METHOD FOR DETERMINING A PERSONALIZED TRUE COST OF SERVICE OFFERINGS

• US 20100185489A1
• Filed: 07/13/2009
• Published: 07/22/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 01/21/2009
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Truaxis, Inc. (MasterCard Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Truaxis, Inc. (MasterCard Incorporated)
• Inventors: Perumal, Saravana, Kothari, Samir, Satyavolu, Ramakrishna V.
• Application Number:
  US12/501,572
• Publication Number:
  US 20100185489A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/10
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/063 Operations research, analysis or management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0639 Performance analysis of employees; Performance analysis of enterprise or organisation operations
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/102 Bill distribution or payments
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0224 based on user history
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0282 Rating or review of business operators or products
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/12 Accounting
• 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 15/58 based on statistics of usage or network monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/745 Customizing according to wishes of subscriber, e.g. friends or family
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/80 Rating or billing plans; Tariff determination aspects
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/8011 using class of subscriber
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/8044 Least cost routing
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/805 Bidding
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/8083 involving reduced rates or discounts, e.g. time-of-day reductions or volume discounts
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/83 Notification aspects
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/84 Types of notifications
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/85 characterised by the type of condition triggering a notification
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/851 Determined tariff
• 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 2215/0108 : Customization according to wishes of subscriber, e.g. customer preferences, friends and family, selecting services or billing options, Personal Communication Systems [PCS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/018 : On-line real-time billing, able to see billing information while in communication, e.g. via the internet
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/0184 : involving reduced rates or discounts, e.g. time-of-day reductions, volume discounts, cell discounts, group billing, frequent calling destination(s) or user history list
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/0188 : Network monitoring; statistics on usage on called/calling number
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/74 : Rating aspects, e.g. rating parameters or tariff determination apects
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/7407 : class of subscriber
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/745 : Least cost routing, e.g. Automatic or manual, call by call or by preselection
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/7457 : Biding
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/81 : Notifying aspects, e.g. notifications or displays to the user
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/8129 : Type of notification
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/815 : Notification when a specific condition, service or event is met

Abstract

In embodiments of the invention, comparing service plans based on a user'"'"'s usage data may include collecting at least one of predicted and past service usage and reward earnings data for a user'"'"'s current service using a computer implemented facility, analyzing the service usage and rewards earnings data to obtain a normalized service usage and rewards dataset, normalizing data related to a plurality of alternative service offerings according to a normalized alternative service offering model, applying the normalized alternative service offering model to the normalized service usage and rewards dataset to produce a plurality of alternative service offering normalized datasets and comparing the alternative service offering normalized datasets to the normalized usage dataset according to at least one element of the datasets to determine if an alternative service offering is better than the user'"'"'s current service. Related user interfaces, applications, and computer program products are disclosed.

Claims

1. A machine readable medium, the machine readable medium having program instructions stored thereon for comparing service plans based on a user'"'"'s usage data executable by a processing unit, the program instructions comprising the steps of:

collecting at least one of predicted and past service usage and reward earnings data for a user'"'"'s current service using a computer implemented facility;

analyzing the service usage and rewards earnings data to obtain a normalized service usage and rewards dataset;

normalizing data related to a plurality of alternative service offerings according to a normalized alternative service offering model;

applying the normalized alternative service offering model to the normalized service usage and rewards dataset to produce a plurality of alternative service offering normalized datasets; and

comparing the alternative service offering normalized datasets to the normalized usage dataset according to at least one element of the datasets to determine if an alternative service offering is better than the user'"'"'s current service.

2. The medium of claim 1, further comprising repeating said collecting, analyzing, normalizing, applying and comparing periodically to determine on an updated basis which alternative service offering is better than the user'"'"'s current service.

3. The medium of claim 2, further comprising, alerting the user when an alternative service offering that is better than the user'"'"'s current service is available.

4. The medium of claim 1, further comprising, calculating an aggregate score for each of the plurality of alternative service offering normalized datasets.

5. The medium of claim 4, wherein the aggregate score comprises cost and at least one other element.

6. The medium of claim 4, wherein the other element is selected from the group consisting of total cost, per unit cost, savings, and service quality.

7. The medium of claim 4, wherein the user specifies which aspects of the alternative service offering normalized dataset to include in the aggregate score.

8. The medium of claim 4, further comprising, ranking the plurality of alternative service offering normalized datasets based on the aggregate score.

9. The medium of claim 4, further comprising, collecting terms and conditions for the user'"'"'s current service, analyzing the terms and conditions, calculating an aggregate score for the terms and conditions, and adding the aggregate score to the aggregate score for the normalized usage dataset.

10. The medium of claim 4, further comprising, collecting terms and conditions for the alternative service offerings, analyzing the terms and conditions, calculating an aggregate score for the terms and conditions, and adding the aggregate score to the aggregate score for the alternative service offering normalized dataset.

11. The medium of claim 1, wherein the data related to a plurality of alternative service offerings are obtained from a human-assisted normalization system.

12. The medium of claim 1, wherein the data related to a plurality of alternative service offerings are obtained from public information sources.

13. The medium of claim 1, wherein the data related to a plurality of alternative service offerings are obtained through direct connections to service providers.

14. The medium of claim 1, wherein the service usage data are input manually by the user to the computer implemented facility.

15. The medium of claim 1, wherein normalizing data related to the plurality of alternative service offerings, comprises:

defining a plurality of service usage-related data types;

collecting parameters related to a service usage using the computer implemented facility; and

normalizing the service parameters according to the defined service usage-related data types to generate a normalized alternative service offering model.

16. The medium of claim 1, wherein when the service offering is a wireless service offering, the service usage data and data related to the alternative service offering relate to at least one wireless service related item.

17. The medium of claim 1, wherein when the service offering is a credit card offering, the service usage data and data related to the alternative service offering relate to at least one credit card related item.

18. The medium of claim 1, wherein comparing comprises ranking the alternative service offerings according to an aggregate score calculated for the alternative service offering normalized dataset.

19. The medium of claim 1, wherein comparing comprises ranking the alternative service offerings according to cost and an aspect of the alternative service offering normalized dataset.

20. The medium of claim 1, wherein comparing comprises ranking the alternative service offerings according to total costs, per unit costs, and/or service quality.