CORVID Camcorder Selection Expert System

The following Camcorder Selection system is a small demonstration displaying some of Exsys CORVID's features that can be used in building product selection expert systems. These types of interactive systems on Web sites emulate the one-on-one dialog a customer would have with an experienced human salesperson.

1. The CORVID system interacts with you by asking initial questions to obtain data on your needs. More focused queries are then made by the system that are based on the information already provided. Unnecessary questions are not asked, but when your answer indicates more details are needed in a specific area, the system asks follow-up questions.

2. CORVID is much better than other approaches to the online "virtual salesperson" on Web sites. It will not come back with "We have nothing that you need - go away", the way traditional database searches will. Or worse, make a bad recommendation that does not fit your needs based on historical data "quesses". Other approaches to product selection delete a product if it does not meet all user requests, and can easily eliminate all possible products for many combinations of user input. CORVID systems will always make a best recommendation.

If you require certain aspects that can't be met exactly with a single product, the CORVID system ranks products to find the "best fit". The system explains your selection options and provides the best alternatives. The ranking is based on your priorities, combined with the expert sales knowledge in the system.

3. The CORVID system presents you with information about how each recommended product will fit your needs - the same assistance that would be provided by a human expert can be delivered via the expert system. It can be easily be updated to incorporate changing data such as inventory or price changes via a spreadsheet. Links can easily be made to other Web pages or additional expert system applets.

4. The personalized advice of CORVID builds customer confidence, expands sales operations, leads to cross-selling opportunities, and presents a major competitive advantage over other sites not providing online expert advice.

 Run this CORVID Applet to select the best camcorder for you:

The expert system would be running here but your browser has Java Applets disabled or does not support Java Applets.

How It Works:

This example system selects from among Canon's digital camcorder line. There are 9 camcorders with widely differing capabilities and specs - from a simple low-end camera to one capable of professional quality video.

The system asks the user questions about their previous use of camcorders, and their intended use for a new one. Based on this information, the system determines what features are needed. Product data is applied to a spreadsheet of information on the various Canon camcorders. The system's analysis creates a probabilistic ranking of the camcorders related to the customer needs. With the results, the top 3 recommended camcorders are displayed along with comments on their suitability.

All of the decision-making logic is kept separate from the product data. Generic camcorder selection logic is converted to rules using the CORVID development environment. These rules are applied to data on specific products stored in a spreadsheet. Including a new camcorder is as simple as adding it to the spreadsheet. If a feature on a camcorder changes, it is just edited in the spreadsheet.

To see some of the features running the system, try changing various input values and see how the resulting recommendations change. Notice especially how the comments change as the priority of various options is changed. If "high quality audio" was requested, a camcorder with lower quality audio would have a warning that it's audio would not meet the customer needs. Dropping the audio requirement would lessen or eliminate this warning.

(This system does not imply any use or endorsement of Exsys CORVID by Canon, or Canon by EXSYS Inc.)