Community driven prioritization of customer issues

• US 8,327,276 B2
• Filed: 08/11/2006
• Issued: 12/04/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 08/11/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Shroff, Sharat, Ronco, Justin D, Blackstad, Joedy K, Dietrich, Wilhelmina P
• Primary Examiner(s): Nguyen, Maikhanh
• Application Number:
  US11/464,063
• Publication Number:
  US 20080040427A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,307 Days
• Field of Search: 715/751, 715/200, 715/201, 715/204, 715/205, 715/234, 715/753, 715/758, 715/759, 715/202, 715/203, 715/206, 715/208, 715/209, 715/226, 715/229, 715/231, 715/255, 715/256, 715/273, 715/700, 715/750, 715/760, 715/794, 715/797, 709/201, 709/202, 709/203, 709/204, 709/205, 709/206, 709/207, 709/217, 709/219, 709/223, 705/14.55, 705/300, 705/346, 705/7.27, 705/7.28, 705/7.29, 705/7.37, 705/7.38
• US Class Current: 715/751
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0603 Catalogue ordering

Abstract

Community driven prioritization of customer issues is described. In an implementation, a selectable portion of a user interface providing interaction with a community forum is selectable by a user to indicate agreement and associate with a posting in the community forum. The user may then automatically be provided results generated in response to the posting. In another implementation, associations matching a plurality of users and postings are utilized to assign priority to the postings and to prioritize responses to the postings.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

forming a user interface configured to expose a community forum to a plurality of clients such that the clients interact with postings in the community forum via a network;

providing in the user interface a selectable portion associated with at least one user posting that is selectable by a user to;

express agreement with the user posting; and

associate with the user posting, and

wherein selection of the portion causes updating of a counter configured to track a number of users associated with a posting and are used to determine which user posting is most important;

responsive to a selection by the user of the selectable portion, storing data associating the user with the corresponding user posting on the community forum, such that the association describes a relationship between the user and the corresponding user forum; and

determining the priority for generating a response to one or more user postings based upon one or more corresponding user associations, wherein the response is generated by an owner of the community forum, wherein the owner of the community forum automatically generates and sends a notification of the response to one or more users based on the determined priority.

2. The method as described in claim 1 further comprising:

generating a response associated with one said user posting; and

forming a notification of the response for communication via a network to a plurality of users associated with the posting by selection of a corresponding portion, wherein the notification indicates that the result is accessible in the community forum.

3. The method as described in claim 2, wherein the notification is provided to the plurality of users using one or more mode of communication selected from the group consisting of:

email;

instant messaging;

text messaging;

desktop alerts;

pager; and

voicemail.

4. The method as described in claim 3, wherein at least two different communication modes are used to notify two or more users associated with a posting, in accordance with preferred communication modes specified by the users.

5. The method as described in claim 1, wherein associations of one or more users to a posting are referenced to determine the users to which notification is provided, when a response is obtained for the posting.

6. The method as described in claim 1, wherein the posting describes a customer problem with a product and the response includes an answer to the customer problem.

7. The method as described in claim 1, wherein the posting describes a technical problem with an application module for a computing device and the response includes support instructions for troubleshooting the problem.

8. A method comprising:

providing one or more selectable portions of a user interface configured for interaction of a plurality of clients with a community forum, wherein each selectable portion corresponds to a user posting in the community forum and is selectable by another user to;

express agreement with the user posting; and

associate with the user posting;

storing a plurality of associations of users with the user posting in the community forum in response to user selections of the one or more selectable portions via the plurality of clients;

determining the priority of one or more user postings based upon corresponding associations; and

based upon the determined priority, forming an alert for communication to one or more recipients enlisted by a manager of the community forum to generate responses to the one or more user postings; and

wherein selection of a portion causes updating of a counter configured to track a number of users associated with a corresponding posting, and the priority of the posting is determined based at least in part upon the counter.

9. The method as described in claim 8, wherein groups of recipients are arranged to correspond to successive threshold levels of priority for one or more posting, such that when priority of the respective posting escalates to reach each threshold level, the corresponding group of recipients is alerted.

10. The method as described in claim 8, wherein the alert is configured to present the priority for one or more postings to recipients, such that the alert enables recipients to prioritize their responses to the postings.

11. The method as described in claim 8, wherein the recipients enlisted to generate responses to postings include one or more of community experts, forum managers, customer service personnel, and technical support staff.

12. The method as described in claim 8, wherein:

the community forum is directed to support for computing devices and software;

at least one posting describes a technical problem with an application module for a computing device; and

a corresponding response generated by the one or more recipients comprises support instructions for troubleshooting the technical problem with the application module.

13. A method comprising:

outputting on a client a user interface configured for interaction of a user with a community forum directed to technical support of one or more products and services;

displaying via the user interface at least one posting describing a technical problem with a product and a portion corresponding to the posting selectable to associate the user of the user interface with the posting; and

in response to user selection of the portion, form a message for communication to a service via a network having data sufficient to;

express that the user experiences the technical problem; and

associate the user with the posting;

determining a priority for generating an answer to the posting based on the data, such that when the determined priority escalates to reach a threshold level, a support staff receives an alert;

generating the answer corresponding to the posting by support staff enlisted to provide answers to technical problems with the products and services raised in the community forum responsive to receiving the alert; and

the user receiving notification from the service when the answer to the technical problem is generated; and

wherein the service, in response to the communicated data, stores an association of the user to the posting and updates a counter configured to track a number of users associated with the posting.

14. The method as described in claim 13 further comprising, receiving notification from the service when the answer to the technical problem is generated in response to the posting based upon association of the user with the posting via the users'"'"' selection of the portion.

15. The method as described in claim 14, wherein the posting describes the technical problem with an application module for a computing device and the answer includes support instructions for troubleshooting the problem.