Stateless Interaction Flow via URL-Encoded State Machines
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional customer interaction management systems require persistent or stateful connections to maintain interaction flow information, which can be difficult to maintain and lead to disruptions in service, especially for long-running interactions, resulting in a suboptimal customer experience.
Innovation Solution
A method and apparatus that utilize uniform resource locators (URLs) to represent customer textual inputs and interaction flow information, allowing state machines to process inputs without the need for persistent connections, enabling seamless and long-running interactions by identifying appropriate state machines and states within them.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If persistent connections are used to maintain interaction flow information, then customer interaction support can be provided, but connection maintenance difficulty increases and service disruptions occur
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the interaction flow state information from the server-side persistent connection and embeds it into client-side URLs. This removes the dependency on maintaining complex server-side stateful connections while preserving the ability to track and manage customer interaction states throughout the support process.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces URLs as an intermediary mechanism to carry interaction state information between the client and server. Instead of maintaining direct persistent connections, the system uses URL parameters to transfer state information, simplifying the connection model while maintaining interaction continuity.
2Loss of information
If persistent connections are maintained for customer interactions, then interaction flow can be tracked, but connection disruptions lead to loss of interaction context
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs preliminary encoding of interaction state information into URLs before connection disruptions can occur. By embedding the complete interaction context in the URL itself, the system ensures that even if connections are disrupted, the state information is preserved and can be recovered without loss when the connection is reestablished.
3Ease of operation
If stateful connections are used for customer support, then interaction context is maintained, but reconnection becomes difficult and customer experience deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts interaction context from server-side session state and embeds it into client-controlled URLs. This allows customers to maintain their interaction context locally and reconnect seamlessly by simply reloading the page or navigating back, eliminating the complex reconnection procedures required by traditional stateful systems.
4Duration of action of moving object
If persistent connections are maintained for long-running interactions, then continuous support can be provided, but system complexity and resource consumption increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces expensive, long-lived persistent connections with inexpensive, stateless HTTP requests that carry URL-encoded state information. Each interaction can be independently handled without requiring the server to maintain long-running connection state, reducing system complexity and resource consumption while supporting arbitrarily long interaction durations.
Data Source
AI summary
A computer-implemented method and an apparatus for facilitating stateless representation of interaction flow states associated with customer interactions includes effecting generation of a first uniform resource locator (URL) indicative of a textual input received from a customer during an online interaction. The first URL is configured to identify a state machine and a state within the state machine for facilitating processing of the textual input. An intention of the customer is predicted from the first URL using the state machine and the state within the state machine. At least one next action is determined based on the predicted intention. A second URL including a response to the textual input is generated. The response is determined based on the at least one next action. The second URL is configured to identify a next interaction state for the online interaction. The response is provisioned to the customer during the online interaction.