This article aims to give you a basic understanding of: what an intent is, what types of intents there are, intent topics and examples of single- and multi-topic intents.
What is an intent?
An intent is a grouping of semantically-similar messages, or expressions, to be precise, that represents a customer query.
Types of intents
At Ultimate, we believe all well-functioned virtual agents have two types of intents: Meaningful intents and structural intents.
Meaningful intents represent the most frequent customer queries identified in your data using the Impact Report or through Content Coverage Analysis if no historical data is available.
Structural intents are intents that support the conversation flow and are not bot or industry specific. Below you will find some of the most common structural intents, however, it is important to verify from conversations with the virtual agent which structural intents are the most important, as these can vary depending on language, culture or user behavior.
- Greeting
- How are you?
- Thank you
- Goodbye
- Affirmative
- Negative
- I want to speak to a human
- I have a problem/I need help
- I haven’t heard back from you
- Chat got cut off
- That’s not what I asked
- That didn’t work
- Negative feedback
- It’s already been x days
| ❗ For English, Finish and German these are available pre-trained with expressions in the Content Marketplace. |
Intent topics
Whether it's a meaningful intent or structural intent, an intent typically covers a single topic (see single-topic example below). However, if less data is available for training, an intent may include semantically-similar messages that cover more than one topic, or an intent may be broader and include several subtopics (see multi-topic examples below).
When creating an intent, the intent name should identify the customer query, or queries. Intent description can be used to define in more detail what query or queries the intent covers. Intent category is used to group intents together by broader subject.
Here are some examples:
Single-topic examples
- Intent name: Order status
- Category: Order
- Description: Customer enquiries about order status, tracking of order, says they have not received order
- Intent name: Account verification
- Category: Account
- Description: Customer asks how to verify account, what documents needed to verify, info on verifying process
Multi-topic examples
- Intent name: Order cancellation
- Category: Order
- Description: Customer asks to cancel their order, why was their order cancelled
- Intent name: Account query
- Category: Account
- Description: Customer has a query related to creating/deleting account, account log-in & password, payments attached to account, account tiers etc.