Conversation Data

A Conversation is any service engagement or event generated by the Conversation Platform and administered by the Virtual Agent. It can be a chat, a voice call, or a service request. This page describes the basic concepts, entities, and processes concerning conversations.

Conversation concepts

A Conversation is initiated when travelers use the Conversation Platform to service their needs. The conversation can take place via online chat, voice call, or email service request. While using the platform in a text-based mode, such as chat, travelers can interact with a Virtual Agent (VA) by exchanging texts, called Messages. The VA is equipped with intelligent skills to determine and fulfill many customer intents. Each Skill is composed of specific Tasks to successfully accomplish the skill.

Containment

Conversations may be contained or not contained:

• Contained conversations are those that are fully serviced by a Virtual Agent.
• Not Contained conversations are at least partly serviced by a human agent.

A conversation can be Queued for routing and assignment to a human agent equipped to handle the customer's intent while matching their language, location, etc.

A queued conversation is considered Not Contained. Similarly, a conversation in the queue may fail to be assigned to a human agent, effectively making the conversation Abandoned. This can happen due to several reasons, for example by system failure or because a traveler intentionally abandoned the conversation.

The human agent servicing the traveler also has the VA at its disposal, fully leveraging its intelligence to better serve the traveler. A human agent can also Consult with or Transfer the conversation to another agent who is better equipped to serve the traveler.

Deflection

At any point during the conversation (whether the VA completes the skill or not), the traveler can request assistance from a human agent. If the attempt to transfer to a human agent fails, the conversation is Deflected.

Deflection generally occurs in accordance with business or partner rules such as hours of operation (HOO), throttle rules, customer requests for email response, callback, or other offline options.

Channel filters

Conversations may be filtered by Channel Type and Channel Name as follows:

Channel type	Channel name	Description
Chat	c3	Chat conversations initiated by travelers via the VAC (Virtual Agent Control).
Chat	voyager_next	Chat conversations initiated by agents in Voyager Next.
Email	lx_supplier	Email conversations initiated by suppliers and routed through the conversation platform to hide supplier’s email account details from the traveler.
Email	mailgun	Email conversations initiated by travelers and handled by the Mailgun Adapter.
Email	voyager_next	Email conversations initiated by agents in Voyager Next.
Email	voyager_next_email	Child email conversations initiated by agents in Voyager Next.
Event	event_stream	Air Schedule Change notifications.
Offline	service_request	Service Requests created for agents to handle. For Conversation V1, the same Service Request will likely be handled across multiple conversations.
Voice	mcv	Chat conversations initiated by agents from MCV Softphone. Channel Type used to be "Chat".
Voice	voice_bridge	Voice conversations initiated by travelers from ICRS (off platform, but imported into platform data warehouse for reporting).
Voice	voice_bridge_smartphone	Voice conversations initiated by agents from ICRS (off platform, but imported into platform data warehouse for reporting).
Voice	phone	Voice conversations native to Conversation Platform.
Web	epcweb	Lodging relocation notices sent to travelers.

Participant Session concepts

Formerly known as conversation segment, a Participant Session captures the details of each participant, including the Virtual Agent, who initiated or joined the conversation.

Participant type

• Traveler
• TravelerVA
• HumanAgent
• HumanAgentVA
• Supplier
• SupplierVA

Participant events

• Invite – Participant requests to join the conversation (N/A for 1st Participant and Traveler VA)
• Join – Participant joins the conversation (First event for 1st Participant and Traveler VA)
• Leave – Participant leaves the conversation. It is possible for the same participant to rejoin the conversation.

Key metrics

• Queue time
• Answer time
• Assigned time
• Handle Time
• Wrap-up time

Queue time

• Total time in seconds that a conversation was in queue waiting to be assigned to an agent.

  • Begins when the human agent is invited to the conversation
  • Ends when the human agent joins the conversation

Answer time

• Total time in seconds from when conversation was placed in queue and agent's first response.

  • Begins when the human agent is invited to the chat session.
  • Ends when the human agent sends the first outbound message to the traveler.

Assigned time

• Total time in seconds that the conversation was assigned to an agent.

  • Begins when the human agent joins the conversation.
  • Ends when the human agent leaves the conversation.

Handle time

• Total time in seconds that the agent worked on the conversation.

  • Occurs whenever the human agent uses VNext to answer the traveler's requests.

Wrap-up time

• Total time in seconds that an agent participant was in wrap-up.

  • Begins when the traveler leaves the conversation.
  • Ends when the human agent leaves the conversation.

Chat example

Voice example

Summary Data Dictionary

For a list of data fields and their descriptions, refer to the corresponding section:

• Conversation fields
• Message fields
• Participant session fields
• Skill fields
• Task fields