SBIR Phase I: Natural Language Processing for Enhanced Sales Communication

小型企业创新研究(SBIR)第一阶段项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力将来自于通过直接和积极地影响销售沟通来革命性地改变企业处理销售的方式。这反过来将提高销售效率和客户满意度，同时促进获得新客户和留住现有客户。这些方面将直接影响公司的底线并提高盈利能力。虽然这个项目的重点是构建能够帮助销售代表进行沟通的人工智能技术，但这里学到的经验教训和开发的方法将适用于其他交流必不可少的领域，包括医疗领域、咨询或面试。此外，该项目的目标是保持妇女和代表人数不足的少数群体在这个妇女拥有的公司中的重要参与。该小型企业创新研究(SBIR)第一阶段项目专注于构建智能销售平台，预计将积极改变企业对企业互动中的销售流程。这将通过创造技术来实现，该技术通过提高销售代理的沟通效率来帮助他们。在自然语言处理和机器学习最新进展的基础上，将开发新的方法和工具来衡量和确保销售代理在客户沟通方面的响应性、准确性、专业性和同理心。该项目将利用销售电子邮件和相关结果的专有大规模数据集作为机器学习过程的基础。到第一阶段项目结束时，这项研究将实现对以结果为导向的销售沟通的直接和数据驱动的理解，并对潜在潜在线索进行量化评估。这将对该项目的未来发展及其在市场上的影响和成功至关重要。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will result from revolutionizing the way businesses approach sales, by directly and positively impacting sales communication. This, in turn, will lead to increased sales efficiency and increased customer satisfaction, while facilitating the acquisition of new customers and the retention of existing ones. These aspects will directly impact a company's bottom line and improve profitability. While the focus of this project is to build AI technology that can assist sales representatives in their communication, the lessons learnt here and the methods developed will be applicable to other areas where communication is essential, including the medical domain, counseling, or interviews. Furthermore, the goal of this project is to maintain significant involvement of women and under-represented minorities in this woman-owned company. This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project focuses on building an intelligent sales platform expected to positively transform the sales process in business-to-business interactions. This will be achieved by creating technology that assists sales agents by increasing the effectiveness of their communication. Building on recent advances in Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning, novel methods and tools will be developed to measure and ensure sales agent responsiveness, accuracy, professionalism, and empathy in relation to customer communication. This project will leverage a proprietary large-scale dataset of sales emails and associated outcomes as a basis for the machine learning process. By the end of the Phase I project, this research will enable a direct and data-driven understanding of outcome-oriented sales communication and a quantified assessment of potential leads. This will be paramount to the future development of the project and to its impact and success in the marketplace.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.