METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR ESCALATING CONTENT OF DISCUSSIONS TO PARTICULAR MEMORY LOCATIONS

• US 20120116982A1
• Filed: 06/02/2011
• Published: 05/10/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 06/02/2010
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Salesforce.com, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Salesforce.com, Inc.
• Inventors: Yoshida, Norimasa, Anderson, Grant, Su, George, Lin, Justin, Kittipatkul, Park, Rajagopal, Vinodh, Sendyk, Irina, Rangaraj, Sriram, Girauday, Etienne
• Application Number:
  US13/151,784
• Publication Number:
  US 20120116982A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/304
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/016 After-sales

Abstract

In this specification, online communities also referred to as forums, are used as a customer support tool. Users of the forum post questions and replies. In some embodiments users can vote on the replies. The authorized personnel can add an entry in a database based on the forum content. In an embodiment, such an entry could be in customer case management system when a question is not well answered or not answered at all and needs attention of customer support agent. In another embodiment, the entry could be in a knowledge base management system when a question is well answered and is considered to be potentially useful for many forum users. Any of the above embodiments can be used independently or together with any combination of other embodiments.

Claims

1. A method for adding content of a web forum to at least one customer support database in a multi-tenant database system, comprising:

sending, by a host system including one or more machines having a processor system having one or more processors, at least one webpage having a user interface, the webpage being associated with the web forum and the webpage including a conversation between users of the web forum;

receiving, at the host system, an update to the webpage having an update to the conversation;

adding, by the processor system, an entry in the customer support database, the entry being related to the conversation;

linking, by the host machine, the conversation to the entry;

adding, by the host machine, to the web forum an indication that the content was entered; and

sending, from the host machine, a webpage having the indication, the webpage being associated with the web forum.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising collecting, by the host machine, information to determine whether content of the conversation should be entered in the customer support database.

3. The method of claim 2, the customer support database being a customer case management system, which is a database storing content related to customer support issues.

4. The method of claim 3, the information includes at least the name of the author of a question related to the entry, the question appearing on the webpage.

5. The method of claim 4, the author of the question appears on the webpage below the question.

6. The method of claim 3, the information includes at least customer attributes of the user system posting the question in the web forum.

7. The method of claim 3, the information includes at least a duration of time since a last reply to a question on the webpage.

8. The method of claim 7, the information that was collected includes at least an indication of how many times the webpage was viewed.

9. The method of claim 7, the information that was collected includes at least the duration since the last reply to a question that appears on the webpage.

10. The method of claim 2, the customer support database being a knowledge base management system, which is a repository storing articles and content related to solutions to customer issues.

11. The method of claim 10, the link for voting to dislike an answer being juxtaposed to a link for voting to like an answer.

12. The method of claim 2, the information that was collected includes at least an indication of how many votes were received for an answer to a question that appears on the webpage.

13. The method of claim 1, the at least one webpage including a link for voting a like an answer.

14. The method of claim 1, the at least one webpage including a link for voting a dislike an answer.

15. The method of claim 1, the at least one webpage including a link for indicating that a particular answer is best.

16. The method of claim 1, sending only to user machines associated with authorized personnel a link, which when activated enters content of the web forum into the customer support database.

17. The method of claim 1,

the at least one customer support database includes at least

a customer case management system, which is a system for storing content related to customer support issues, and

a knowledge base management system, which is a repository storing articles and content related to solutions to customer issues;

and

the at least one webpage that was sent having information that is relevant for determining whether content of the conversation should be entered in the customer case management system and the knowledge base management system, the information including at least an indication of a duration of time since a last reply to a question on the webpage;

an indication of how many votes were received for an answer to a question that appears on the webpage; and

an indication of how many times the webpage was viewed;

the multitenant database system also storing information about customer attributes in a location that is accessible to a machine that is associated with a person authorized to perform the adding of the entry;

the method further comprising

sending only to user machines associated with authorized personnel a link, which when activated enters content of the web forum into the customer support database.

18. The method of claim 1, a number indicating number of votes for a reply appear on the webpage below the reply.

19. A machine comprising:

a processor system including one or more processors;

a storage system having one or more machine readable media, storing thereon one or more instructions for implementing a web application that includes one or more instructions that cause the processor system to perform a method including at least;

sending, by a host system including one or more machines having a processor system having one or more processors, at least one webpage having a user interface, the webpage being associated with the web forum and the webpage including a conversation between users of the web forum;

receiving, at the host system, an update to the webpage having an update to the conversation;

adding, by the processor system, an entry in the customer support database, the entry being related to the conversation;

linking, by the host machine, the conversation to the entry;

adding, by the host machine, to the web forum an indication that the content was entered; and

sending, from the host machine, a webpage having the indication, the webpage being associated with the web forum.

20. A machine-readable medium carrying one or more sequences of instructions for implementing a method for providing an interface for object relationships, the method comprising:

sending, by a host system including one or more machines having a processor system having one or more processors, a webpage with a user interface , the webpage being associated with the web forum and the webpage including a conversation between users of the web forum;

receiving, at the host system, an update to the webpage having an update to the conversation;

adding, by the processor system, an entry in the customer support database, the entry being related to the conversation;

linking, by the host machine, the conversation to the entry;

adding, by the host machine, to the web forum an indication that the content was entered; and

sending, from the host machine, a webpage having the indication, the webpage being associated with the web forum.