Building Agents to Serve Customers

task planning, and business ontologies can help companies provide better-quality and more costeffective customer service. Our customer-service agents use natural language to interact with customers, enabling customers to state their intentions directly instead of searching for the places on the Web site that may address their concern. We use planning methods to search systematically for the solution to the customer’s problem, ensuring that a resolution satisfactory for both the customer and the company is found, if one exists. Our agents converse with customers, guaranteeing that needed information is acquired from customers and that relevant information is provided to them in order for both parties to make the right decision. The net effect is a more frictionless interaction process that improves the customer experience and makes businesses more competitive on the service front.