SBIR Phase I: Natural Language Processing for Enhanced Sales Communication

这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力将通过直接和积极地影响销售沟通，彻底改变企业的销售方式。这反过来又会提高销售效率和客户满意度，同时促进新客户的获取和现有客户的保留。这些方面将直接影响公司的底线并提高盈利能力。虽然该项目的重点是建立可以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沟通至关重要的领域，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性不足的少数民族在这个妇女拥有的公司中的重要参与。 这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目的重点是建立一个智能销售平台，预计将积极改变企业对企业互动的销售过程。这将通过创造技术来实现，通过提高他们的沟通效率来帮助销售代理。基于自然语言处理和机器学习的最新进展，将开发新的方法和工具来衡量和确保销售代理的响应能力，准确性，专业性和与客户沟通有关的同理心。 该项目将利用专有的大规模销售电子邮件数据集和相关成果作为机器学习过程的基础。 到第一阶段项目结束时，这项研究将使人们能够直接和数据驱动的结果为导向的销售沟通的理解和潜在线索的量化评估。 这对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，并通过使用基金会的知识价值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.