Online taxonomy for constructing customer service queries

摘要

A heuristically developable Internet based taxonomy of data objects presented in multimedia format on web pages replaces inefficient and awkward text boxes traditionally used to submit queries to search engines. The taxonomy is supported by a selection-oriented knowledge base (SOKB) that provides on a server a navigatable network structure configured to selectively construct queries, wherein users communicate with a server via a web browser. The construction of a query is based upon knowledge captured by the SOKB as a result of a sequence of selection steps executed by the user in connection with the navigation of the network structure, whereby at each selection step a choice of classes of data objects is presented to the user. The web pages display a “THAT'S IT” button for the user to recognize the data object the user has in mind and an emergency “HELP” button for immediate assistance from a live agent.