Method of offering member services, member service offering system, and mobile telephone customer reservation administrating system

• US 20030149641A1
• Filed: 11/06/2002
• Published: 08/07/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 05/11/2000
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Kazuyoshi Kouketsu
• Original Assignee: Kazuyoshi Kouketsu
• Inventors: Yao, Yoshikazu, Kouketsu, Kazuyoshi
• Application Number:
  US10/275,338
• Publication Number:
  US 20030149641A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/27
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/02 Reservations, e.g. for tickets, services or events
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0203 Market surveys; Market polls
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0625 Directed, with specific intent or strategy
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0635 Processing of requisition or of purchase orders
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0641 Shopping interfaces

Abstract

A member service providing method according to the present invention includes the steps of: acquiring personal information of each service user who is provided with a member service; recording the personal information of the service user who is provided with the member service; acquiring information about a shop of a service provider who provides member services to service users thereof and information about merchandise and/or services the service provider provides; recording the information about the shop of the service provider who provides the member services to the service users and the information about the merchandise and/or the services the service provider provides; transmitting data for displaying contents of the merchandise and/or the services provided by the service provider on a service user terminal used by the service user; recording the contents of a request of a merchandise purchase and/or service that the service user has made for the displayed merchandise and/or the services; and managing collectively the recorded contents of the request for each service provider.

Claims

1. A member service providing method using a computer network, the method comprising the steps of:

acquiring personal information of each service user who is provided with a member service;

recording the personal information of the service user who is provided with the member service;

acquiring information about a shop of a service provider who provides member services to service users thereof and information about merchandise and/or services the service provider provides;

recording the information about the shop of the service provider who provides the member services to the service users and the information about the merchandise and/or the services the service provider provides;

transmitting data for displaying contents of the merchandise and/or the services provided by the service provider on a service user terminal used by the service user;

recording the contents of a request of a merchandise purchase and/or service that the service user has made for the displayed merchandise and/or the services; and

managing collectively the recorded contents of the request for each service provider.

2. The member service providing method according to claim 1,

wherein

the information about the shop of the service provider who provides the member services to the service users includes information about business categories to which the shop belongs,

the contents of the request of the merchandise purchase and/or the service that the service user has made for the displayed merchandise and/or the services include information about business categories to which the shop dealing the displayed merchandise and/or the services belongs, and

the method further comprises the step of checking for a request made for the same time and date and the same business category by comparing contents of requests made so far with the contents of the request of the merchandise purchase and/or service that the service user has made for the displayed merchandise and/or the services.

3. The member service providing method according to claim 2, further comprising the step of transmitting to the service provider data rejecting the contents of the request of the merchandise purchase and/or the service that the service user has made for the displayed merchandise and/or services if there is another request made for the same time and date and the same business category in the step of checking for the request made for the same time and date and the same business category by comparing the contents of the request of the merchandise purchase and/or the service that the service user has made so far for the displayed merchandise and/or services with the contents of the request of the merchandise purchase and/or the service that the service user has made for the displayed merchandise and/or the services.

4. The member service providing method according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein

the personal information of the service user who is provided with the member service and the contents of the request of the merchandise purchase and/or the service that the service user has made for the displayed merchandise and/or services include an identification number of the service user terminal used by the service user, and

the method further comprises the step of

acquiring the identification number of the service user terminal the service user carries, when the service provider materializes the contents of the request of the merchandise purchase and/or the service that the service user has made for the displayed merchandise and/or the services, and

verifying the acquired identification number against the recorded contents of the request of the merchandise purchase and/or the service that the service user has made for the displayed merchandise and/or services, by the service provider.

5. The member service providing method according to claim 4, wherein the identification number is a phone number.

6. The member service providing method according to claim 4, wherein the identification number is a global IP address.

7. The member service providing method according to any one of claims 1 to 6, wherein,

the personal information of the service user includes an e-mail address of the service user, and

the method further comprises the step of attaching information recorded in advance to be attached to e-mail and sending the e-mail, when the service provider sends e-mail to the e-mail address of the service user.

8. The member service providing method according to any one of claims 1 to 7, wherein

the personal information of the service user who is provided with the member service includes information about a category of a matter which the service user desires,

the information recorded in advance to be attached to e-mail includes information about a category to which the information of interest belongs, and,

in the step of attaching the information recorded in advance to be attached to e-mail and sending the e-mail when the service provider sends the e-mail to the e-mail address of the service user, only information to be attached to e-mail, which belongs to the category of the matter which the service user desires is attached to the e-mail.

9. A member service providing system comprising a service user terminal carried by a service user, a service provider terminal used by a service provider, and an administration server for managing service arrangements, the terminals and the server being connected to one another via a network, wherein

the administration server comprises

a service user database storing personal information data of member service users,

a merchandise database storing data about services and merchandise provided by the service provider, and

a reservation database storing reservation data created when the service user makes a service request through the service user terminal with reference to the merchandise database, and

the administration server has a function of managing the reservations for each service provider.

10. The member service providing system according to claim 9, wherein, when a reservation is made through the service user terminal, the administration server answers that the reservation is refused if there is data of another reservation made for the same time and date and the same business category stored in the reservation database.

11. The member service providing system according to claim 9 or 10, wherein

identification numbers are allocated to the service user terminals with no overlap,

the personal information includes the identification number of the service user terminal used by the service user,

the identification number of the service user terminal through which a reservation has been made is recorded in the reservation data, and

user identification upon each service is carried out by searching the service reservation database using the identification number as a search key.

12. The member service providing system according to any one of claims 9 to 11, wherein the search in the service reservation database is carried out with the service provider terminal.

13. The member service providing system according to claim 11 or 12, wherein the identification number is sent to the service provider terminal from the service user terminal by at least one of an electronic communications method, an electric communications method, an electromagnetic communications method, and an optical communications method, and the sent identification number is used for search in the service reservation database.

14. The member service providing system according to any one of claims 11 to 13, wherein the service user terminal is a communications device having telephone and packet exchange functions, and the identification number is a phone number.

15. The member service providing system according to any one of claims 11 to 13, wherein the service user terminal is a communications device having telephone and packet exchange functions and the identification number is a global IP address.

16. The member service providing system according to any one of claims 9 to 15, wherein

the administration server sends to the service user terminal authentication data created or selected for each reservation that is made with the service user terminal, and

user identification is carried out by sending the authentication data to the service provider terminal from the service user terminal by at least one of an electronic communications method, an electric communications method, and an optical communications method, and by conducting search in the service reservation database using the sent authentication data.

17. The member service providing system according to claim 16, wherein

the authentication data is sent also to the service provider terminal to which the reservation is made, and

user identification upon each service is carried out by comparing the authentication data sent from the service user terminal with the authentication data sent from the administration server.

18. The member service providing system according to claim 16 or 17, wherein the authentication data is audio data with which a voice replay function of the service user terminal talks, and the user identification is carried out by replaying said audio data with the service user terminal.

19. The member service providing system according to claim 18, wherein the service provider terminal has a voice converting function unit for converting voice into audio data, and user identification is carried out by converting voice replayed by the service user terminal into audio data, and comparing the audio data with the authentication data sent from the administration server.

20. The member service providing system according to any one of claims 9 to 19, wherein previously specified information data is attached to e-mail to be sent when the e-mail is sent from the service provider terminal to the service user terminal via the administration server.

21. The member service providing system according to claim 20, wherein the information data includes URL of an appropriate homepage.

22. The member service providing system according to claim 20 or 21, wherein

the administration server has a questionnaire database storing data related to a category of information which the service user desires,

the information data has an attribute of categories, and

only the information data belonging to a category corresponding to the data related to the category of the information which the service user desires is attached to the e-mail.

23. The member service providing system according to any one of claims 20 to 22, wherein

the administration server has a service provider database storing business category data related to business categories to which at least the service providers using the service provider terminals belong,

the information data has attributes of business categories, and

when the service provider terminal sends e-mail to the service user terminal via the administration server, the administration server acquires the business category to which the service provider terminal belongs from the service provider database and does not attach to the e-mail the information data having the attributes of the same business category as the acquired one.

24. The member service providing system according to any one of claims 9 to 23, wherein if the sent e-mail fails to reach the service user terminal a predetermined number of times, the administration server deactivates a function of sending e-mail to the service user terminal.

25. The member service providing system according to any one of claims 9 to 24, wherein the service provider terminal sends to the service user terminal electronic data about how much the service user owes for the merchandise purchase and/or the service.

26. The member service providing system according to claim 25, wherein the electronic data is e-mail.

27. The member service providing system according to any one of claims 9 to 26, wherein a point allocated for payment for the service and/or the merchandise purchase is given according to how much the service user has used services and/or purchased merchandise.

28. The member service providing system according to claim 27, wherein the point is accepted only by the service provider from which the service user has received a service and/or purchased merchandise.

29. The member service providing system according to claim 27, wherein the point is accepted by all the service providers registered in the administration server.

30. The member service providing system according to claim 27, wherein the point includes a point acceptable only by the service provider from which the service user has received a service and/or merchandise and a point acceptable by all the service providers registered in the administration server, and the point acceptable only by the service provider from which the service user has received the service and/or merchandise and the point acceptable by all the service providers registered in the administration server are exchangeable.

31. The member service providing system according to claim 30, wherein the point acceptable only by the service provider from which the service user has received the service and/or merchandise can be exchanged at a predetermined exchange rate with the point acceptable by all the service providers registered in the administration server.

32. A cellular phone-based customer reservation management system dealing with reservations collectively that are made by service users and placed with a plurality of service providers, the system comprising:

plural types of service user terminals;

a plurality of service provider terminals possessed by service providers providing individual services of the plural types; and

a system server having a customer database storing information about at least one service user who receives services, and a client information database that is installed in each service provider and stores information about the individual service providers and contents of their services, wherein the system server accepts via the individual service provider terminals service reservations sent from the service user terminals to the service provider terminals, and manages collectively the reservations placed with each service provider.

33. The cellular phone-based customer reservation management system according to claim 32, wherein the system answers that the reservation is refused if another reservation has already been made for the same time and date and the same business category by the respective service users when the service user makes a reservation for a service.

34. The cellular phone-based customer reservation management system according to claim 32 or 33, wherein service user identification is carried out by referring to the respective databases in the server based on a number allocated to the service user terminal possessed by each service user.

35. The cellular phone-based customer reservation management system according to any one of claims 32-34, wherein, when the service provider sends e-mail to its service users, information specified by a system administrator of the system server is sent attached to the e-mail.