CUSTOMER LOYALTY SYSTEM IN RETAIL CHAINS AND RESTAURANTS USING WEB SERVERS, MOBILE COMMUNICATION DEVICES, AND POINT-OF-SALE TERMINALS
First Claim
1. A method comprising:
- generating a promotional code that is active for a limited time;
associating the promotional code with an order for goods or services;
sending the promotional code that is active for the limited time;
receiving an indication of use of the promotional code within the limited time; and
sending an indication of a customer loyalty reward to a customer after receiving the indication of use of the promotional code within the limited time.
2 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A customer loyalty system assists to build and keep a customer base. The system gathers feedback from customers and enables tracking of goods and services. The customer loyalty system rids a customer of multiple loyalty cards by replacing them with one account. A customer account is associated with, for example, a customer cell phone number. A short lived promotional code enables the customer to pay through a virtual wallet and to receive bonus points or rewards. A point of sale (POS) system generates a bill with a short-lived active promotional or activation code. The code identifies the currently ordered or selected goods or services at a particular establishment. The code expires after a few minutes or other relatively short time. Through, for example, a mobile Internet-enabled device, a customer redeems the short-lived code. Redemption may be done in a variety of ways, and may be done before or after payment, but before code expiration.
36 Citations
27 Claims
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1. A method comprising:
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generating a promotional code that is active for a limited time; associating the promotional code with an order for goods or services; sending the promotional code that is active for the limited time; receiving an indication of use of the promotional code within the limited time; and sending an indication of a customer loyalty reward to a customer after receiving the indication of use of the promotional code within the limited time. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17)
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18. A device configured to provide a service to a plurality of customers, the device comprising:
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a promotional code generator that is capable of generating a promotional code that is active for a limited time, each promotional code corresponding to a customer; an interface service capable of sending and receiving information to and from a point of sale device; an authenticator configured to receive promotional codes and to activate a reward corresponding to a respective promotional code when the promotional code is sent electronically to the authenticator within the limited time; and a recorder configured to record information associated with each promotional code sent to the authenticator. - View Dependent Claims (19, 20)
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21. A system comprising:
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circuitry for generating a promotional code that is active for a limited time; circuitry for sending to a device, the device accessible to a customer, the promotional code that is active for the limited time; circuitry for receiving the promotional code within the limited time; and circuitry for delivering an indication of a customer loyalty reward to the customer after receiving an indication of use of the promotional code within the limited time. - View Dependent Claims (22, 23, 24)
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25. A computer program product comprising one or more tangible computer accessible storage media configured with instructions for executing the following process:
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generating a promotional code that is active for a limited time; sending the promotional code that is active for the limited time to a customer; receiving an indication of use of the promotional code within the limited time; and sending an indication of a customer loyalty reward to the customer after receiving the indication of use of the promotional code within the limited time. - View Dependent Claims (26, 27)
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Specification