Indirect customer identification system and method

• US 20060065716A1
• Filed: 08/30/2005
• Published: 03/30/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 08/31/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: BBY Solutions Incorporated (Best Buy Co., Inc.)
• Original Assignee: BBY Solutions Incorporated (Best Buy Co., Inc.)
• Inventors: Peters, David W.
• Granted Patent: US 8,214,265 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 235/380
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/087 Inventory or stock management, e.g. order filling, procurement or balancing against orders
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/04 Payment circuits
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/20 Point-of-sale [POS] network systems

Abstract

A database system and method is presented that updates a retail transaction database for each transaction by extracting a name from a payment mechanism. Associations already made between the customer records, the transactions database, and the payment account database are used in conjunction with the extracted name to create additional associations between customers and transactions and between customers and payment accounts. In addition, new customer records can be created by searching demographic databases using the reverse append name and data associated with the transaction already in the database.

Claims

1. A system for automatically updating entries in a database based upon information received from a plurality of point of sale terminals comprising:

a) a central computer system;

b) a computerized database system residing on the central computer system, the database system having

i) a transaction database containing a plurality of transaction records,

ii) an accounts database containing a plurality of account records,

iii) a customer database containing a plurality of customer records each containing a customer name field,

iv) a T-A link database containing links between the transaction and the account records,

v) an ACX link database containing links between the customer and the account records, and

vi) a CTX link database containing links between the customer and the transaction records;

c) a communication mechanism linking the central computer system to the plurality of point of sale terminals;

d) a new transaction information record received by the central computer system over the communication mechanism concerning a new transaction, the new transaction information record containing

i) sales information including a list of products purchased during the transaction;

ii) account information about a transaction account used to purchase the list of products, and

iii) a transaction customer name taken from a payment mechanism during the new transaction;

e) basic programming on the central computer system for receiving the new transaction information record and updating the computerized database system by

i) creating a new transaction record in the transaction database based upon the sales information;

ii) determining if a transaction account record exists in the accounts database that matches the transaction account and creating the transaction account record in the account database if the transaction account record does not already exist;

iii) creating a new T-A link between the new transaction record and the transaction account record; and

f) advanced programming on the central computer for

i) determining whether any account customers exist for the transaction account record by finding any ACX links between the transaction account record and the customer records;

ii) determining whether the transaction customer name matches the customer name field in any of the account customers; and

iii) if a match is found, creating a new CTX link between the matching account customer and the new transaction record.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the new CTX link has a role value reflecting the matching customer names.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the advanced programming further creates another new CTX link having a second role value between each of the account customers and the new transaction record.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the new transaction information record further includes additional customer information provided directly by a customer including a customer address, and further wherein the basic programming further updates the computerized database system by:

iv) determining whether any existing customer records contain the customer address,

v) if there is no match, creating a new customer record containing the customer address, and

vi) creating a new CTX link record between the customer record containing the customer address and the new transaction record.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the advanced programming also updates the computerized database system by:

iv) determining whether any customer records currently linked to the new transaction record through the CTX records contain a matching customer name that matches the transaction customer name,

v) if there is a match, creating an additional CTX link record from the matching customer record and the new transaction record, the additional CTX link record having a role value indicating that the matching customer record has a customer name field matching the transaction customer name.

6. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

g) additional programming to update the computerized database system by;

i) determining whether any customer records currently linked to the new transaction record through the CTX records contain a matching customer name that matches the transaction customer name,

ii) if there is a match, creating an additional CTX link record from the matching customer record and the new transaction record, the additional CTX link record having a role value indicating that the matching customer record has a customer name field matching the transaction customer name,

iii) if there is no match, creating a first list of additional identifying information from all of the customer records currently linked to the new transaction record, the additional identifying information chosen from a set including a phone number and a street address,

iv) creating a similar name list of all customer records in the customer database having a customer name field value similar to the transaction customer name;

v) examining the similar name list of customer records for a first matching customer record that has identifying information that matches one or more of the additional identifying information in the first list;

vi) creating a new CTX link between the matching customer record and the new transaction record.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the step of creating the similar name list of all customer records further comprises the step of examining a demographic database for individuals having a similar name to the transaction customer name;

and further wherein the step of creating a new CTX link between the matching customer record and the new transaction record further comprises the step of creating the matching customer record from information obtained from the demographic database.

8. A method for updating a database having customer records, account records, and transaction records comprising:

a) extracting a particular name from a payment mechanism used in a purchase transaction;

b) creating a new transaction record for the purchase transaction indicating items purchased in the purchase transaction;

c) finding a matching account record for the payment mechanism;

d) finding account customer records associated with the matching account record;

e) extracting identifying information from the found account customer records, wherein the identifying information is selected from a group comprising phone number information and address information;

f) searching for additional customer records having the same identifying information as at least some of the extracted identifying information; and

g) finding a selected customer record from the additional customer records by comparing names found in the additional customer records with the particular name extracted from the payment mechanism.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

h) associating the selected customer record with the new transaction record.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

i) associating the selected customer record with the matching account record.

11. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

h) associating the selected customer record with the matching account record.

12. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

h) searching for matching individuals in a demographic database having at least some of the same identifying information as the extracted identifying information, the demographic database including information about individuals that are not associated with the customer records in the database;

i) finding a selected individual from the matching individuals by comparing names found in the demographic database with the particular name extracted from the payment mechanism, and

j) creating a new customer record based upon the information in the demographic database regarding the selected individual.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

k) associating the new customer record with the new transaction record.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

l) associating the new customer record with the matching account record.

15. The method of claim 8, wherein the step of finding a matching account record for the payment mechanism includes the step of creating the matching account record for the payment mechanism if the matching account record does not already exist.

16. A system for updating a database having customer records, account records, and transaction records comprising:

a) means for extracting a particular name from a payment mechanism used in a purchase transaction;

b) means for creating a new transaction record for the purchase transaction indicating items purchased in the purchase transaction;

c) means for finding a matching account record for the payment mechanism;

d) means for finding account customer records associated with the matching account record;

e) means for extracting identifying information from the found account customer records;

f) means for searching for additional customer records having the same information as at least some of the extracted identifying information; and

g) means for finding a selected customer record from the additional customer records by comparing names found in the additional customer records with the particular name extracted from the payment mechanism.

17. The system of claim 16, further comprising:

h) means for associating the selected customer record with the new transaction record.