Method for handling user inquiries to a business - Patent application

Abstract

To provide a method that allows smooth transition to business negotiation in response to an inquiry from a user.SOLUTION: In a method for obtaining information about a user who has made an inquiry to a company, a control part of a server terminal receives a search request for detailed information about the user who has made an inquiry to a company from a company terminal of a person in charge at the company, refers to a prompt sentence stored in a storage part of the server terminal that instructs the search, receives the search result based on the prompt sentence using a large-scale language model, and transmits the search result to the company terminal.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 7

Description

[Technical field]

[0001] The present invention relates to a method for processing user inquiries for a business. [Background technology]

[0002] Nowadays, users (including companies) who are interested in products, services, etc. provided by a company approach the company by entering the details of their inquiry through an inquiry form or the like provided on the company's web page.

[0003] In order to efficiently respond to such inquiries, for example, Patent Document 1 discloses an inquiry support method for automatically generating an answer sentence based on an inquiry. [Prior art documents] [Patent documents]

[0004] [Patent Document 1] Patent Publication No. 2021-22211 Summary of the Invention [Problem to be solved by the invention]

[0005] However, although the technology disclosed in Patent Document 1 discloses a method for efficiently responding to inquiries, typically, there are few cases in which a business negotiation occurs after a user makes an inquiry, and the person in charge at the company that receives the inquiry obtains information about the user who made the inquiry by performing a web search or the like, and approaches the user based on the information thus manually retrieved.

[0006] Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a method for smoothly transitioning from an inquiry from a user to a business negotiation. [Means for solving the problem]

[0007] In one aspect of the present invention, a method for obtaining information about a user who has made an inquiry to a company, wherein a control unit of a server terminal accepts a search request for detailed information about the user who has made an inquiry to the company from a company terminal of a person in charge of the company, refers to a prompt sentence instructing the search stored in a memory unit of the server terminal, accepts search results based on a large-scale language model based on the prompt sentence, and transmits the search results to the company terminal. Effect of the Invention

[0008] According to the present invention, it is possible to provide a method for smoothly transitioning from an inquiry from a user to a business negotiation. [Brief description of the drawings]

[0009] [Figure 1] 1 is a block diagram showing an inquiry response system according to a first embodiment of the present invention. [Diagram 2] 2 is a functional block diagram showing the server terminal 100 of FIG. 1. [Diagram 3] 2 is a functional block diagram showing a user terminal 200 of FIG. 1. [Figure 4] FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of user data stored in the server 100. [Diagram 5] FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of company data stored in a server 100. [Figure 6] FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of meeting data stored in the server 100. [Figure 7] 5 is a flowchart showing an example of a method for acquiring information of a user who has made an inquiry to a company according to the first embodiment of the present invention. [Figure 8] FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating an example of a prompt sentence for searching for user information according to the first embodiment of the present invention. [Figure 9] 13 is a flowchart showing another example of a method for acquiring information of a user who has made an inquiry to a company according to the first embodiment of the present invention. [Figure 10]FIG. 11 is a diagram illustrating another example of a prompt sentence for searching for user information according to the first embodiment of the present invention. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

[0010] Hereinafter, an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. Note that the embodiment described below does not unduly limit the contents of the present invention described in the claims. Furthermore, not all of the components shown in the embodiment are necessarily essential components of the present invention.

[0011] <Configuration> FIG. 1 shows a method for processing a user's inquiry to a business according to a first embodiment of the present invention. This system 1 includes a server terminal 100 that accepts information included in an inquiry input by an inquiring user (including a company to which a predetermined number of employees belong) via an inquiry form for inquiries included in a webpage provided by a company that performs sales activities, user terminals 200A and 200B managed by the inquiring user, and company terminals 300A and 300B that provide a webpage including an inquiry form to the user terminals 200A and 200B and are managed by the company that performs sales activities. In addition, although not shown, this system 1 may include one or more company terminals that manage information referenced when allocating sales representatives or arranging meetings, which is executed by the server terminal 100, and the server terminal 100 can also cooperate with applications (e.g., calendar application, customer management application, etc.) provided by these company terminals via API. The server terminal 100 can also cooperate with an external server that implements a large-scale language model (e.g., LLM such as Chat GPT) that searches for detailed information about the inquiring user and / or the company to which the inquiring user belongs, which will be described later, via API. For convenience of explanation, each terminal is described as being a single terminal or a specific number of terminals, but the number of each terminal is not limited.

[0012] The server terminal 100, the user terminals 200A and 200B, and the company terminals 300A and 300B are each connected via a network NW1. The network NW is configured by the Internet, an intranet, a wireless LAN (Local Area Network), a WAN (Wide Area Network), or the like.

[0013] The server terminal 100 and the enterprise terminals 300A, 300B may be, for example, general-purpose computers such as workstations or personal computers, or may be logically realized by cloud computing.

[0014] The user terminals 200A and 200B are, for example, information processing devices such as personal computers and tablet terminals, but may also be configured as smartphones, mobile phones, PDAs, or the like.

[0015] In this embodiment, the system 1 is described as having a configuration including a server terminal 100, user terminals 200A, 200B, and corporate terminals 300A, 300B, and users of each terminal use their respective terminals to operate the server terminal 100, but the server terminal 100 may be configured as a stand-alone system, and the server terminal itself may have a function for each user to directly operate it. Hereinafter, the user terminals 200A, 200B will be collectively referred to as user terminal 200, and the corporate terminals 300A, 300B will be collectively referred to as corporate terminal 300, as necessary.

[0016] Fig. 2 is a functional block configuration diagram of the server terminal 100 of Fig. 1. The server terminal 100 includes a communication unit 110, a storage unit 120, and a control unit .

[0017] The communication unit 110 is a communication interface for communicating with the user terminal 200 and the company terminal 300 via the network NW1, and communication is performed according to a communication protocol such as TCP / IP (Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol).

[0018] The storage unit 120 stores programs for executing various control processes and various functions in the control unit 130, input data, etc., and is composed of a RAM (Random Access Memory), a ROM (Read Only Memory), etc. The storage unit 120 also has a user data storage unit 121 that stores various data related to the inquiring user, a company data storage unit 122 that stores various data related to the company conducting sales activities, and a meeting data storage unit 123 that stores various information necessary for meetings for business negotiations between the company and the inquiring user. A database (not shown) storing various data may be constructed outside the storage unit 120 or the server terminal 100.

[0019] The control unit 130 controls the overall operation of the server terminal 100 by executing a program stored in the storage unit 120, and is composed of a CPU (Central Processing Unit), a GPU (Graphics Processing Unit), etc. The functions of the control unit 130 include an information receiving unit 131 that receives information from each terminal, a user information processing unit 132 that refers to and processes various data related to the inquiring user, a company information processing unit 133 that refers to and processes various data related to a company that performs sales activities, and a meeting processing unit 134 that refers to and processes various data related to a meeting for business negotiation between the company and the inquiring user. The information receiving unit 131, the user information processing unit 132, the company information processing unit 133, and the meeting processing unit 134 are started by a program stored in the storage unit 120 and executed by the server terminal 100, which is a computer (electronic calculator).

[0020] The information receiving unit 131 receives information from the user terminal 200 and / or the company terminal 300 via the communication unit 110. For example, from the user terminal 200, information related to an inquiry to a company input by an inquiring user via an inquiry form or the like is received.

[0021] The user information processing unit 132 refers to various data relating to the user received from the user terminal 200 (for example, user data 1000, which will be described later) and performs a predetermined process.

[0022] The company information processing unit 133 refers to various data relating to the company received from the company terminal 300 (for example, company data 2000, described later) and performs a predetermined process.

[0023] The meeting processing unit 134 performs processing such as arranging a meeting based on the information related to the inquiry received from the user and the information related to the company.

[0024] The control unit 130 may also have a screen generation unit (not shown), which generates screen information to be displayed via the user interface of the user terminal 200 upon request. For example, using image and text data (not shown) stored in the storage unit 120 as material, the control unit 130 generates a user interface by arranging various images and text in predetermined areas of the user interface based on predetermined layout rules. Processing related to the image generation unit may also be executed by a GPU (Graphics Processing Unit).

[0025] Fig. 3 is a functional block diagram showing the user terminal 200 of Fig. 1. The user terminal 200 includes a communication unit 210, a display operation unit 220, a storage unit 230, and a control unit 240.

[0026] The communication unit 210 is a communication interface for communicating with the server terminal 100 via the network NW, and communication is performed according to a communication protocol such as TCP / IP.

[0027] The display operation unit 220 is a user interface used for inputting instructions by the provider and displaying text, images, etc. according to input data from the control unit 240, and is composed of a display, keyboard, and mouse when the user terminal 200 is configured as a personal computer, and is composed of a touch panel, etc. when the user terminal 200 is configured as a smartphone or tablet terminal. This display operation unit 220 is started up by a control program stored in the storage unit 230 and executed by the user terminal 200, which is a computer (electronic calculator).

[0028] The storage unit 230 stores programs for executing various control processes and functions in the control unit 240, input data, etc., and is composed of a RAM, a ROM, etc. The storage unit 230 also temporarily stores the contents of communication with the server terminal 100.

[0029] The control unit 240 controls the overall operation of the user terminal 200 by executing the programs stored in the storage unit 230, and is composed of a CPU, a GPU, and the like.

[0030] FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of user data stored in the server 100. As shown in FIG.

[0031] The user data 1000 shown in Fig. 4 stores various data related to the inquiring user. For convenience of explanation, Fig. 4 shows an example of one user (a user identified by a user ID "10001"), but information on multiple users can be stored. The various data related to the user can include, but is not limited to, basic information about the user (e.g., corporate name (name), industry, number of employees, residence (address), name of person in charge, department name, job title, contact information (email address, phone number)), inquiry information (e.g., information about the content of the inquiry (e.g., inquiry about the content of the product / service, inquiry about the fee, etc.)), information about the intention to use the product / service, etc.).

[0032] FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example of company data stored in the server 100. As shown in FIG.

[0033] The company data 2000 stores various data related to companies that conduct sales activities. For the sake of convenience, an example of one company (a point identified by a company ID "20001") is shown in Fig. 5, but information related to multiple companies can be stored. Examples of various data related to a company include, but are not limited to, basic information about the company (e.g., corporate name (name), industry, number of employees, location (address)), sales representative information (e.g., person in charge name, department name, job title, contact information (email address, telephone number, video conference URL, messaging app ID, name of business partner, etc.), schedule information (calendar information, meeting conditions (length of meeting, buffer time before and after, meeting method, etc.), shift time (information for defining times when interviews are unavailable, such as nighttime, lunch break, and holidays)), customer information (e.g., corporate name (name) of the customer company, industry, number of employees, location (address), person in charge name, department name, job title, contact information (email address, telephone number), past inquiries / responses, etc.), business card information (company name, name, department name, job title, company address, contact information (email address, telephone number, etc.), additional information (name of product or service in which the business partner is interested, name of business meeting (name of exhibition)), and inquiry form information.

[0034] FIG. 6 is a diagram showing an example of the meeting data stored in the server 100. As shown in FIG.

[0035] The meeting data 3000 may include various data related to meetings for business negotiations between a company engaged in sales activities and an inquiring user, such as, but not limited to, schedule information (e.g., the date, time, and location of a meeting between the company and the inquiring user), information regarding the content of the meeting (e.g., an agenda for a meeting between the company and the inquiring user, meeting notes, etc.), attendee information (e.g., information regarding attendees of the meeting), and search information (such as a prompt statement that instructs a search for detailed information regarding the inquiring user and / or the user's company).

[0036] <Processing flow> A process flow of a method for acquiring information about an inquiring user, which is executed by the system 1 of this embodiment, will be described with reference to Fig. 7. Fig. 7 is a flowchart showing an example of a method for acquiring information about a user who has made an inquiry to a company, according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

[0037] First, as a preliminary process of step S101, a user in charge of a company conducting sales activities uses a web browser or application on the company terminal 300 to input basic information about the company (e.g., corporate name (name), industry, number of employees, location (address)), sales representative information (e.g., person in charge name, department name, job title, contact information (email address, phone number, video conference URL, message app ID, etc.), schedule information (meeting conditions (length of meeting, buffer time before and after, conference method, etc.), shift time (information for defining times when interviews cannot be conducted, such as at night, lunch break, and holidays)), customer information (e.g., corporate name (name), industry, number of employees, location (address), person in charge name, department name, job title, contact information (email address, phone number, video conference URL, message app ID, etc.)), and the like. The server terminal 100 inputs information about the company input by a person in charge of the company conducting sales activities, such as the company address, telephone number, and past inquiries / responses. The information receiving unit 131 of the control unit 130 of the server terminal 100 receives information about the company input by a person in charge of the company conducting sales activities, via the communication unit 110. The company information processing unit 133 of the control unit 130 stores the received information about the company in the company data storage unit 122 of the storage unit 120 as company data 2000. Here, all or part of the information included in the company information (e.g., sales person information (schedule information, etc.), customer information, etc.) can also be acquired via an application provided by another service provider (e.g., a calendar application, a customer management application, etc.) (through API integration, etc.).

[0038] Furthermore, the inquiring user accesses the company terminal 300 using a web browser or application of each user terminal, displays a web page for inputting an inquiry, such as an inquiry form included in a web page of a company conducting sales activities, and inputs the inquiry content. Here, the inquiry content includes, but is not limited to, basic information about the inquiring user (e.g., corporate name (name), industry, number of employees, residence (address), name of person in charge, department name, job title, contact information (email address, phone number)), inquiry information (e.g., information about the inquiry content (e.g., inquiry about product / service content, inquiry about price), information about intention to use the product / service (want to consider the product / service immediately, want materials first), etc.). After inputting the inquiry content, the inquiring user presses a send button, and the information about the inquiry is sent to the company terminal 300. Furthermore, the server terminal 100 provides the company terminal 300 with tag information (e.g., a Javascript tag) to be embedded in a web page provided by the company terminal 300, and the company terminal 300 embeds the Javascript tag in the inquiry form and the inquiry form input completion page (so-called "Thanks page") of the web page, and in response to completion of the inquiry form, predetermined information among the information input by the inquiring user in the inquiry form is transmitted to the server terminal 100. The sales representative user of the company terminal 300 accesses the information input by the inquiring user in the inquiry form stored in the user data 1000 or company data 2000 in the storage unit 120 of the server terminal 100, and refers to the name of the inquiring user and / or the name of the company to which the inquiring user belongs. In order to approach the inquiring user for business negotiations, the sales representative user obtains information about the inquiring user through the following process.

[0039] First, in the process of step S101, the information receiving unit 131 of the control unit 130 of the server terminal 100 receives a search request for information on the individual user from the corporate terminal 300 of the sales representative user via the communication unit 110. Specifically, the sales representative user inputs the name of the company to which the inquiring user belongs and the name of the inquiring user on a user interface screen displayed on the corporate terminal 300. Here, the server terminal 100 can execute a search by referring to the name of the company to which the inquiring user belongs and the user's name acquired via the inquiry form, without input by the sales representative, or can present the name of the company to which the inquiring user belongs and the user's personal name as candidates to the corporate terminal 300 of the sales representative user and accept a selection.

[0040] Next, in the process of step S102, the meeting processing unit 133 of the control unit 130 of the server terminal 100 refers to the meeting data 3000 in the storage unit 120 in preparation for a business negotiation between the inquiring user and the sales representative user, and refers to a prompt sentence that gives instructions necessary for performing a search. The prompt sentence may be a text sentence that is stored in advance and that gives instructions necessary for improving the accuracy of search results when performing a search via a large-scale language model.

[0041] An example of the prompt sentence in this example is shown in FIG. As shown in FIG. 8, for the company name and name of the inquiring user (for example, "ABC Co., Ltd." as "company name" and "Taro Yamada" as "name") entered by the sales representative user, the prompt text instructs that the search results should include items and contents related to the (inquiring user's) job title, job description, work history, the user's personal website URL, the user's personal SNS URL (for example, Facebook (registered trademark), X (formerly Twitter (registered trademark), LinkedIN (registered trademark), etc.), the URL of Eight (registered trademark) (a business card management application), and notes), and that the notes should include detailed descriptions of the contents included in the above items in a predetermined number of characters (for example, about 1000 characters). As another example, if information received from the inquiring user via the inquiry form is already included in the contents of the items in the preset prompt text, it is also possible to instruct that the information be included in the search results (answer text). This is because such information may be more accurate than the information obtained by the search results. The sales representative user can also edit the items included in the above prompt text, such as adding or deleting one of the items (for example, the Facebook URL).

[0042] Next, in the process of step S103, the meeting processing unit 133 of the control unit 130 of the server terminal 100 executes a search process based on the input personal name of the querying user and the prompt sentence. In the search process, the server terminal 100 instructs a server (e.g., ChatGPT) that implements an external large-scale language model (LLM) to search for information on the querying user based on the querying user's personal name and the prompt sentence. The LLM performs vector conversion on the question sentence (e.g., the company name and the querying user's personal name) received as text data, searches for vector values ​​that are the basis of the search results and are vectorized data acquired by each website, and generates an answer generated based on the detected approximate value as a search result. When generating the search results, the LLM refers to the prompt sentence, generates an answer sentence based on the specified item and content, and transmits the reconstructed search results to the server terminal 100.

[0043] Next, in the process of step S104, the information receiving unit 131 of the control unit 130 of the server terminal 100 receives the search result via the communication unit 131 and stores it as inquiring user information in the user data 1000 or the meeting data 3000 of the storage unit 120. In addition, the meeting processing unit 133 of the control unit 130 of the server terminal 100 transmits the search result to the company terminal 300 via a business communication application such as Slack (registered trademark) as an information transmission and reception means preset by the company's sales representative. The company's sales representative can have a conversation with the inquiring user toward a business negotiation while referring to the received search result and checking detailed information about the inquiring user's background and the company to which the inquiring user belongs, and can therefore smoothly handle the business negotiation while increasing the probability of the business negotiation being concluded.

[0044] FIG. 9 is a flowchart showing another example of the method for acquiring information of a user who has made an inquiry to a company according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

[0045] The process before step S201 is the same as the process described in FIG. 7, so the description will be omitted. The inquiring user accesses the web page of a company that conducts sales activities, and completes the inquiry by entering the purpose of the inquiry such as a request for materials, the inquiring user's company name, the user's personal name, etc., through a predetermined inquiry form, etc. In response to the completion of the inquiry form, predetermined information among the information entered by the inquiring user into the inquiry form is transmitted to the server terminal 100. The sales representative user of the company terminal 300 accesses the information entered by the inquiring user into the inquiry form stored in the user data 1000 or the company data 2000 of the storage unit 120 of the server terminal 100, and refers to the inquiring user's name and / or the name of the company to which the inquiring user belongs. The sales representative user obtains information about the inquiring user through the following process in order to approach the inquiring user for business negotiations. In this example, the process of searching for information about the company to which the inquiring user belongs will be described in particular.

[0046] First, in the process of step S201, the information receiving unit 131 of the control unit 130 of the server terminal 100 receives a search request for information on the inquiring user from the company terminal 300 of the sales representative user via the communication unit 110. Specifically, the sales representative user inputs the name of the company to which the inquiring user belongs on a user interface screen displayed on the company terminal 300. Here, the server terminal 100 can execute a search by referring to the name of the company to which the inquiring user belongs, acquired via the inquiry form, without the input by the sales representative, or can present the name of the company to which the inquiring user belongs as a candidate to the company terminal 300 of the sales representative user and accept the selection. Here, the sales representative user can additionally specify service contents, department names, etc. (for example, "inside sales", "business card management", etc.) in addition to the company name.

[0047] Next, in the process of step S202, the meeting processing unit 133 of the control unit 130 of the server terminal 100 refers to the meeting data 3000 in the storage unit 120 in preparation for a business negotiation between the inquiring user and the sales representative user, and refers to a prompt sentence that gives instructions necessary for performing a search. The prompt sentence may be a text sentence that is stored in advance and that gives instructions necessary for improving the accuracy of search results when performing a search via a large-scale language model.

[0048] An example of the prompt sentence in this example is shown in FIG. 10. As shown in FIG. 10, for the name of the company to which the inquiring user belongs (for example, "ABC Co., Ltd." as the "company name") input by the sales representative user, the prompt sentence can instruct the search results to include items and contents related to (the company to which the inquiring user belongs), such as sales revenue, number of employees, business overview, capital, head office location, whether or not the company is listed on the stock exchange, year of establishment, parent company, representative director, URL of the company's homepage, recent news, and remarks, and can instruct the remarks to include detailed descriptions of the contents included in the above items in a predetermined number of characters (for example, about 1000 characters). As another example, if information received from the inquiring user via the inquiry form is already included in the contents of the items in the preset prompt sentence, it is also possible to instruct the search results to include that information as the search result (answer sentence). This is because such information may be more accurate than the information obtained by the search results. The sales representative user can also edit the items included in the above prompt sentence, such as adding or deleting one of them (for example, year of establishment).

[0049] Next, in the process of step S203, the meeting processing unit 133 of the control unit 130 of the server terminal 100 executes a search process based on the company name and prompt sentence of the inquiring user inputted above. In the search process, the server terminal 100 instructs a server (e.g., ChatGPT) that implements an external large-scale language model (LLM) to search for information on the company to which the inquiring user belongs based on the company name and prompt sentence of the inquiring user. The LLM performs vector conversion on the question sentence (e.g., company name) received as text data, searches for vector values ​​that are the basis of the search results and are vectorized data acquired by each website, and generates an answer generated as a search result based on the detected approximate value. When generating the search results, the LLM refers to the prompt sentence, generates an answer sentence based on the specified item and content, and transmits the reconstructed search results to the server terminal 100.

[0050] Next, in the process of step S204, the information receiving unit 131 of the control unit 130 of the server terminal 100 receives the search result via the communication unit 131 and stores it as the company information of the inquiring user in the user data 1000 or the meeting data 3000 of the storage unit 120. In addition, the meeting processing unit 133 of the control unit 130 of the server terminal 100 transmits the search result to the company terminal 300 via a business communication application such as Slack (registered trademark) as an information transmission and reception means preset by the company's sales representative. The company's sales representative can have a conversation with the inquiring user (or another person in charge of the company to which the inquiring user belongs) toward a business negotiation by referring to the received search result and checking detailed information on the inquiring user's background and the company to which the inquiring user belongs, and can therefore smoothly handle the business negotiation while increasing the probability of the business negotiation being concluded.

[0051] Although the embodiments of the present invention have been described above, they can be embodied in various other forms and can be implemented with various omissions, substitutions, and modifications. These embodiments and modifications, as well as omissions, substitutions, and modifications, are included in the technical scope of the claims and their equivalents. [Explanation of symbols]

[0052] 1 System 100 Server terminal, 110 Communication unit, 120 Storage unit, 130 Control unit, 200 User terminal, 300 Corporate terminal, NW1 Network

Claims

1. A method for acquiring information of a user who has made an inquiry to a company, comprising: The control unit of the server terminal Refer to the name of the company to which the inquiring user belongs and the name of the user, which are obtained via the inquiry form transmitted from the inquiring user terminal, without a search request for detailed information of the inquiring user based on the name of the company to which the inquiring user belongs and the name of the user, by a corporate terminal of a person in charge of the company; generating a prompt sentence for instructing a search for detailed information about the inquiring user based on the name of the company to which the inquiring user belongs and the user's name, for a business negotiation between the inquiring user and a person in charge at the company; A server implementing a large-scale language model (LLM) Executing a search process based on the prompt sentence; generating a response to the prompt commanding the search based on a result of the search process; The control unit of the server terminal receiving the response from a server implementing the LLM; Sending the response to the company terminal; A method in which items included in the detailed information of the prompt sentence are editable by a company terminal of a person in charge of the company.

2. 2. The method of claim 1 , The method, wherein the user details include details of a company to which the user belongs.

3. 2. The method of claim 1 , The method, wherein the user details include the company the user belongs to and the user's personal details.

4. 2. The method of claim 1 , The method, wherein the items include any one of the user's job title, job description, work history, the URL of the user's company, and the URL of a social networking site.

5. 2. The method of claim 1 , The method, wherein the items include any of the following items of the sales revenue, number of employees, business overview, capital, head office location, whether or not the company is listed on the stock exchange, year of establishment, parent company, representative director, company URL, and most recent news of the company to which the user belongs.

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