. Looking at the method in more detail, Figure 3 shows a schematic flowchart where customer's (user's) voice messages (100) are collected. The customers' reviews, opinions or any thoughts are collected in the form of voice messages from microphones of wireless devices (101) or wired devices (102) or a customer's Device (103) and sent directly or through the server to a Storing and Analysis (200) algorithm. Advantageously, sending voice message is easy and anonymous for customer and does not require registration or identification. Devices for getting voice messages are very simple and attractive in design and in operation. The devices can be activated by pressing the button or by voice activation. Wireless Devices (101) can be in the form of an internet of things (loT) or any other electronic device with the microphone and the following communication apparatus: Wi-fi, Bluetooth, Mobile phone network (3G, 4G, 5G etc.), Zigbee or any other radio communication. The wired devices (102) can send the voice messages via physical connection: copper wires, optical cable or any other connection. The wireless devices (101) and wired devices (102) can have a display and a speaker. The wireless devices (101) and Wired Devices (102) can be in the form of easily removable hand device or can be fixed and located on the tables in hotels, restaurants, or designated places, or reception desks, or on the walls, or handed over by the staff, or in the taxis, etc. The Customer's Device (103) is a smartphone, application or web-site with the simple design and the purpose of collection customer's reviews, opinion or thoughts in the form of voice message. The Storing and Analysis (200) algorithm can be located in the cloud computing system or on the local server within the boundaries of specific country, or within the business premises, or on the devices (101,102,103). Voice messages can be stored (201) and archived for further use, or stored temporarily for processing purpose only, or recordings may be directly processed without storing (201 may be eliminated). All voice messages are processed and analysed using a machine learning algorithm (210), including, for example, Speech to text (211) technology, Sentiment Analysis (212), and Translation (213) (if required) and other Machine learning (214). Those processes can be used individually or in any combination. Voice messages can be processed and analysed without editing or can also be passed to reporting without processing and analysis. Results of processing and analysis of voice messages are passed for Reporting, rating and actions (300) system, used by the owner or manager of the business, or any designated personnel, or general public. The Real-time Dashboard (301) is provided to demonstrate to the owner or manager of the business or any other designated personnel the messages of the customers in real time and with the possibility to view all previous messages, including: date, time, location, device ID, the transcript (content), sentiment (in text or as emoticon), translation (if required). The voice messages can be played (if permitted). Return signals can be sent from a server which has processed the signal received from the device and delivered to the real time dashboard. The Realtime Dashboard (301) can be in the form of website, application for smartphone, standalone screen, hand-held device or any other device. The owner or manager defines the personnel, who has access to the Real-time Dashboard (301). A result of processing and analysis of customers' voice messages can advantageously be in the form of an Actions Alert (302) sent to the owner, manager or any other designated personnel. Alerts can be in the form of message, sign or signal delivered to a smartphone, website, screen, handheld device, automatic systems or any other devices. A customer's voice message can contain an opinion about low temperature in the room, and then the message can be delivered to the manager with the recommendation to increase the temperature. Optionally the Actions Alert (302) can be connected to smart home systems or automatic systems that can perform certain actions (change room temperature, music volume, light level etc.) automatically or with the consent of the owner, manager or other designated personnel. The personnel can take actions for each alert or for all alerts and automate the process. A result of processing and analysis of customers' voice messages can be in the form of periodic (immediate, daily, weekly, monthly, annual, etc.). Reports (303) can be sent to the owner or manager of the business or any other designated personnel. The reports may contain the general sentiment of customers, trends (sentiment change over time), the most popular words and expressions, complains, rating, rating trends, etc. The form of reports can be adjusted by the owner. The Reports (303) can be formed by the processing and analysis (200) system by the request of owner or manager of the business. The request can be made in by choosing pre-defined options or by natural language, including voice commands, for example: "What was the major reason of customers' complains this month?". A Rating and Publishing (303) system can be provided to third party websites as a result of processing and analysis of customers' voice messages. The system can automatically give a rating (scores or stars) to the business in general or in various categories (food, service, location etc.) based on algorithms, that cannot be influenced by the owner or manager of the business. If the owner or manager permits, the rating can be published and available to the general public on websites, smartphone applications, social media. The ratings can be integrated in rating agencies, websites or social media (Google Maps, TripAdvisor, Trustpilot, Facebook etc.). If the owner permits, transcripts of customers' reviews can also be published. From the foregoing disclosure and detailed description of certain embodiments, it will be apparent that various modifications, additions and other alternative embodiments are possible without departing from the true scope of the invention. The embodiments discussed were chosen and described to provide the best illustration of the principles of the invention and its practical application to thereby enable one of ordinary skill in the art to use the invention in various embodiments and with various modifications as are suited to the particular use contemplated. All such modifications and variations are within the scope of the invention as determined by the appended claims when interpreted in accordance with the breadth to which they are fairly, legally, and equitably entitled.

Claims

1. A device and a method for collecting, storing and analysing customer voice reviews of a business, comprising, in combination:a microphone, a speaker, a customer interface, a battery, and a connection to a server;wherein the microphone receives a voice message from a customer and transmits a signal corresponding to the voice message to the server, the signal is stored on the server and processed to create a text message corresponding to the voice message, translation of such text message to other language and define the sentiment of voice message; andthe server generates a server signal corresponding to the text message and send the server signal to one of the user interface and a business owner device interface2. The device of claim 1 wherein the server sends the server signal to a real time dashboard on the display of the business device of an owner ora manager of the business, comprising at least one of a voice messages transcript, a date of the voice message, and customer device identification or location, a translation of a transcript of the voice message, a sentiment of the voice message, and an alert requiring action.

3. The device of claim 1 wherein the server sends the server signal to another interface, and the another interface is a website which discloses information about the business.

4. The device of claim 1 wherein the processing of the signal comprises at least one of a translation of the text message to another language, and defining a sentiment of the customer's voice message.

5. The device of claim 1 wherein the server signal comprises at least one of a report, an alert and a rating, and the server signal is sent to the business.

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