Data structure analytics for real-time recommendations

• US 10,762,484 B1
• Filed: 09/30/2015
• Issued: 09/01/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 09/30/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Block, Inc. (f/k/a Square, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Block, Inc. (f/k/a Square, Inc.)
• Inventors: Wilson, Mathew, Simms, Dan, Huhn, Derrick, Moody, Ryder, Wolter, Jonathan Andrew
• Primary Examiner(s): Danneman, Paul
• Application Number:
  US14/871,640
• Time in Patent Office: 1,798 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/102 Bill distribution or payments
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/12 specially adapted for electronic shopping systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/20 Point-of-sale [POS] network systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/204 comprising interface for record bearing medium or carrier for electronic funds transfer or payment credit
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/389 Keeping log of transactions for guaranteeing non-repudiation of a transaction
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/4016 involving fraud or risk level assessment in transaction processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/405 Establishing or using transaction specific rules
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0631 Item recommendations
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0635 Processing of requisition or of purchase orders

Abstract

Techniques and arrangements for analyzing previous tickets of a customer at different merchants—specifying interactions of the customer at the different merchants—to determine subsequent recommendations to send to a particular merchant in real-time when the customer is located at the particular merchant. Other techniques and arrangements facilitate annotation of merchant tickets by the merchants to enrich the data maintained by the tickets and, in some instances, to enhance the described real-time recommendations. Still other techniques and arrangements create a merchant ticket for recording interactions between a merchant and customer upon the customer creating a reservation at the merchant for a specified future time, or being added to a waitlist of the merchant. Upon the customer arriving at the merchant proximate to the specified future time, the merchant may use the created ticket to track items ordered by the merchants, track tenders used to pay for items, and the like.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

obtaining, by one or more servers associated with a payment service, a first open ticket data structure generated by a first instance of a merchant application executing on a computing device of a first merchant, contents of the first open ticket data structure indicating;

(i) a set of items ordered by a particular customer from the first merchant,

(ii) for each item of the set of items, a time at which the particular customer ordered the respective item from the first merchant, and

(iii) a start time of an engagement between the first merchant and the particular customer,

wherein the first instance of the merchant application configures the computing device as a first point-of-sale (POS) device for obtaining payment information associated with a first payment instrument via an associated payment reader and transmitting the first open ticket data structure to the one or more servers;

receiving, at the one or more servers, an indication that a second open ticket data structure has been generated by a second instance of the merchant application executing on a second POS device of a second merchant that is different than the first merchant, wherein the second open ticket data structure is generated in association with an engagement between the second merchant and the particular customer, and wherein the second open ticket data structure includes an indication of a start time of the engagement between the second merchant and the particular customer;

analyzing, by the one or more servers, the contents of the first open ticket data structure;

estimating, by the one or more servers and based at least in part on the analyzing, a future time at which the particular customer is likely to request a particular item from the second merchant, wherein the future time is prior to an end of the engagement between the second merchant and the particular customer, and wherein the future time comprises at least one of a time of day or an amount of time after the start time of the engagement between the second merchant and the particular customer; and

sending, by the one or more servers and to the second POS device of the second merchant and prior to the future time, a recommendation that the second merchant offer the particular item to the particular customer at the future time, the recommendation for display on the second POS device as an annotation as part of the second open ticket data structure.

2. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the analyzing comprises analyzing the first open ticket data structure to determine that the particular customer ordered the particular item from the first merchant a certain amount of time after:

(i) beginning the engagement with the first merchant, or (ii) ordering another particular item from the first merchant.

3. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the recommendation comprises a first recommendation, the method further comprising:

estimating, based at least in part on the analyzing, another future time prior to the end of the engagement between the second merchant and the particular customer, at which the particular customer is likely to request a bill for a cost of items ordered from the second merchant, wherein the other future time comprises at least one of another time of day or another amount of time after the start time of the engagement between the second merchant and the particular customer; and

sending, to the second POS device of the second merchant and prior to the other future time, a second recommendation that the second merchant offer the bill to the particular customer at the other future time, the second recommendation being for display on the second POS device as another annotation as part of the second open ticket data structure.

4. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the recommendation comprises a first recommendation, the method further comprising:

receiving, by the one or more servers, current contents of the second open ticket data structure;

determining, from the current contents of the second open ticket data structure, that the particular customer has ordered another particular item from the second merchant;

estimating, based at least in part on the analyzing, another future time prior to the end of the engagement between the second merchant and the particular customer, at which the particular customer is likely to request another instance of the other particular item from the second merchant, wherein the other future time comprises at least one of another time of day or another amount of time after the start time of the engagement between the second merchant and the particular customer; and

sending, to the second POS device of the second merchant, a second recommendation that the second merchant offer another instance of the other particular item to the particular customer at the other future time, the second recommendation being for display on the second POS device as another annotation as part of the second open ticket data structure.

5. A method comprising:

obtaining, by one or more servers associated with a payment service, a first data structure generated by a first instance of a merchant application executing on a computing device of a first merchant, contents of the first data structure indicating at least one of;

(i) a set of items ordered by a particular customer from the first merchant,

(ii) for each item of the set of items, a time at which the particular customer ordered the respective item from the first merchant, and

(iii) a start time of an engagement between the first merchant and the Particular customer,

wherein the first instance of the merchant application configures the computing device as a first point-of-sale (POS) device for obtaining payment information associated with a first payment instrument via an associated payment reader and transmitting the first data structure to the one or more servers;

receiving, at the one or more servers, an indication that a second data structure has been generated by a second instance of the merchant application executing on a second POS device of a second merchant that is different than the first merchant, wherein the second data structure is generated in association with an engagement between the second merchant and the particular customer, and wherein the second data structure includes an indication of a start time of the engagement between the second merchant and the particular customer;

analyzing, by the one or more servers, the first data structure;

determining, by the one or more servers and based at least in part on the analyzing, that the particular customer is likely to make a request to the second merchant;

estimating, based at least in part on the analyzing, a future time at which the particular customer is likely to make the request to the second merchant, wherein the future time is prior to an end of the engagement between the second merchant and the particular customer, and wherein the future time comprises at least one of a time of day or an amount of time after the start time of the engagement between the second merchant and the particular customer; and

sending, by the one or more servers and to the second POS device of the second merchant and prior to the future time, a recommendation that the second merchant initiate a communication with the particular customer related to the request, the recommendation for display on the second POS device as an annotation as part of the second data structure.

6. The method as recited in claim 5, wherein:

the request comprises a request for a particular item;

and

the recommendation comprises a recommendation that the second merchant initiate a communication regarding whether the particular customer would like to order the particular item.

7. The method as recited in claim 5, further comprising:

receiving, at the one or more servers, current contents of the second data structure associated with the engagement between the second merchant and the particular customer; and

determining, from the current contents of the second data structure, that the particular customer has ordered a particular item from the second merchant;

wherein;

the determining that the particular customer is likely to make a request to the second merchant comprises determining that the particular customer is likely to order another instance of the particular item from the second merchant; and

the recommendation comprises a recommendation that the second merchant initiate a communication regarding whether the particular customer would like to order another instance of the particular item.

8. The method as recited in claim 5, wherein:

the determining comprises determining that the particular customer is likely to request a bill for at least one of a set of items ordered from the second merchant; and

the recommendation comprises a recommendation that the second merchant initiate a communication regarding whether the particular customer would like to receive the bill.

9. The method as recited in claim 5, wherein:

the determining that the particular customer is likely to make a request to the second merchant comprises determining that the particular customer is likely to make a request regarding a status of an ordered item; and

the recommendation comprises a recommendation that the second merchant initiate a communication regarding the status of the ordered item prior to the particular customer requesting the status.

10. The method as recited in claim 5, wherein the sending comprises sending, prior to or at the future time, the recommendation to the second merchant to initiate the communication related to the request with the particular customer.

11. The method as recited in claim 5, wherein:

the analyzing comprises analyzing the first data structure to determine that the particular customer previously made a request from the first merchant a certain amount of time after beginning an engagement with the first merchant; and

the estimating further comprises estimating the future time based at least in part on determining that the particular customer previously made a request from the first merchant the certain amount of time after beginning the engagement with the first merchant.

12. The method as recited in claim 5, wherein:

the analyzing comprises analyzing the first data structure to determine that the particular customer previously made a request from the first merchant after ordering a particular item from the first merchant; and

the estimating further comprises estimating the future time based at least in part on determining that the particular customer previously made a request from the first merchant after ordering the particular item from the first merchant.

13. The method as recited in claim 5, further comprising placing, based at least in part on the analyzing, an order for a particular item to the second merchant on behalf of the particular customer.

14. The method as recited in claim 5, wherein the sending comprises sending the recommendation to the second POS device of the second merchant prior to closure of a bill charging the particular customer for items obtained by the particular customer from the second merchant.

15. One or more non-transitory computer-readable media storing instructions that, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform operations comprising:

obtaining, by one or more servers associated with a payment service, a first data structure generated by a first instance of a merchant application executing on a computing device of a first merchant, contents of the first data structure indicating at least one of;

(i) a set of items ordered by a particular customer from the first merchant,

(ii) for each item of the set of items, a time at which the particular customer ordered the respective item from the first merchant, and

(iii) a start time of an engagement between the first merchant and the particular customer,

wherein the first instance of the merchant application configures the computing device as a first point-of-sale (POS) device for;

obtaining payment information associated with a first payment instrument via an associated payment reader; and

transmitting the first data structure to the one or more servers;

receiving, at the one or more servers, an indication that a second data structure has been generated by a second instance of the merchant application executing on a second POS device of a second merchant that is different than the first merchant, wherein the second data structure is generated in association with an engagement between the second merchant and the particular customer, and wherein the second data structure includes an indication of a start time of the engagement between the second merchant and the particular customer;

analyzing, by the one or more servers, the first data structure;

determining, by the one or more servers and based at least in part on the analyzing, that the particular customer is likely to make a request to the second merchant;

estimating, based at least in part on the analyzing, a future time at which the particular customer is likely to make the request to the second merchant, wherein the future time is prior to an end of the engagement between the second merchant and the particular customer, and wherein the future time comprises at least one of a time of day or an amount of time after the start time of the engagement between the second merchant and the particular customer; and

sending, by the one or more servers and to the second POS device of the second merchant and prior to the future time, a recommendation that the second merchant initiate a communication with the particular customer related to the request, the recommendation for display on the second POS device as an annotation as part of the second data structure.

16. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media as recited in claim 15, wherein the instructions further cause the one or more processors to perform operations comprising:

receiving, at the one or more servers, current contents of the second data structure associated with the engagement between the second merchant and the particular customer; and

determining, from the current contents of the second data structure, that the particular customer has ordered a particular item from the second merchant;

wherein;

determining that the particular customer is likely to make a request to the second merchant comprises determining that the particular customer is likely to order another instance of the particular item from the second merchant; and

the recommendation comprising a recommendation that the second merchant initiate a communication regarding whether the particular customer would like to order another instance of the particular item.

17. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media as recited in claim 15, wherein:

the determining comprises determining that the particular customer is likely to make a request for a bill for items ordered from the second merchant; and

the recommendation comprises a recommendation that the second merchant initiate a communication regarding whether the particular customer would like to receive the bill.

18. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media as recited in claim 15, wherein the sending comprises sending the recommendation to the second merchant to initiate the communication related to the request with the particular customer prior to or at the future time.

19. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 15, wherein the contents of the first data structure indicate at least one of a rich-text tag or note regarding an interaction between the first merchant and the particular customer.

20. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 15, wherein the instructions further cause the one or more processors to perform operations comprising:

receiving, at the one or more servers, an indication that a third data structure has been generated by a third instance of the merchant application executing on a third POS device of a third merchant, wherein the third data structure is generated in association with an engagement between the third merchant and the particular customer, and wherein the third data structure includes an indication of a start time of the engagement between the third merchant and the particular customer;

analyzing, by the one or more servers, the first data structure and the second data structure; and

estimating, by the one or more servers and based at least in part on the analyzing, a future time that the particular customer is likely to make a request to the third merchant.