Systems and methods of enriching CRM data with social data

• US 9,898,519 B2
• Filed: 09/16/2013
• Issued: 02/20/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 09/14/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Salesforce.com, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Salesforce.com, Inc.
• Inventors: Peri, Harish, Shah, Saurin G, Markham, Blake, Govindaraman, Ashwini
• Primary Examiner(s): Pham, Khanh
• Application Number:
  US14/028,277
• Publication Number:
  US 20140081913A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,618 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/275 Synchronous replication
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking

Abstract

The technology disclosed relates to incorporating social data in CRM systems by a single social syn action. In particular, it relates to appending social data to prospect or contact objects of CRM systems by finding multiple social handles for the prospect or contact objects. The multiple social handles identify social profiles of the corresponding prospects or contacts on various social network platforms.

The technology disclosed also relates to personalizing customer service experience of customers. In particular, it relates to identifying conversation preferences and interests of the customers based on information specified in their social profiles on different social network platforms. The conversation preferences and interests are used to customize interactions with the customer during the course of the customer service.

Claims

1. A method, including:

receiving, for display, a set of prospect or contact objects including information identifying multiple individuals or references to the set of prospect or contact objects;

identifying a plurality of blank fields related to the multiple individuals identified by the received set of prospect or contact objects;

upon receiving a selection from a user indicating a request to perform a social synchronization action to fill in the plurality of blank fields with multiple social identification handles of the multiple individuals;

automatically spidering a plurality of social network platforms to obtain the multiple social identification handles of the multiple individuals identified by the received set of prospect or contact objects or the references to the set of prospect or contact objects, wherein the social network platforms are independently operated; and

updating the received set of prospect or contact objects to include the obtained multiple social identification handles of the multiple individuals; and

transmitting for display (i) data that includes at least some of the obtained multiple social identification handles or references to the obtained multiple social identification handles and (ii) an interface that shows that at least some of the blank fields of the received set of prospect or contact objects have been filled in.

2. The method of claim 1, further including assembling social data of the received set of prospect or contact objects from the plurality of social network platforms, including the social identification handles.

3. The method of claim 2, further including appending trust tags to the social data of the received set of prospect or contact objects, wherein the trust tags include names of the social network platforms, interface categories of the social network platforms, jurisdictional origins of the social network platforms, and engagement preferences of prospects or contacts.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the interface categories of the social network platforms include access controlled application programming interfaces (APIs), public Internet, and social networking sites.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein the jurisdictional origins of the social network platforms specify engagement rules applicable to geographic locations of the social network platforms.

6. The method of claim 3, wherein the engagement preferences of the prospects or contacts specify whether the prospects or contacts have opted-in or opted-out of any use of their social identification handles.

7. The method of claim 1, further including identifying unique social keys in pre-assembled social data that corresponds to the received set of prospect or contact objects and updating the received set of prospect or contact objects with the unique social keys.

8. The method of claim 7, further including:

in response to a subsequent social sync action, receiving the unique social keys or references to the unique social keys or references to the received set of prospect or contact objects;

updating the received set of prospect or contact objects to include further social data assembled subsequent to the social synchronization action; and

transmitting for display data that includes at least some of the further assembled social data or references to the further assembled social data.

9. The method of claim 1, further including receiving a specification designating which blank fields in the received set of prospect or contact objects are to be filled in with social data.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

in response to obtaining the social identification handles, automatically retrieving conversation preferences and interests of the received set of prospect or contact objects or the reference to the prospect or contact objects; and

generating an interface that highlights the conversation preferences and interests of the received set of prospect or contact objects or the reference to the prospect or contact objects.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

assigning a value to each retrieved conversation preference and each retrieved interest;

calculating a score for a user characteristic of each prospect or contact object of the received set of prospect or contact objects using the assigned values of conversation preferences and interests that correlate to the user characteristic; and

incorporating the calculated score into the received set of prospect or contact objects.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the values are assigned to each retrieved conversation preference and each retrieved interest based on:

several occurrences of preference and interest keywords within a text of feed items included in social data posted by at least one prospect or contact object of the received set of prospect or contact objects; and

several postings of the feed items including the preference and interest keywords.

13. A system, including:

a processor and a computer readable storage medium storing computer instructions configured to cause the processor to;

receive, for display, a set of prospect or contact objects including information identifying multiple individuals or references to the set of prospect or contact objects;

identify a plurality of blank fields related to the multiple individuals identified by the received set of prospect or contact objects;

upon receiving a selection from a user indicating a request to perform a social synchronization action to fill in the plurality of blank fields with multiple social identification handles of the multiple individuals;

automatically spidering a plurality of social network platforms to obtain the multiple social identification handles of the multiple individual identified by the received set of prospect or contact objects or the references to the set of prospect or contact objects, wherein the social network platforms are independently operated; and

update the received set of prospect or contact objects to include the social identification handles of the multiple individuals; and

transmit for display (i) data that includes at least some of the obtained multiple social identification handles or references to the obtained multiple social identification handles and (ii) an interface that shows that at least some of the blank fields of the received set of prospect or contact objects have been filled in.

14. The system of claim 13, further configured to cause the processor to assemble social data of the received set of prospect or contact objects from the plurality of social network platforms, including the social identification handles.

15. The system of claim 13, further configured to cause the processor to identify unique social keys in pre-assembled social data that corresponds to the received set of prospect or contact objects and to update the received set of prospect or contact objects with the unique social keys.

16. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium impressed with computer program instructions, the instructions, when executed on a processor, implement a method, including:

receiving, for display, a set of prospect or contact objects including information identifying multiple individuals or references to the set of prospect or contact objects;

identifying a plurality of blank fields related to the multiple individuals identified by the received set of prospect or contact objects;

upon receiving a selection from a user indicating a request to perform a social synchronization action to fill in the plurality of blank fields with multiple social identification handles of the multiple individuals;

automatically spidering a plurality of social network platforms to obtain the multiple social identification handles of the multiple individuals identified by the received set of prospect or contact objects or the references to the set of prospect or contact objects, wherein the social network platforms are independently operated; and

updating the received set of prospect or contact objects to include the obtained multiple social identification handles of the multiple individuals; and

transmitting for display (i) data that includes at least some of the obtained multiple social identification handles or references to the obtained multiple social identification handles and (ii) an interface that shows that at least some of the blank fields of the received set of prospect or contact objects have been filled in.