Commercial information providing system and commercial information providing method

1. A commercial information providing system comprising:

a user interface comprising at least one of a physical or virtual button, a physical or virtual keyboard, a mouse, an icon displayed on electronic display device, or a microphone capable of accepting input of question information representing a question from a user;

a non-transitory computer readable storage device including a knowledge database holding knowledge data including a plurality of sets of commercial information related to commercial facilities and a plurality of response templates of responses to question information input from the user interface;

an administrator interface comprising at least one of a physical or virtual button, a physical or virtual keyboard, a mouse, an icon displayed on electronic display device, or a microphone capable of accepting setting of a priority level to prioritize providing a specific set of commercial information among the plurality of sets of commercial information;

a searching and providing engine including a control device communicatively connectable to the knowledge database and configured to, upon reading computer readable instructions received from the non-transitory computer readable storage device, perform processing of extracting at a set of commercial information to be provided from the plurality of sets of commercial information and a response template to be used from the plurality of response templates based on the question information input from the user interface and creating response information using the response template, the response information including a set of commercial information selected from the extracted at the set of commercial information based on the priority level; and

an information providing device configured to output one or more of an audio or visual signal so as to provide the response information created by the control device to the user,

wherein the knowledge data stored in the database is further composed of a plurality of units, each including a reference text query that is compared with an input text query, and a response text that is associated with the reference text query,

wherein the reference text query is associated with information comprising one or more of:

a predetermined response condition, which is a condition on information input from the user interface, other than the input text query, for selecting a response text from among a plurality of response texts to be sent to the user interface;

a predetermined response behavior setting, which is information for defining a behavior of the user interface when a selected response text is received by the user interface; and,

a predetermined applicability setting, which is information for specifying whether the reference text query is to be a suggestion and/or whether to record the input text query into a log; and

wherein data to be included in the response text is based on the auxiliary information associated with the reference text query and a semantic closeness of the input text query and the reference text query being greater than or equal to a predetermined threshold.

2. The commercial information providing system according to claim 1 , further comprising a terminal device installed in the commercial facilities and connected with the control device to be able to communicate with the control device,

wherein the terminal device includes the user interface.

3. The commercial information providing system according to claim 1 , wherein the control device is configured to change the priority level in accordance with a weight assigned depending on predetermined information different from the question information input from the user interface.

4. The commercial information providing system according to claim 1 , wherein the response information created by the control device includes action request information for encouraging the user to react to the commercial information included in the response information.

5. The commercial information providing system according to claim 1 ,

wherein the user interface is configured to accept input of use request information for requesting to use a set of commercial information included in the response information provided by the information providing device,

wherein the control device is configured to create guidance information for contributing to use of the set of commercial information designated by the use request information in response to input of the use request information from the user interface, and

wherein the information providing device is configured to provide the guidance information created by the control device to the user.

6. A commercial information providing method for a commercial information providing system including a user interface comprising at least one of a physical or virtual button, a physical or virtual keyboard, a mouse, an icon displayed on electronic display device, or a microphone capable of accepting input of question information representing a question from a user, a non-transitory computer readable storage device including a knowledge database holding knowledge data including a plurality of sets of commercial information related to commercial facilities and a plurality of response templates of responses to question information input from the user interface, an administrator interface comprising at least one of a physical or virtual button, a physical or virtual keyboard, a mouse, an icon displayed on electronic display device, or a microphone capable of accepting setting of a priority level to prioritize providing a specific set of commercial information among the plurality of sets of commercial information, a searching and providing engine including a control device communicatively connectable to the database, and an information providing device configured to output one or more of an audio or visual signal, the commercial information providing method comprising:

upon the control device reading computer readable instructions received from the non-transitory computer readable storage device, the control device performing the control steps of:

connecting, by the control device, to the knowledge database;

extracting, by the control device, a set of commercial information to be provided from the plurality of sets of commercial information and a response template to be used from the plurality of response templates based on the question information input from the user interface; and

creating, by the control device, response information using the response template, the response information including a set of commercial information selected based on the priority level from the extracted the set of commercial information; and

an information providing step of providing via an output one or more of an audio or visual signal, by the information providing device, the response information created by the control device to the user;

wherein the knowledge data stored in the database is further composed of a plurality of units, each including a reference text query that is compared with an input text query, and a response text that is associated with the reference text query,

wherein the reference text query is associated with information comprising one or more of:

a predetermined response condition, which is a condition on information input from the information providing device, other than the input text query, for selecting a response text from among a plurality of response texts to be sent to the information providing device;

a predetermined response behavior setting, which is information for defining a behavior of the information providing device when a selected response text is received by the information providing device; and,

a predetermined applicability setting, which is information for specifying whether the reference text query is to be a suggestion and/or whether to record the input text query into a log; and,

wherein data to be included in the response text is based on the auxiliary information associated with the reference text query and a semantic closeness of the input text query and the reference text query being greater than or equal to a predetermined threshold.