Successive offer communications with an offer recipient

• US 9,841,282 B2
• Filed: 07/27/2009
• Issued: 12/12/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 07/27/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Visa USA, Inc. (Visa, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Visa USA, Inc. (Visa, Inc.)
• Inventors: VonDerheide, James Alan, Dhamodharan, Rajasekaran
• Primary Examiner(s): Monfeldt, Sarah
• Assistant Examiner(s): Sharvin, David P
• Application Number:
  US12/510,167
• Publication Number:
  US 20110022424A1
• Time in Patent Office: 3,060 Days
• Field of Search: 705 1426
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/20 Instruments for performing navigational calculations G01C21/24, G01C21/26 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/362 received from an external device or application, e.g. PDA, mobile phone or calendar application
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/02 Reservations, e.g. for tickets, services or events
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0222 During e-commerce, i.e. online transactions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0226 Incentive systems for frequent usage, e.g. frequent flyer miles programs or point systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0238 at point-of-sale [POS]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/06 Buying, selling or leasing transactions

Abstract

Successive offer communications are sent to an offer recipient. A first offer communication includes an offer of a merchant and the second offer communication includes an announcement about the offer. The first and second offer communications are each formatted to be rendered by respective communication device, such as a mobile phone of the offer recipient or a Point of Interaction (POI) terminal. The content of the offer communications may be tailored to the offer recipient based on the offer recipient'"'"'s past transactions within a transaction processing system or a real time geographical location of the offer recipient.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

providing a computing apparatus including a transaction handler having;

an interactive engine;

an analytics engine; and

a client processing engine;

storing, in computing apparatus, transaction data related to a plurality of transactions processed by the client processing engine of the transaction handler, each of the transactions being processed to make a payment from an issuer to an acquirer via the transaction handler in response to an account identifier of a first customer issued by the issuer and submitted by a merchant to the acquirer, the issuer to make the payment on behalf of the first customer, the acquirer to receive the payment on behalf of the merchant;

receiving, by the client processing engine of the computing apparatus from a point of interaction terminal of a first merchant, a first transmission of an authorization request for a first transaction of payment from the first customer using the account identifier to the first merchant, the first transmission having;

first data identifying the first customer, and

second data identifying the point of interaction terminal communicatively connected to the transaction handler;

retrieving, using the first data, a logical address of a communication device of the first customer;

retrieving, using the second data, first capability data stored in the computing apparatus, wherein the first capability data specifying a capability of the point of interaction terminal in generating a hard copy of offers, the capability specified in the first capability data including;

dimensions of a hard copy output of the point of interaction terminal; and

white space availability on receipts rendered by the point of interaction terminal;

selecting, by the analytics engine of the computing apparatus, an offer compatible with the capability of the point of interaction terminal identified in the first capability data and based in part on a portion of the transaction data, wherein the offer is from a second merchant;

generating, by the computing apparatus, a condition of the offer based on a distance between a location of the first merchant and a location of the second merchant;

in response to the authorization request for the first transaction of payment from the first customer to the first merchant, transmitting, by the computing apparatus, a second transmission to the point of interaction terminal of the first merchant, the second transmission identifying the offer and the condition generated based on the distance, wherein;

the second transmission received at the point of interaction terminal causes the point of interaction terminal to generate a hard copy of a receipt for the first transaction of payment, and

the hard copy of the receipt includes the offer and the condition included in the second transmission;

storing, in the computing apparatus, status tracking data of the offer;

after the second transmission, determining, by the computing apparatus, a real-time physical location of the communication device of the first customer that is disparate from the point of interaction terminal of the first merchant;

determining, by the computing apparatus, an update for the offer from the second merchant, based on;

a current status of the offer,

the real-time physical location of the communication device, and

the location of the second merchant;

forming, by the computing apparatus, a third transmission of an announcement identifying the update for the offer; and

transmitting, by the interactive engine using the logical address, the third transmission to the communication device of the first customer.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the point of interaction terminal comprises one of:

a virtual POS terminal, an Automated Teller Machine (ATM), a personal digital assistant, a mobile phone, a computer terminal, an intercommunication system device, a display device, and an audio device.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the offer is redeemable towards a second transaction different from the first transaction.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the first data comprises a globally unique identifier of the first customer.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the second communication device of the first customer is a mobile device.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

retrieving, using the first data, second capability data stored in the computing apparatus, the second capability data identifying a capability of the mobile device in rendering a soft copy of the announcement; and

forming the announcement based on the capability of the mobile device of the first customer.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the offer comprises at least one of:

coupon, incentive, reward, cash back, and discount.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the announcement comprises a reminder to redeem the offer.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the announcement comprises a notification of a reward for a transaction that uses the offer.

10. A non-transitory computer storage medium storing instructions, which when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform a method, the method comprising:

storing, in a computing apparatus including a transaction handler having an interactive engine, an analytics engine, and a client processing engine, transaction data related to a plurality of transactions processed by the client processing engine of the transaction handler, each of the transactions being processed to make a payment from an issuer to an acquirer via the transaction handler in response to an account identifier of a first customer issued by the issuer and submitted by a merchant to the acquirer, the issuer to make the payment on behalf of the first customer, the acquirer to receive the payment on behalf of the merchant;

receiving, by the client processing engine of the computing apparatus from a point of interaction terminal of a first merchant, a first transmission of an authorization request for a first transaction of payment from the first customer using the account identifier to the first merchant, the first transmission having;

first data identifying the first customer, and

second data identifying the point of interaction terminal communicatively connected to the transaction handler;

retrieving, using the first data, a logical address of a communication device of the first customer;

retrieving, using the second data, first capability data stored in the computing apparatus, wherein the first capability data specifying a capability of the point of interaction terminal in generating a hard copy of offers, the capability specified in the first capability data including;

dimensions of a hard copy output of the point of interaction terminal; and

white space availability on receipts rendered by the point of interaction terminal;

selecting, by the analytics engine of the computing apparatus, an offer compatible with the capability of the point of interaction terminal identified in the first capability data and based in part on a portion of the transaction data, wherein the offer is from a second merchant;

generating, by the computing apparatus, a condition of the offer based on a distance between a location of the first merchant and a location of the second merchant;

in response to the authorization request for the first transaction of payment from the first customer to the first merchant, transmitting, by the computing apparatus, a second transmission to the point of interaction terminal of the first merchant, the second transmission identifying the offer and the condition generated based on the distance, wherein;

the second transmission received at the point of interaction terminal causes the point of interaction terminal to generate a hard copy of a receipt for the first transaction of payment, and

the hard copy of the receipt includes the offer and the condition included in the second transmission;

storing, in the computing apparatus, status tracking data of the offer;

after the second transmission, determining, by the computing apparatus, a real-time physical location of the communication device disparate of the first customer that is from the point of interaction terminal of the first merchant;

determining, by the computing apparatus, an update for the offer from the second merchant, based on;

a current status of the offer,

the real-time physical location of the communication device, and

the location of the second merchant;

forming, by the computing apparatus, a third transmission of an announcement identifying the update for the offer; and

transmitting, by the interactive engine using the logical address, the third transmission to the communication device of the first customer.

11. The medium of claim 10, wherein the offer comprises at least one of:

a coupon, an incentive, a rebate, a reward, and a discount.