Methods and systems for facilitating customer support using a social post case feed and publisher

• US 10,127,560 B2
• Filed: 01/30/2018
• Issued: 11/13/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 09/13/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Salesforce.com, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Salesforce.com, Inc.
• Inventors: Moore, Eric, Thavisomboon, Sutthipong, Kim, Yuseung, Hart, Bryan, Kozieronek, Jaroslaw
• Primary Examiner(s): Rahman, S M
• Application Number:
  US15/883,881
• Publication Number:
  US 20180158070A1
• Time in Patent Office: 287 Days
• Field of Search: 709206
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/016 After-sales
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/52 for supporting social networking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/21 for social networking applications

Abstract

Methods and systems are provided for responding to customer posts on a plurality of social media channels from a customer service portal of a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system of an organization. A retrieval system can retrieve, based on one or more rules specified by a rules engine, data from a first customer post on a first social media channel. The first customer post is identified using one or more rules that finds customer posts that warrant a customer service response from the organization. Based on the data from the first customer post, a parser of the CRM system creates a first case that can be displayed at the customer service portal, which automatically pre-populates a first response to the first customer post in compliance with protocols associated with the first social media channel that allow the first response to be communicated via the first social media channel.

Claims

1. A method of responding, from a customer service portal of a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system of an organization, to customer posts on a plurality of social media channels, the method comprising:

retrieving, via a retrieval system based on one or more rules specified by a rules engine, data from a first customer post on a first social media channel, wherein the data is in the form of a Java script object notation (JSON) string comprising data fields, wherein the first customer post is identified by the retrieval system using one or more rules that finds customer posts that warrant a customer service response from the organization;

receiving, the data from the first customer post by ingesting the JSON string via an application programming interface (API) of the CRM system;

parsing, at a parser of the CRM system, the data fields of the JSON string into at least two objects comprising;

a social post object that corresponds to a posted message of the first customer post and a social persona object that corresponds to an author of the first customer post;

creating, via the CRM system, a first case based on the at least two objects;

causing the first case to be displayed at the customer service portal; and

automatically pre-populating, by the customer service portal, a first response to the first customer post in compliance with protocols associated with the first social media channel that allow the first response to be communicated via the first social media channel.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

retrieving, via the retrieval system, data from a second customer post on a second social media channel, wherein the second customer post is identified by the retrieval system using one or more rules that finds customer posts that warrant a customer service response from the organization, wherein the second social media channel is different from the first social media channel;

receiving, at the interface of the CRM system, the data from the second customer post;

creating, via the CRM system, a second case based on the data from the second customer post;

causing the second case to be displayed at the customer service portal; and

automatically pre-populating, by the customer service portal, a second response to the second customer post in compliance with protocols associated with the second social media channel that allows the second response to be communicated via the second social media channel.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein retrieving, via the retrieval system, data from the first customer post on the first social media channel comprises:

retrieving, via a multi-site retrieval system based on the one or more rules specified by the rules engine, the data from the first customer post on the first social media channel,

wherein the one or more rules used by the rules engine are configurable by the organization using the CRM system to find customer posts that warrant creation of customer service responses from the organization, and wherein the customer posts that warrant creation of the customer service responses are a subset of all posts on the first social media channel relating to the organization.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the customer service portal further comprises:

a social publisher and a social case feed, and wherein causing the first case to be displayed at the customer service portal comprises;

displaying, via the social publisher, information obtained from the social post object and the social persona object in the social case feed at the customer service portal.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

displaying, via the social publisher, a prompt to compose a reply to the first customer post to be included with the first response in compliance with the protocols associated with the first social media channel.

6. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

pre-populating, via the social publisher, the reply based on information obtained from the social post object.

7. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

pre-populating, via the social publisher, the reply based on information obtained from the social persona object.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein automatically pre-pre-populating, comprises:

automatically determining, by the customer service portal, a particular account of the first social media channel that is associated with the author of the first post from the social persona object; and

automatically pre-populating, by the customer service portal, the first response to the first customer post to be directed toward the particular account associated with the author of the first post.

9. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

retrieving, via the retrieval system, data from a third customer post on a third social media channel, wherein the third customer post is identified by the retrieval system using one or more rules that finds customer posts that warrant a customer service response from the organization, wherein the third social media channel is different from the first social media channel and the second social media channel;

receiving, at the interface of the CRM system, the data from the third customer post;

creating, via the parser of the CRM system, a third case based on the data from the third customer post;

causing the third case to be displayed at the customer service portal; and

automatically pre-populating, by the customer service portal, a third response to the third customer post in compliance with protocols associated with the third social media channel that allow the third response to be communicated via the third social media channel, wherein the protocols associated with the third social media channel are different from the protocols associated with the first social media channel and the protocols associated with the second social media channel.

10. A system for responding to customer posts on a plurality of social media channels, the system comprising:

a retrieval system configured to;

retrieve data from a first customer post on a first social media channel, wherein the first customer post is identified by the retrieval system using one or more rules that finds customer posts that warrant a customer service response from the organization;

a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system of an organization, comprising;

an application programming interface (API) that is configured to receive, from the retrieval system, the data from the first customer post in the form of a Java script object notation (JSON) string comprising data fields;

a parser configured to parse the data fields of the JSON string into;

a social post object that corresponds to a posted message of the first customer post and a social persona object that corresponds to an author of the first customer post; and

a customer service portal, comprising;

a display configured to display the social post object and the social persona object; and

a processing system configured to execute code that, when executed by the processing system, is configured to;

automatically pre-populate a first response to the first customer post in compliance with protocols associated with the first social media channel to allow the first response to be communicated via the first social media channel.

11. The system for claim 10, wherein the retrieval system is further configured to:

retrieve data from a second customer post on a second social media channel that is different from the first social media channel, wherein the second customer post is identified by the retrieval system using one or more rules that finds customer posts that warrant another customer service response from the organization; and

wherein the interface is further configured to receive the data from the second customer post;

wherein the parser is further configured to create a second case based on the data from the second customer post; and

wherein the display is further configured to display the second case; and

wherein the processing system is further configured to execute code that, when executed by the processing system, is configured to;

automatically pre-populate;

a second response to the second customer post in compliance with protocols associated with the second social media channel that allow the second response to be communicated via the second social media channel, wherein the protocols associated with the second social media channel are different from the protocols associated with the first social media channel.

12. The system for claim 10, wherein the retrieval system comprises a rules engine, and wherein the retrieval system is a multi-site retrieval system configured to retrieve the data from the first customer post on the first social media channel based on one or more rules specified by the rules engine, wherein the one or more rules used by the rules engine are configurable by the organization using the CRM system to find customer posts that warrant creation of customer service responses from the organization, and wherein the customer posts that warrant creation of the customer service responses are a subset of all posts on the first social media channel relating to the organization.

13. The system for claim 10, wherein the customer service portal further comprises:

a social case feed that is configured to;

display information obtained from the social post object and the social persona object.

14. The system for claim 10, wherein the code, when executed by the processing system, is further configured to:

displaying a prompt to compose a reply to the first customer post to be included with the first response in compliance with the protocols associated with the first social media channel

pre-populate the reply based on information obtained from the social post object and information obtained from the social persona object.

15. The system for claim 11, wherein the retrieval system is further configured to:

retrieve data from a third customer post on a third social media channel, wherein the third customer post is identified by the retrieval system using one or more rules that finds customer posts that warrant another customer service response from the organization, wherein the third social media channel is different from the first social media channel;

wherein the interface is configured to receive the data from the third customer post, and wherein the parser is configured to create a third case based on the data from the third customer post;

wherein the code, when executed by the processing system, is further configured to;

display the third case; and

automatically pre-populate a third response to the third customer post in compliance with protocols associated with the third social media channel to allow the third response to be communicated via the third social media channel, wherein the protocols associated with the third social media channel are different from the protocols associated with the first social media channel and the protocols associated with the second social media channel.

16. A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) computing system of an organization, the CRM computing system comprising at least one processor and a memory, wherein the memory comprises computer-executable instructions that are capable of execution by the at least one processor, and that when executed by the at least one processor, cause the computing system to:

receive, at an application programming interface (API) from a retrieval system, data retrieved from a first customer post on a first social media channel, wherein the data is in the form of a Java script object notation (JSON) string comprising data fields, wherein the first customer post is identified by the retrieval system using one or more rules that finds customer posts that warrant a customer service response from the organization;

parse the data fields of the JSON string into at least two objects comprising;

a social post object that corresponds to a posted message of the first customer post and a social persona object that corresponds to an author of the first customer post;

create a first case based on the at least two objects;

cause the first case to be displayed at a customer service portal; and

automatically pre-populate a first response to the first customer post in compliance with protocols associated with the first social media channel that allow the first response to be communicated via the first social media channel.