Method and system to select, schedule and purchase home services

• US 7,580,862 B1
• Filed: 05/31/2002
• Issued: 08/25/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 05/31/2001
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Servicemaster IPCO LLC
• Original Assignee: Servicemaster Company (Rentokil Initial PLC)
• Inventors: Goetz, James A., Moriarty, Timothy J., Hibben, Todd M., Montelo, Patrick A., Mrozak, Jerome P., Buckles, Susan P., Griffin, James B., Biery, Kurt A., Korp, Peter A., Linke, David A., Schulz, James R., Shugarman, Michael E.
• Primary Examiner(s): Zeender; F.
• Assistant Examiner(s): SHEIKH, ASFAND M
• Application Number:
  US10/159,649
• Time in Patent Office: 2,643 Days
• Field of Search: 705/26, 709/200
• US Class Current: 705/26.1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 Electronic shopping [e-shopping]

Abstract

A method and system to select, schedule, purchase, confirm, invoice, bill and settle service orders, such as home services orders from customers. The method and system accept electronic service orders as well as customer leads for services, selects service providers and schedule services in real-time via a computer network, confirms scheduling of service delivery in real-time, handles administrative and business details for both customers and service providers, as well as fulfills, tracks and settle service orders. The method and system also provide customized information for services available via an electronic services network and dynamically schedule services using plural electronic appointment calendars from plural service providers. The method and system includes customer service order and customer lead information and enterprise-wide visibility and management of business processes. The method and system may also be used for goods.

Claims

1. An electronic services network system, comprising, in combination:

a plurality of data exchange interfaces to facilitate transactions with partner sites and legacy data processing infrastructures, automatically accept new leads, new user transactions and new orders for goods or services and synchronize workflow process state transitions, wherein the workflow process state transitions include internal and external workflow states and transitions defined by internal and external partners and wherein and the internal and external workflow process state transitions are synchronized between internal and external partners cooperating to provide the goods or services;

a plurality of user interfaces to communicate with a plurality of different user devices via a plurality of different communications protocols;

a plurality of user notification interfaces to deliver event notifications to user devices related to goods or services for events that require an immediate response;

an application manager to provide a common entry point for a plurality of applications used on the electronic services network system;

a plurality of applications managed by the application manager to provide a plurality of different types of support assistance in the electronic services network system;

an information repository for storing and retrieving customer lead, customer order workflow information and other types of information obtained from customers, and partners generated using the electronic services network system; and

a plurality of functional engines to provide functionality to select, schedule, confirm, purchase, invoice, bill and settle orders for goods or services, wherein the plurality of functional engines include Workflow, Preference and Personalization, Service-Fulfillment Tracking, Factor-based pricing, Real-Time Scheduling, Billing and Credit Card processing, Need-Solution Identification, Service Provider Network, Provider Selection and Assignment, Event notification, Service Appointment Calendaring, Resource Management, Service Route Calculation, Invoicing Settlement and Renewal Engines;

wherein the plurality of functional engines help provide enterprise-wide visibility and management of business processes for the internal and external partners; and

wherein orders for the goods or services are accepted and scheduled in real-time via a computer network and confirming scheduling of delivery, handling of administrative and business details for both customers and service providers and fulfilling, tracking and settling orders for the goods or services are completed in real-time.

2. The electronic services network system of claim 1 wherein the plurality of data exchange interfaces include a plurality of Data Exchange extensible markup language (XML) Interfaces, a plurality of Legacy Infrastructure Interfaces, and a Process State Transition Interface.

3. The electronic services network system of claim 1 wherein the plurality of user interfaces include a plurality of Web, Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) Interfaces, a plurality of Interactive Voice Response (IVR), Voice Extensible Markup Language (VoiceXML) Interfaces, a plurality of Wireless, Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) or Handheld Device Markup Language (HDML) Interfaces.

4. The electronic services network system of claim 1 wherein the plurality of user notification interfaces include a plurality of One or Two-Way Pager, Facsimile, Electronic Mail (e-mail), or Instant-Messaging (IM) Interfaces.

5. The electronic services network system of claim 1 wherein the application manager also serves as a common entry point for a variety of internal and external users including customers, partners, service providers, call center agents, sales agents, enterprise managers, branch managers, and business analysts.

6. The electronic services network system of claim 1 wherein a plurality of applications include, E-Commerce, Provider Portal, Customer Relations Management (CRM), Lead Management, Administrative Tools, Accounts Receivable (AR), Accounts Payable (AP), and Reporting applications.

7. The electronic services network system of claim 1 wherein the information repository includes a plurality of electronic data sets.

8. The electronic services network system of claim 1 wherein the plurality of electronic data sets include Customer Leads, Customer Orders, Customer Profiles, Service Address Profiles, Service Work Orders, Market Data, Provider Profiles, Technician Profiles, Service Appointments, Customer Contacts, Work Items, Work Assignments and Business Rules.

9. The electronic services network system of claim 1 wherein the plurality of functional engines enforce Business Rules to provide a uniform quality-of-service (“

QoS”

within the electronic services network system.

11. The electronic services network system of claim 1 wherein the Needs-Solution Identification engine provides an expert system for identifying specific service needs for a customer.

12. The electronic services network system of claim 1 wherein the Service Route Calculation engine provides intelligent routing to schedule and route service appointments and helps maximize the efficiency of service provider resources by minimizing travel to and from work sites.

13. The electronic services network system of claim 1 wherein the Factor-based pricing engine determines a price of a service at a time of the sale of services based on a plurality of pricing factors known at that time, wherein the pricing factors include a combination of dynamic and static pricing factors including regional pricing differences, market pricing differences, regulation pricing differences, tax pricing differences, partner pricing, promotion code pricing differences or co-branded site pricing.

14. The electronic services network system of claim 1 wherein the Resource Management engine enables service providers to define and manage service related resources including, individual service provider workers, service provider equipment that can be scheduled, crews of services workers and service provider sales personnel and provides a high level view of service workers'"'"' skills, work preferences, available services and timeslots.

15. The electronic services network system of claim 1 wherein the Workflow engine provides access to Technician Profiles that include information about individual service technicians that provide specialty services including applying extermination chemicals, applying liquid fertilizers and applying lawn chemicals.

10. An electronic services network system, comprising, in combination:

a plurality of data exchange interfaces to facilitate transactions with partner sites and legacy data processing infrastructures, automatically accept new leads, new user transactions and new orders for goods or services and synchronize workflow process state transitions,

wherein the plurality of data exchange interfaces include a plurality of Data Exchange extensible markup language (XML) Interfaces, a plurality of Legacy Infrastructure Interfaces, and a Process State Transition Interface;

a plurality of user interfaces to communicate with a plurality of different user devices via a plurality of different communications protocols;

a plurality of user notification interfaces to deliver event notifications to user devices related to goods or services for events that require an immediate response, wherein the plurality of user notification interfaces include a One or Two Way Pager, Facsimile, Electronic Mail (e-mail), or Instant-Messaging (IM) Interface;

an application manager to provide a common entry point for a plurality of applications used on the electronic services network system;

a plurality of applications managed by the application manager to provide a plurality of different types of support assistance in the electronic services network system, wherein the plurality of applications include an E-Commerce, Provider Portal, Customer Relations Management (CRM), Lead Management, Administrative Tools, Accounts Receivable (AR), Accounts Payable (AP), and Reporting applications

an information repository for storing and retrieving customer lead, customer order workflow information and other types of information obtained from customers, and partners generated using the electronic services network system, and wherein the information repository includes a plurality of electronic data sets comprising Customer Leads, Customer Orders, Customer Profiles, Service Address Profiles, Service Work Orders, Market Data, Provider Profiles, Technician Profiles, Service Appointments, Customer Contacts, Work Items, Work Assignments and Business Rules; and

a plurality of functional engines to provide functionality to select, schedule, confirm, purchase, invoice, bill and settle orders for goods or services,

wherein the plurality of functional engines includes Workflow, Preference and Personalization, Service-Fulfillment Tracking, Factor-based pricing, Real-Time Scheduling, Billing and Credit Card processing, Need-Solution Identification, Service Provider Network, Provider Selection and Assignment, Event notification, Service Appointment Calendaring, Resource Management, Service Route Calculation, Invoicing Settlement and Renewal Engines,

wherein the plurality of functional engines help provide enterprise-wide visibility and management of business processes for internal and external partners and wherein the plurality of functional engines enforce the Business Rules to provide a uniform quality-of-service (“

QoS”

).