Understanding the customer intent life cycle

AI-generated summary

Genesys Cloud's customer intent system relies on external contacts to maintain persistent, journey-level data tracking across channels. The system tracks customer intents through web sessions, app activity, and conversations, linking them to customer profiles for access by agents, flows, and AI features. Customer intents remain active until they expire within a configurable window, defaulting to seven days but adjustable up to 30 days based on journey requirements. Short task-based intents typically use shorter windows, while complex processes like insurance claims or loan applications may require longer periods. The intent's expiration timer resets whenever mapped signals are detected through Natural Language Understanding (NLU) intents, segments, or topics. Currently, expiration is the only method for intent resolution, with no alternative resolution methods available. The system requires proper customer identification and identity resolution to maintain cross-channel intent tracking and continuity.

Customer intent and identity resolution

External contacts are essential for customer intent to work as a persistent, and journey-level data point. They provide the stable identifier that allows intents to be detected in web sessions, app activity, or conversations and attach them to the correct profile and remain available to agents, flows, and downstream AI features.

To ensure continuity, make sure your experiences support customer identification and capture key identifiers used in identity resolution. Without it, intents cannot follow the customer across channels or sessions. For more information about external contacts, see About External Contacts.

Life cycle and expiration

Once assigned to an external contact, a customer intent becomes active and stays active until it expires. If none of the mapped sources such as Natural Language Understanding (NLU) intents, segments, or topics detect a customer intent again within the configured expiration window, the intent moves to an inactive state. For more information about customer intent expiration window, see Manage customer intents.

The expiration window ensures that the customer intent reflects the latest activity of the customer, not what they did weeks ago. Every time a mapped signal is detected in a customer’s journey in your website or app, the same customer intent’s expiration window resets, keeping it active and selecting it as the most recent.

Defaults

A customer intent’s default expiration period is seven days, and you can adjust it to match the journey. Short, task-based intents generally use shorter windows, for example, researching an insurance plan. Longer journeys such as filing an insurance claim or completing a loan application can need up to 30 days with no detected activity. When any mapped source fires again, the timer renews.

Intent resolution

Customer intents have no book or alternative resolution method yet; currently, expiration is the only way an intent becomes inactive. Future feature enhancements allow alternative methods of intent resolution. Because of this limitation, Genesys recommends keeping expiration windows tight enough to avoid stale intents being attached on the customer profile while still long enough to support the natural duration of the journey.

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