System and Method for Customer Discount Management

• US 20130030856A1
• Filed: 07/27/2011
• Published: 01/31/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 07/27/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Kyndryl Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Softlayer Technologies Incorporated (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Inventors: Johnson, Bradley, D'Auria, John, Gulledge, Jason
• Granted Patent: US 10,614,493 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/7.15
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06311 Scheduling, planning or task assignment for a person or group
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/063116 Schedule adjustment for a person or group
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06312 Adjustment or analysis of established resource schedule, e.g. resource or task levelling, or dynamic rescheduling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0207 Discounts or incentives, e.g. coupons or rebates
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/04 Billing or invoicing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/10 Services

Abstract

A method comprises receiving a customer'"'"'s service cancellation request associated with a selected service, generating and moving a ticket to a service queue, determining a discount amount to offer to the customer, updating a ticket with the discount offer, notifying the customer of the discount offer, receiving an acceptance of the discount offer from the customer, assigning the accepted discount amount to at least one billing item associated with the selected service, receiving a confirmation of the assigned discount by the user, updating the ticket with the confirmed discount assignment, receiving an approval of the discount assignment by a user, generating and storing a billing item record including the approved discount assignment for each of the at least one billing item, updating the ticket with the approved discount assignment, closing the ticket, and generating a customer invoice for a reduced invoice amount in response to the approved discount assignment.

Claims

1. A computer system comprising:

at least one server computer; and

,

at least one customer computer coupled to the at least one server computer through a network;

wherein the at least one server computer includes at least one program stored thereon, said at least one program being capable of performing the following steps;

receiving a customer'"'"'s service cancellation request associated with a selected service electronically;

generating a ticket for tracking the service cancellation request;

moving the ticket to a service queue;

assigning the ticket to a customer service representative;

determining a customer eligibility for a discount for the selected service;

determining a discount amount to offer to the customer in response to the customer being eligible for a discount;

updating the ticket with the discount offer;

notifying the customer of the discount offer electronically;

receiving an acceptance of the discount offer from the customer electronically;

in response to the acceptance, assigning the accepted discount amount to at least one billing item associated with the selected service;

receiving a confirmation of the assigned discount by the customer service representative;

updating the ticket with the confirmed discount assignment;

moving the ticket to an accounting queue;

receiving an approval of the discount assignment by an accounting associate;

generating and storing a billing item record including the approved discount assignment for each of the at least one billing item associated with the selected service, said billing item record including a description of the selected service, the frequency of the service, the associated approved discount assignment, the frequency of the approved discount assignment, and the percentage value of the approved discount assignment with respect to the overall cost of the selected service;

updating the ticket with the approved discount assignment;

closing the ticket; and

generating a customer invoice for a reduced invoice amount in response to the approved discount assignment stored in the billing item records.

2. The computer system of claim 1, wherein said at least one program is capable of performing the further step of creating a discount record for each billing item assigned a discount amount in response to receiving the assignment of the accepted discount amount.

3. The computer system of claim 1, wherein said at least one program is capable of performing the further steps of:

linking the ticket to the selected service;

generating and storing a cancellation request record and linking the selected service to the cancellation request record; and

generating and storing a cancellation request item record and linking the cancellation request record and a billing item record to the cancellation request item record.

4. The computer system of claim 3, wherein said at least one program is capable of performing the further steps of:

updating the cancellation request record with a completion status; and

updating the cancellation request item record with a completion status.

5. The computer system of claim 1, wherein said at least one program is capable of performing the further step of receiving a decline of the discount offer from the customer electronically.

6. The computer system of claim 1, wherein said at least one program is capable of performing the further step of receiving a counteroffer from the customer electronically in response to the discount offer.

7. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the step of receiving an assignment of the accepted discount amount to at least one billing item associated with the selected service comprises receiving one of a dollar amount or percentage discount for each billing item.

8. The computer system of claim 1, wherein said at least one program is capable of performing the further step of generating a report including individualized and annualized amount of future revenue retained by offering customer discounts, and the individualized and annualized reduction in revenue due to the customer discounts.

9. (canceled)

10. (canceled)

11. (canceled)

12. (canceled)

13. (canceled)

14. (canceled)

15. (canceled)

16. (canceled)

17. (canceled)

18. (canceled)

19. (canceled)

20. (canceled)