US 12,586,080 B2Granted

Method and system for identifying trending topics in customer inquiries

AssigneeMicrosoft Technology Licensing, LLC

InventorsXinhui Ge, Veeravenkata Satya Sridhar Maddipati, Venkatasatya Premnath Ayyalasomayajula, Nikhil Verma, Mara Saveliev, John Theodore Nassif

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Abstract

A system and method for detecting trending topics in customer inquiries includes retrieving customer inquiries from a plurality of data sources for a target time window and reference time windows and detecting trending keywords in the target time window as compared to keywords in the reference time windows. Responsive to detecting the trending keywords, customer inquiries in the target time window that include one or more of the trending keywords are collected and a weight is measured for each collected customer inquiry based on weights of detected trending keywords in each collected customer inquiry. A connection graph is generated for the detected trending keywords and the collected customer inquiries. The detected trending keywords are then clustered into a plurality of trending topics based on the connection graph, and the trending topics are ranked based on the measured weights of the collected customer inquiries associated with each trending topic.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A data processing system comprising:

a processor;
and
a memory in communication with the processor, the memory comprising executable instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the data processing system to perform functions of:
retrieving customer inquiries from a plurality of data sources for a target time window and for one or more reference time windows;
detecting trending keywords in the target time window by comparing a frequency of keywords in the target time window with a frequency of keywords in the one or more reference time windows;
responsive to detecting the trending keywords, collecting customer inquiries in the target time window that include one or more of the trending keywords;
generating a connection graph for the detected trending keywords and the collected customer inquiries, comprising using a depth-first search with the connection graph initially showing a connection between a detected trending keyword of the detected trending keywords and each collected customer inquiry that includes the detected trending keyword of the detected trending keywords;
in response to a query including a new trending keyword, establishing an additional connection with a new node for the new trending keyword to form nodes that represent the customer inquiries and trending keywords to produce non-overlapping connection graphs, wherein inquiries in different connection graphs do not overlap to indicate distinct topics;
clustering the detected trending keywords into a plurality of trending topics based on the connection graph;
and
providing notification data for alerting a user of an anomaly indicated by the trending topics.

8 more elements

A method for detecting trending topics in customer inquiries comprising:

retrieving customer inquiries from a plurality of data sources for a target time window and for one or more reference time windows;
detecting trending keywords in the target time window as compared to keywords in the one or more reference time windows;
responsive to detecting the trending keywords, collecting customer inquiries in the target time window that include one or more of the trending keywords;
measuring a weight for each collected customer inquiry based on weights of detected trending keywords in each collected customer inquiry;
generating a connection graph for the detected trending keywords and the collected customer inquiries, comprising using a depth-first search with the connection graph initially showing a connection between a detected trending keyword of the detected trending keywords and each collected customer inquiry that includes the detected trending keyword of the detected trending keywords;
in response to a query including a new trending keyword, establishing an additional connection with a new node for the new trending keyword to form nodes that represent the customer inquiries and trending keywords to produce non-overlapping connection graphs, wherein inquiries in different connection graphs do not overlap to indicate distinct topics;
clustering the detected trending keywords into a plurality of trending topics based on the connection graph;
and
ranking the trending topics based on the measured weights of the collected customer inquiries associated with each trending topic.

6 more elements

A non-transitory computer readable medium on which are stored instructions that, when executed, cause a programmable device to perform functions of:

retrieving customer inquiries from a plurality of data sources for a target time window and for one or more reference time windows;
detecting trending keywords in the target time window by comparing a frequency of keywords in the target time window with a frequency of keywords in the one or more reference time windows;
responsive to detecting the trending keywords, collecting customer inquiries in the target time window that include one or more of the trending keywords;
generating a connection graph for the detected trending keywords and the collected customer inquiries, comprising using a depth-first search with the connection graph initially showing a connection between a detected trending keyword of the detected trending keywords and each collected customer inquiry that includes the detected trending keyword of the detected trending keywords;
in response to a query including a new trending keyword, establishing an additional connection with a new node for the new trending keyword to form nodes that represent the customer inquiries and trending keywords to produce non-overlapping connection graphs, wherein inquiries in different connection graphs do not overlap to indicate distinct topics;
clustering the detected trending keywords into a plurality of trending topics based on the connection graph;
and
providing notification data for alerting a user of an anomaly indicated by the trending topics.

5 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.