Apparatus and methods for providing fine granularity alerting to customers

• US 7,188,071 B2
• Filed: 09/24/2001
• Issued: 03/06/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 09/24/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Dutta, Rabindranath, Banerjee, Dwip N., Brown, Michael Wayne, Ravi, Kumar
• Primary Examiner(s): Weiss; John
• Assistant Examiner(s): PLUCINSKI, JAMISUE A
• Application Number:
  US09/961,898
• Publication Number:
  US 20030061109A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,989 Days
• Field of Search: 705/1, 705/400
• US Class Current: 705/346
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0281 Customer communication at a business location, e.g. providing product or service information, consulting

Abstract

Apparatus and methods for providing a fine granularity alerting mechanism for alerting customers of the status of an order are provided. With the apparatus and methods, a customer selects a supplier of a good or service and places an order with the supplier. Upon submitting the order to the supplier, a session between the supplier and the customer is initiated such that the customer may be provided with one or more alerts of the current status of the customer'"'"'s order. The one or more alerts may be periodic or may be based on the occurrence of one or more certain events. The alerts may include an estimated time of travel from a customer'"'"'s current location to a location at which the order is to be completed along with an estimated time of completion of the order. In one embodiment, if the estimated time of travel from the customer'"'"'s current location to the completion location is the same or within a certain tolerance of the estimated time of completion of the order, an alert is transmitted to the customer indicating that the customer should begin traveling to the completion location. In another embodiment, the alerts may include an estimated cost of the order based on a base cost for the product or service ordered as well as incremental costs for delay on the part of the customer for completion of the order.

Claims

1. A method of alerting customers of a current status of an order, comprising:

identifying a change in status of the order;

estimating a time to completion of the order based on the change in status of the order;

estimating a travel time of the customer;

transmitting an alert to a client device based on the estimated time to completion of the order and the estimated travel time of the customer;

wherein transmitting an alert to a client device includes determining a time when the customer should being traveling to a completion location, wherein the alert includes an indication of the time when the customer should begin traveling to the completion location;

wherein the time when the customer should begin traveling to the completion location is a difference between the estimated time to completion of the order and the estimated travel time of the customer; and

wherein if the estimated time to completion of the order is less than the estimated travel time of the customer, the alert further includes an indication of an additional charge for delay in completing the order.

2. An apparatus for alerting customers of a current status of an order, comprising:

means for identifying a change in status of the order;

means for estimating a time to completion of the order based on the change in status of the order;

means for estimating a travel time of the customer;

means for transmitting an alert to a client device based on the estimated time to completion of the order and the estimated travel time of the customer;

wherein the means for transmitting an alert to a client device includes means for determining a time when the customer should being traveling to a completion location, and wherein the alert includes an indication of the time when the customer should begin traveling to the completion location;

wherein the time when the customer should begin traveling to the completion location is a difference between the estimated time to completion of the order and the estimated travel time of the customer; and

wherein if the estimated time to completion of the order is less than the estimated travel time of the customer, the alert further includes an indication of an additional charge for delay in completing the order.