eCommerce outage customer notification

• US 7,793,141 B1
• Filed: 05/15/2008
• Issued: 09/07/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 05/15/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Bank of America Corp.
• Original Assignee: Bank of America Corp.
• Inventors: Miller, Eric W.
• Primary Examiner(s): Bonzo, Bryce P
• Application Number:
  US12/121,335
• Time in Patent Office: 845 Days
• Field of Search: 714/4, 714/57
• US Class Current: 714/4.4
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0709 in a distributed system consisting of a plurality of standalone computer nodes, e.g. clusters, client-server systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0769 Readable error formats, e.g. cross-platform generic formats, human understandable formats
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/327 Alarm or error message display

Abstract

Techniques for notifying customers when an outage of an eCommerce system has been resolved are disclosed. An e-commerce on-line platform detects the functional outage of a transaction entity when customers are trying to access an associated service from the transaction entity. Consequently, customers are routed to an outage web page, where customers are requested to provide contact information. When the functional outage is resolved, customers are notified using the contact information. Contact information may be the e-mail address or the phone number of the customer. A contact list is formed and a batch of notification requests is sent by an eCommerce on-line platform through an alerting vendor for notifying customers when a functional outage has been resolved. Notification requests may be partitioned into a plurality of batches so that customers are alerted in waves for controlling traffic on the associated transaction entity.

Claims

1. A computer-assisted method comprising:

(a) detecting a functional outage of a transaction entity;

(b) receiving, through a first web page, a request from each of a plurality of customers for a service provided by the transaction entity;

(c) routing a connection from each of the plurality of customers to a second web page;

(d) obtaining contact information for each of the plurality of customers through the second web page;

(e) detecting a resolution of the functional outage; and

(f) from the contact information, notifying each of the plurality of customers that the service is available.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the contact information for at least one of the plurality of customers includes an e-mail address of a corresponding customer.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the contact information for at least one of the plurality of customers includes a telephone identification of a corresponding customer.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

(g) forming a contact list for the plurality of customers from the contact information.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

(h) providing a batch of notification requests to an alerting entity from the contact list, each notification request including corresponding contact information for a corresponding customer.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

(i) partitioning the contact list into a plurality of batches; and

(j) releasing the plurality of batches as a sequence of batches.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein (j) comprises:

releasing each batch based on an estimated demand on the transaction entity and a transaction capability of the transaction entity.

8. The method of claim 5, wherein the functional outage is associated with one of a plurality of outage types.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

(g) formatting a notification request based on said one of the plurality of outage types.

10. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

(g) formatting the notification request based on a wireless service type.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein (e) comprises:

receiving an operations notification indication; and

extracting a notification request.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

(g) determining whether said one of the plurality of customers is an invalid customer.

13. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

(j) balancing a traffic load on the transaction entity by sequencing the plurality of batches.

14. A computer-readable storage medium storing computer-executable instructions that, when executed, cause a processor to perform a method comprising:

(a) detecting a functional outage of a transaction entity;

(b) receiving, through a first web page, a request from each of a plurality of customers for a service provided by the transaction entity;

(c) routing a connection from each of the plurality of customers to a second web page;

(d) obtaining contact information for each of the plurality of customers through the second web page;

(e) detecting a resolution of the functional outage; and

(f) from the contact information, notifying each of the plurality of customers that the service is available.

15. The computer-readable medium of claim 14, further comprising:

(g) forming a contact list for the plurality of customers from the contact information.

16. The computer-readable medium of claim 15, further comprising:

(h) providing a batch of notification requests to an alerting entity from the contact list, each notification request including corresponding contact information for a corresponding customer.

17. The computer-readable medium of claim 16, further comprising:

(i) partitioning the contact list into a plurality of batches; and

(j) releasing the plurality of batches as a sequence of batches.

18. The computer-readable medium of claim 17, further comprising:

(k) releasing each batch based on an estimated demand on the transaction entity and a transaction capability of the transaction entity.

19. An apparatus comprising:

a memory; and

a processor coupled to the memory and configured to perform;

(a) detecting a functional outage of a transaction entity;

(b) receiving, through a first web page, a request from each of a plurality of customers for a service provided by the transaction entity;

(c) routing a connection from each of the plurality of customers to a second web page;

(d) obtaining contact information for each of the plurality of customers through the second web page;

(e) detecting a resolution of the functional outage; and

(f) from the contact information, notifying each of the plurality of customers that the service is available.

20. The apparatus of claim 19, further comprising:

an alerting system configured to send a notification message to the plurality of customers based on the contact information.

21. The apparatus of claim 19, wherein the processor is further configured to perform:

(g) forming a contact list for the plurality of customers from the contact information.

22. The apparatus of claim 21, wherein the processor is further configured to perform:

(h) providing a batch of notification requests to a notification entity from the contact list, each notification request including corresponding contact information for a corresponding customer.

23. The apparatus of claim 22, wherein the processor is further configured to perform:

(i) partitioning the contact list into a plurality of batches; and

(j) releasing the plurality of batches as a sequence of batches.

24. The apparatus of claim 23, wherein the processor is further configured to perform:

(k) releasing each batch based on an estimated demand on the transaction entity and a transaction capability of the transaction entity.