Wireless subscriber loyalty system and method

• US 20040097245A1
• Filed: 11/15/2002
• Published: 05/20/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 11/15/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Redknee Inc.
• Original Assignee: Redknee Inc.
• Inventors: Wong, Wai-See Candy, Skoczkonski, Lucas, Rahim, Rubens, Hughes, Joel, Sheth, Shyam
• Granted Patent: US 7,747,461 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/466
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0223 based on inventory
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0224 based on user history
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0226 Incentive systems for frequent usage, e.g. frequent flyer miles programs or point systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0232 Frequent usage rewards other than merchandise, cash or travel
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/00 Arrangements for metering, time-control or time indication ; Metering, charging or billing arrangements for voice wireline or wireless communications, e.g. VoIP
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/44 Augmented, consolidated or itemized billing statement or bill presentation
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/51 for resellers, retailers or service providers
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/58 based on statistics of usage or network monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2207/18 wireless networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/0104 Augmented, consolidated or itemised billing statement, e.g. additional billing information, bill presentation, layout, format, e-mail, fax, printout, itemised bill per service or per account, cumulative billing, consolidated billing
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/0188 Network monitoring; statistics on usage on called/calling number
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/0192 Sponsored, subsidised calls via advertising, e.g. calling cards with ads or connecting to special ads, free calling time by purchasing goods
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/2026 Wireless network, e.g. GSM, PCS, TACS
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/22 Bandwidth or usage-sensitve billing
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/32 Involving wireless systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/54 Resellers-retail or service providers billing, e.g. agreements with telephone service operator, activation, charging/recharging of accounts
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/53 Centralised arrangements for recording incoming messages , i.e. mailbox systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/24 Accounting or billing

Abstract

A system and method are disclosed for providing a complete architectural and procedural solution to wireless subscriber loyalty issues. A flexible promotion creation environment allows mobile phone operators to rapidly create and deploy various incentive programs and other such loyalty schemes; together with a data mining and profiling method for tracking, monitoring and analysing subscriber (or aggregate) usage information associated with given promotions. The proposed data mining and profiling method purposely incents specific subscriber behaviors by triggering a point-based reward scheme based on the dynamic screening of event records which are correlated with incented behaviors. Wherein a threshold is assigned based on usage information for a particular promotion; upon realization of which, the subscriber is, immediately notified of the reward through a plurality of means including e-mail, voice notification and by way of Short Message Service (SMS) at their wireless handset.

Claims

1. A system for creating and implementing subscriber loyalty programs and related promotional reward schemes, said system comprising:

a. a flexible graphical user interface (GUI) for the rapid creation of promotions;

b. a series of general purpose machine-readable record translators, parsers and filters;

c. general purpose databases for analysing, comparing and storing machine readable records as they pertain to particular incented promotions for a given subscriber (or aggregate thereof).

2. The system according to claim 1, wherein details of a given event are captured as machine readable records.

3. The system of claim 2, whereby details of said machine readable records will vary according to the nature of the event and may include information pertaining to the origination address, destination address, the start time of the event, the end time of the event, and details as to any quantifiable and/or measurable data which may be associated with the event.

4. The system of claim 2, whereby event records are parsed by field and accessed by the general purpose promotion monitoring databases to filter out said appropriate details.

5. The system of claim 1 where said subscribers are those of a mobile phone operator.

6. A method for improved data mining and profiling of wireless subscriber usage and behaviour.

7. The method of claim 6 which leverages information available within the mobile phone operator'"'"'s network in near real-time.

8. The method of claim 6 where said method involves gathering information via machine readable records associated with a given event from various sources within the mobile phone operator'"'"'s network.

9. The method of claim 8, where the former triggering criteria may be based on the number of events (weighted by importance) and chronologically delimited. The functionality and architecture labeled as the promotion engine or the general purpose promotion monitoring database.

10. The method of claims 8 and 9, where any given trigger event be associated with a point based reward.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein the aggregation of reward points leads to a realization of a pre-defined reward.

12. A method for notifying wireless subscribers immediately upon realization of said given promotion.

13. The method of claim 12 where said subscriber is notified and involved in the selection of a given promotion based on the accumulation of a specific number of reward points.

14. The method of claim 12, where said subscriber is relayed to the selection of said subscriber.

15. The method of claim 14, there the method of relaying the realization of a promotion may include one or more delivery mechanism including messaging mechanisms (e.g. Unstructured Supplementary Service Data, Short Message Services, Multi-Media Services), voice-based delivery (e.g. recording playback, text-to-speech), Internet Protocol technology based mechanisms (e-mail, Wireless Access Protocol push, Real-Time Protocol Streaming).