Processing electronic mail replies

• US 9,942,176 B2
• Filed: 10/30/2015
• Issued: 04/10/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 03/27/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Inventors: Crisman, Zachary, Joshi, Siddharth Vivek, Sheehan, Jamie J., Dannaker, Charles E.
• Primary Examiner(s): Chan, Wing F
• Assistant Examiner(s): KRISHNAN, RAJESHWARI
• Application Number:
  US14/928,242
• Publication Number:
  US 20160050164A1
• Time in Patent Office: 893 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/00 Commerce
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/016 After-sales
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0281 Customer communication at a business location, e.g. providing product or service information, consulting
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2101/37 E-mail addresses
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2209/42 Anonymization, e.g. involving pseudonyms
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/02 using automatic reactions or user delegation, e.g. automatic replies or chatbot-generated messages
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/48 Message addressing, e.g. address format or anonymous messages, aliases
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/4555 Directories for electronic mail or instant messaging
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/3228 One-time or temporary data, i.e. information which is sent for every authentication or authorization, e.g. one-time-password, one-time-token or one-time-key

Abstract

Disclosed are various embodiments for processing electronic messages and/or reply electronic messages. A contact entry associated with a user issue is created. A unique token associated with the contact entry is generated. Electronic messages sent to the user are generated with a reply-to address that incorporates the token.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

generating a contact entry in a data store, the contact entry associated with a user initiation of communication with an enterprise, the contact entry associated with an issue to be resolved;

generating a tokenized messaging address incorporating a token, wherein a username is designated as a portion of a local-part of the tokenized messaging address, the token being appended to the username to form the tokenized messaging address, the username associated with an original messaging address of the enterprise;

generating an electronic message associated with the contact entry;

designating a “

reply-to”

address of the electronic message as the tokenized messaging address;

designating a “

from”

address of the electronic message as the original messaging address associated with the username;

sending the electronic message to at least one user messaging address associated with an account of a user associated with the contact entry;

obtaining a reply electronic message that is sent to the tokenized messaging address from a sender;

determining that the sender of the reply electronic message corresponds to the user by determining that the “

from”

address of the reply electronic message matches the at least one user messaging address;

determining that the reply electronic message is received within an expiry window associated with the tokenized messaging address, the expiry window comprising a window of time outside of which the tokenized messaging address is expired; and

accepting the reply electronic message upon determining that the reply electronic message is received within the expiry window.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising rejecting the reply electronic message upon determining that the reply electronic message is received outside the expiry window.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising using the tokenized messaging address for subsequent correspondence with the sender of the reply electronic message.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the token comprises an alphanumeric identifier associated with the contact entry.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the token is further associated with an issue category corresponding to a subject matter of the user initiation of communication with the enterprise.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising forwarding the reply electronic message to a designated messaging address based at least in part upon the issue category associated with the token.

7. The method of claim 5, further comprising changing an escalation status of the contact entry after accepting the reply electronic message.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the user initiation of communication comprises telephone communication.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the user initiation of communication comprises email communication.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the user initiation of communication comprises Internet communication.

11. A system comprising:

an electronic data store configured to store at least specific computer-executable instructions; and

a computing device comprising a hardware processor in communication with the electronic data store, the computing device configured to execute the at least specific computer-executable instructions to at least;

generate a contact entry in the electronic data store, the contact entry associated with a user initiation of communication with an enterprise;

associate the contact entry with an issue category based at least in part upon an issue associated with the communication;

generate a token associated with the contact entry, the token being a unique identifier with respect to a plurality of identifiers associated with a plurality of tokens in the electronic data store;

generate a tokenized messaging address incorporating the token, wherein a username is designated as a portion of a local-part of the tokenized messaging address, the token being appended to the username to form the tokenized messaging address, the username associated with an original messaging address of the enterprise;

generate an electronic message associated with the contact entry, the electronic message associated with the tokenized messaging address;

designate a “

reply-to”

address of the electronic message as the tokenized messaging address;

designate a “

from”

address of the electronic message as the original messaging address of the enterprise;

send the electronic message to at least one user messaging address associated with a user account of a user associated with the contact entry;

obtain a received electronic message sent to the tokenized messaging address;

determine that a “

from”

address of the received electronic message corresponds to the at least one user messaging address associated with the user account;

identify the received token from a “

to”

address of the received electronic message;

identify the issue category associated with the received token; and

forward the received electronic message to a designated messaging address based at least in part upon the issue category associated with the token.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the token is associated with a status indicator, wherein the computing device is configured to accept or reject the received electronic message upon determining a current status of the status indicator associated with the token.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the received electronic message is rejected when the status indicator indicates that the status of the token is deactivated and the received electronic message is accepted when the status indicator indicates that the status of the token is activated.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the computing device is configured to activate the token after the electronic message is sent to the at least one user messaging address associated with the user account of the user associated with the contact entry.

15. The system of claim 11, wherein the computing device is configured to changing an escalation status of the contact entry after determining that the token is associated with a “

to”

address of the received electronic message.

16. A method comprising:

generating a contact entry in a data store, the contact entry associated with a user initiation of communication with an enterprise, the contact entry associated with an issue to be resolved;

generating a tokenized messaging address incorporating a token, wherein a username is designated as a portion of a local-part of the tokenized messaging address, the token being appended to the username to form the tokenized messaging address, the username associated with an original messaging address of the enterprise, wherein the token is associated with an issue category corresponding to a subject matter of the user initiation of communication with the enterprise;

obtaining a reply electronic message that is sent to the tokenized messaging address from a user associated with the contact entry;

determining that the reply electronic message is received within an expiry window associated with the tokenized messaging address, the expiry window comprising a window of time outside of which the tokenized messaging address is expired;

accepting the reply electronic message upon determining that the reply electronic message is received within the expiry window; and

forwarding the reply electronic message to a designated messaging address based at least in part upon the issue category associated with the token.

17. The method of claim 16, further comprising rejecting a subsequent reply electronic message upon determining that the subsequent reply electronic message is received outside the expiry window.

18. The method of claim 16, further comprising using the tokenized messaging address for subsequent correspondence with the user of the reply electronic message.