Method and system for managing a customer loyalty award program

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10475048-B2
Application number	US-201113205398-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Aug 8, 2011
Priority date	Aug 8, 2011
Publication date	Nov 12, 2019
Grant date	Nov 12, 2019

Abstract

This invention discloses a novel system and method for implementing an electronic customer loyalty rewarding service that awards credits for continued patronage of a vendor, where the credits can be spent at the vendor or with other vendors that participate in the service. The disclosure further includes an embodiment where the system automatically calculates a discount voucher deal for a vendor with a guarantee spend amount per customer that uses the voucher. The system automatically trades these transactions in order to either electronically pay the guarantee or collect a commission on the overspend above the guarantee.

First claim

What is claimed:

1. A computer implemented method executed by a computer system of managing a customer loyalty program of at least one vendor, the method comprising:
accessing data and instructions from a discount program database, the data including vendor characteristics of at least one vendor including a type of goods or services offered by the at least one vendor, a customer transaction history of the at least one vendor or other vendors having similar characteristics to the at least one vendor, and a location of the at least one vendor;
providing a vendor discount program viewer application executed by at least one processor of the computer system to receive at least one input for a guarantee deal from the vendor;
receiving, over the Internet through a web page at the vendor discount program viewer application, a request for a guarantee deal from a vendor system;
retrieving from the discount program database the vendor characteristics of the at least one vendor;
retrieving from the discount program database historical data representing past performance of deals executed by vendors having similar characteristics, wherein the historical data comprises at least a customer transaction history associated with unique customer identifying data;
generating, using the at least one processor, a set of guarantee deals for the at least one vendor based on the retrieved vendor characteristics and the historical data;
determining, using the at least one processor, a performance score for each guarantee deal in the set of guarantee deals based on a performance measure parameter and a vendor specific weighting factor;
selecting, using the at least one processor, at least one guarantee deal from the set of guarantee deals based on the performance score, the selected guarantee deal including at least one customer offer represented by a data message, wherein the customer offer is associated with a first website such that a customer computer device is configured to apply the customer offer as a credit with any participating vendor that accepts the first website's credit as a form of payment or partial payment for the goods or services;
transmitting, using the at least one processor, the selected guarantee deal over the Internet via a web page to the vendor system, wherein said transmitting causes a remote user interface of the vendor system to display the selected guarantee deal to the vendor on the web page;
receiving a data message transmitted from the vendor system using a virtual button of the web page indicating assent to the selected guarantee deal; and
updating the discount program database to reflect the guarantee deal transmitted to the vendor;
transmitting, from the computer system, the data message including the customer offer via the first website accessible to the customer through the customer computing device;
verifying, at the computer system, acceptance of the customer offer though the first website from the customer computing device;
generating, at the computer system, unique customer identifying data;
transmitting, from the computer system, the unique customer identifying data over the Internet to a tracking computing system, the tracking computing system tracking customer activity by filtering received transaction data associated with the unique customer identifying data to generate filtered tracking data linking a transaction with at least one customer;
receiving the filtered tracking data over the Internet from the tracking computing system; and
updating the discount program database utilizing the received filtered tracking data.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the data representing the vendor characteristics further includes at least one of: popularity of the vendor, ratings on the vendor, category of the vendor, brand of the vendor, customer transaction history, past guarantee deals, and vendor's reported average transaction size.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the performance measure parameter is at least one of: guarantee spend per transaction, average spend per transaction, value of the commission paid to a third-party, number of discount vouchers, guarantee amount spent by a customer, discount amount, voucher value, and category of the guarantee deal.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising:
determining data representing a customer offer, said determined data derived from the discount program database;
determining a set of target users, said determining step being based on data representing actual prior performance of the selected discount deal for the vendor, or the performance of the selected discount for a similar vendor; and
transmitting a data message representing the customer offer to the determined target users.

5. The method of claim 4 further comprising:
receiving a data message representing at least one target user's assent to purchase the customer offer;
receiving a data message representing a transaction amount of the at least one target user at the vendor associated with the customer offer;
retrieving from a data storage the value of the customer offer purchased by the at least one target user;
calculating total spend for the at least one target user; and
determining whether the total spend of the at least one target user is equal to or greater than the performance measure parameter.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein the total spend is computed by calculating the average spend of all target users who purchased a customer offer for a predetermined number of transactions by the target users.

7. The method of claim 6 further comprising:
in the case where the determining whether the average total spend step is not equal to or greater than the performance measure parameter, determining a shortfall amount and either adding that shortfall amount to an account value associated with the vendor stored in the discount program database or transmitting a data message representing instructions to credit an account associated with the vendor the amount of the shortfall.

8. The method of claim 6 further comprising:
in the case where the determining whether the average total spend step is equal to or greater than the performance measure parameter, determining a commission amount and either deducting that shortfall amount from an account value associated with the vendor stored in the discount program database or transmitting a data message representing an invoice for the amount of the commission to the vendor.

9. The method of claim 8 wherein the determining a commission step includes determining whether the average spend exceeded the performance measure parameter by a pre-determined amount and if so, applying a commission kicker to the commission calculation.

10. The method of claim 5 further comprising:
in the case where the determining whether the total spend step is not equal to or greater than the performance measure parameter, determining a shortfall amount and either adding that shortfall amount to an account value associated with the vendor stored in the discount program database or transmitting a data message representing instructions to credit an account associated with the vendor the amount of the shortfall.

11. The method of claim 5 further comprising:
in the case where the determining whether the total spend step is equal to or greater than the performance measure parameter, determining a commission amount and either deducting that shortfall amount from an account value associated with the vendor stored in the discount program database or transmitting a data message representing an invoice for the amount of the commission to the vendor.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein the determining a commission step inc

Assignees

• Malcolmson Jasper Angus
• Baldua Ashish
• Bitdinger Gustavo Both
• Bruggeman Lisa Marie
• Bodart Andy
• Kronquist Kenneth Ivar
• Jpmorgan Chase Bank Na

Inventors

• Malcolmson Jasper Angus
• Baldua Ashish
• Bitdinger Gustavo Both
• Bruggeman Lisa Marie
• Bodart Andy
• Kronquist Kenneth Ivar

Classifications

• G06Q30/0211

  Determining the effectiveness of discounts or incentives · CPC title

• G06Q30/0207

  Discounts or incentives, e.g. coupons or rebates · CPC title

• G06Q30/02 Primary

  Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising · CPC title

• G06Q30/0222

  During e-commerce, i.e. online transactions · CPC title