Multimedia Chat for Helpdesks: A Requirements Study, a Practical SOA Architecture, and an Interface Prototype

In this work we study the actual requirements of a multimedia chat system for helpdesks by quantifying the verbal imagery communication in 115 real transcripts. The data shows that in chats which use verbal imagery, it corresponds to about 25% of the total time, most of it (75%) coming from the agent. These results clearly show that multimedia support for contact center chat systems is called for. But unlike in personal chat systems, the existing 3^rd party chat services for helpdesk centers are text-based only. To circumvent this issue, an innovative, practical SOA-based chat system architecture is proposed in this paper that creates multimedia chat services by decomposition and re-composition of the services from an existing 3^rd party text-based helpdesk chat product. Our SOA architecture implements uniquely a session-based interactive mash up mechanism and bundles it to the previous operations in the same chat session. However, to be effective in the context of technical support, a multimedia chat system must be provided with user and agent interfaces which address the distinctive aspects of technical support communication and imagery use in the conversations. We present an interface prototype that address those issues through the use of persistent imagery, linking instructions and imagery, use of common images,and easy screen sharing.