Smart cards, customer relationship management system and method of offering results of customer analysis

• US 20030078882A1
• Filed: 02/11/2002
• Published: 04/24/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 10/23/2001
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Inventors: Fujita, Kazuo, Nagai, Nobuo, Suzuki, Kunio, Matsumoto, Chiaki, Oozeki, Kazuhiro, Kaminaga, Masahiro, Sukeda, Hiroko
• Application Number:
  US10/068,984
• Publication Number:
  US 20030078882A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/39
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/06 Private payment circuits, e.g. involving electronic currency used among participants of a common payment scheme
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/10 specially adapted for electronic funds transfer [EFT] systems; specially adapted for home banking systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/20 Point-of-sale [POS] network systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising

Abstract

A loyalty program using a smart card enables realtime customer information analysis at a shop. Customer services are improved by conveniently and realtime providing results of analyzing each customer'"'"'s usage status and tendency. A smart card application program analyzes customer information. Since the smart card has just a limited capacity and calculation capability, the card is incapable of complicated calculation and storing a large amount of log data. To solve this problem, a recurrence formula is used for calculating a value representing the customer'"'"'s buying habit. There is provided a plurality of parameters needed for the calculation in order to enable determination of loyal customers according to different evaluation criteria such as a score based on the most recent purchase amount or the continuity. In addition, a shop card is used for point management to more economically enable customer information analysis at shops.

Claims

1. A customer relationship management system where, at the time of usage of a shop or a service by a customer, said system analyzes said customer'"'"'s buying habit to determine a customer rank from his or her purchase data and comprises a smart card containing an IC chip having a CPU, a storage means, and an I/O interface and a terminal for communication with said smart card,

wherein said smart card receives information about the most recent usage by said customer via said I/O interface, calculates a value representing said customer'"'"'s buying habit so far from an analysis result at the previous usage and the most recent purchase data, and sends a calculation result as needed via said I/O interface.

2. The customer relationship management system according to claim 1, wherein the system has a capability to present a service content for said customer on said terminal according to a value representing said customer'"'"'s buying habit calculated in a smart card.

3. The customer relationship management system according to claim 1, wherein the system uses at least one type of information such as the number of usage, a purchase amount, a usage date/time, and a usage category as said purchase data.

4. The customer relationship management system according to claim 1, wherein the system maintains at least one parameter used for calculating a value representing said buying habit in said smart card, and maintains at least one type of calculation results using different parameters in said smart card.

5. A customer relationship management system where, at the time of usage of a shop or a service by a customer, said system analyzes said customer'"'"'s buying habit to determine a customer rank from his or her purchase data and comprises a smart card containing an IC chip having a CPU, a storage means, and an I/O interface and a terminal for communication with said smart card,

wherein said smart card has a capability to manage points provided when a customer having said smart card uses a shop or a service;

said customer is provided with a specified service according to said point value; and

said smart card receives information about the most recent usage by said customer via said I/O interface, calculates a value representing said customer'"'"'s buying habit so far from an analysis result at the previous usage and the most recent purchase data, and varies a rate of providing said points according to said calculation result.

6. The customer relationship management system according to claim 5, wherein the system uses at least one type of information such as the number of usage, a purchase amount, a usage date/time, and a usage category as said purchase data.

7. The customer relationship management system according to claim 5, wherein the system maintains at least one parameter used for calculating a value representing said buying habit in said smart card, and maintains at least one type of calculation results using different parameters in said smart card.

8. A customer relationship management system where, at the time of usage of a shop or a service by a customer, said system analyzes said customer'"'"'s buying habit to determine a customer rank from his or her purchase data and comprises at least two smart cards each containing an IC chip having a CPU, a storage means, and an I/O interface and a terminal for communication with said smart card,

wherein each customer owns at least one said first smart card (customer card);

said first smart card is provided with at least one of a payment capability and a point management capability;

said storage means stores a value representing said customer'"'"'s buying habit so far;

a shop owns said second smart card (shop card);

said second smart card has a capability of calculating a value representing each customer'"'"'s buying habit; and

said second card, when used, receives a value representing said customer s buying habit so far from said first card via said I/O interface, uses said CPU to calculate a value representing said customer'"'"'s buying habit according to a specified mathematical formula based on the previous log data and the most recently received purchase data, and then returns said calculation result to the customer card via said I/O interface.

9. The customer relationship management system according to claim 8, wherein the system uses at least one type of information such as the number of usage, a purchase amount, a usage date/time, and a usage category as said purchase data.

10. The customer relationship management system according to claim 8, wherein the system maintains at least one parameter used for calculating a value representing said buying habit in said smart card, and maintains at least one type of calculation results using different parameters in said smart card.