User context based distributed self service system for service enhanced resource delivery

• US 8,655,734 B2
• Filed: 09/12/2012
• Issued: 02/18/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 03/13/2003
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Biebesheimer, Debra L., Jasura, Donn P., Keller, Neal M., Lee, Juhnyoung, Rolando, Steve J.
• Primary Examiner(s): Ade, Garcia
• Application Number:
  US13/612,610
• Publication Number:
  US 20130066661A1
• Time in Patent Office: 524 Days
• Field of Search: 705/26
• US Class Current: 705/26
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0251 Targeted advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0282 Rating or review of business operators or products
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 Electronic shopping [e-shopping]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0629 for generating comparisons
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0641 Shopping interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/08 Auctions

Abstract

Disclosed is a method and system of providing user context-based services over computer networks, using mechanisms for collecting and specifying one or more user context elements, each element representing a context associated with the current buyer state and having context attributes and attribute values associated therewith, mechanisms for collecting affective (emotive) data to inform the user context, and also an interactive graphical view to gain insight into available services for assisting in understanding available service information and making decisions on purchasing.

Claims

1. A self service system for composing and delivering a customized bundle of travel services, the system comprising:

a computer system including one or more processing units to implement a travel service delivery program for buyers to select travel service choices, said computer system being configured for;

using affective or emotive data to assist the buyers in said travel service choices, including receiving from each of the buyers input identifying a buyer context for said each buyer and selecting types of affective or emotive data about said each buyer, and actions authorized based on changes in the data;

for each of the buyers, using said affective and emotive data in an adaptive algorithm to determine a plurality of travel service response sets for the buyer, each of the travel service response sets including a bundle of travel services for said each buyer;

providing said each of the buyers with the plurality of the travel service response sets; and

identifying a relevance of each of said travel service response sets in terms of the buyer context of said each buyer to facilitate said each buyer selecting one of the travel service response sets for purchase;

for each of the buyers, once a buyer context is identified, showing to a travel service provider a service enhancer combination page for the selected buyer context, said page showing a plurality of service enhancers for a selected primary service;

using said affective or emotive data to inform the identified buyer context of said each buyer to aid in said each buyer selecting and adjusting the travel service response sets;

receiving from each of the buyers input for changing one or more of the travel service response sets;

showing to said each of the buyers the effect on the plurality of the travel service response sets of said input for changing; and

receiving input from the travel service provider to set one or more parameters for business effectiveness measurement, to select one or more of the buyer contexts to set values for detail attributes of services and service enhancers for the selected buyer context, and to select criteria for pricing and bundling guidelines.

2. A self service system according to claim 1, wherein the affective or emotive data is used to assist buyers during their selection and adjusting of identified, relevant travel service bundles.

3. A self service system according to claim 1, wherein the affective data is used to assist buyers in responding to recommended changes in service configurations during delivery of the selected travel service choices.

4. A self service system, according to claim 1, wherein the computer system includes a graphical user interface (GUI) to enable the buyers to select the types of data about them to be collected, relative weighting to give each type of data, and the actions authorized based on changes in the data.

5. A self service system according to claim 1, wherein the computer system is further configured for:

enabling service providers to use combinatorial auctions to configure said travel service response sets, including enabling each of a plurality of travel service suppliers to view an auction request from a service requestor and to submit one or more bids to the service requestor, the service requestor initiating a reverse auction process for a new travel service package developed in response to criteria and conditions specified on a user detail specification workspace, said criteria and conditions including affective and emotive data identified by the user, and relative weights identified by the user to give to the affective and emotive data.

6. A self service system according to claim 5, wherein the computer system includes a graphical user interface (GUI) to enable the service providers to respond to reverse, buyer initiated auctions including proposals for the bundling of services from different providers.

7. A self service system according to claim 5, further comprising a network connection for connecting said computer system to the Internet, and wherein said network connection and the Internet are used to make real time recommendations to buyers.

8. The self service system according to claim 1, wherein the computer system is further configured for

each of the buyers selecting additional service enhancers to add to the travel service response sets provided to said each of the buyers, and said each of the buyers directly comparing two of the travel service response sets.

9. The self service system according to claim 8, wherein:

a service provider views a service enhancer combination page for a selected user context, said page showing available service enhancers for a selected primary service; and

the service provider combines a plurality of the service enhancers presented in said page to see the effect on previously selected effectiveness measures.

10. The self service system according to claim 1, wherein:

the computer system shows a two-dimensional plot including one data point representing each service enhanced resource delivery provided to the buyer over a time period plotted against the buyer'"'"'s own satisfaction rating of said each service enhanced resource delivery;

the computer system receives input from the buyer comparing previously purchased travel service bundles to select one of said previously purchased travel service bundles as a best bundle to use as a template for selection of future travel service bundles; and

the computer system receives input from the buyer changing context attribute values, value resource parameters, and combined primary service and service enhancers criteria to obtain a desired travel service response set.

11. A self service method for composing a delivering a customized bundle of travel services, the method comprising:

receiving from a buyer a query for a travel service and one or more user context elements, each context element representing a context associated with a current state of the buyer and having context attributes and attribute values associated therewith, said receiving including receiving from the buyer input specifying relevant travel service selection criteria for expression of relevance of travel service results in terms of the user context element from the buyer, said criteria including affective and emotive data identified by the buyer;

using said affective and emotive data in an adaptive algorithm to determine a plurality of travel service response sets for the buyer, each of the travel service response sets including a bundle of travel services for said each buyer;

once the context associated with the current state of the buyer is received, showing to a travel service provider a service enhancer combination page for the buyer context, said page showing a plurality service enhancers a selected primary service;

providing the buyer with the plurality of travel service response sets having travel services that match the buyer'"'"'s query, the user context attributes and user defined relevant travel service selection criteria;

presenting the travel service response sets to the buyer, including expressing a relevance of each of the travel service response sets in terms of the user context attribute values to facilitate said each buyer selecting one of the travel service response sets for purchase and to enable increased specificity and accuracy of the query from the buyer;

receiving from the buyer input changing the service selection criteria;

showing to the buyer the effect on the plurality of the travel service response sets of changing said service selection criteria;

the travel service provider setting one or more parameters for business effectiveness measurements, selecting one or more of the buyer contexts setting values for detail attributes of services and service enhancers for the buyer context, and selecting criteria for pricing and bundling guidelines; and

using a computer system, implementing a service enhanced delivery program, to perform the receiving from the buyer the query for the travel service, the providing the buyer with the travel service response sets, and the presenting the travel service response sets to the buyer.

12. The method according to claim 11, further comprising:

ranking the sets of travel service responses based on the service selection criteria received from the buyer; and

wherein;

the changing the service selection criteria causes the rankings of the sets of travel service responses to change; and

the showing to the buyer the effect on the service response sets of changing said service selection criteria includes showing to the buyer the changes of the rankings of the sets of travel service responses caused by the changing the service selection criteria.

13. The method according to claim 11, further comprising:

the buyer selecting two or more of the bundles of travel services, visually comparing said two or more bundles side-by-side, and ranking each of said two or more bundles of travel services based on the service selection criteria, and to adjust interactively said two or more bundles of travel services to convey visually an impact of changes in the service selection criteria on a configuration of one of the bundles of travel services;

each of the selected bundles of travel services having one or more of a set of defined service enhances;

the buyer selecting one of the bundle of travel services; and

during said selecting one of the bundles of travel services, said buyer managing said one of the bundle of travel services by adding to said one of the bundles of travel services one of the set of defined service enhancers, and by removing from said one of the bundles of travel services another one of the set of defined service enhancers.

14. The method according to claim 13, wherein:

the buyer had previously purchased a plurality of defined travel service bundles; and

the method further comprises the buyer selecting one of the purchased travel service bundles as a template, and using said template to select one of the set of travel service response sets for purchase.

16. The method according to claim 11, wherein:

the travel service selection criteria includes affective and emotive data identified by the buyer and relative weights identified by the buyer for said data;

the receiving from the buyer input changing the service selection criteria includes receiving from the buyer input changing the weights assigned to the service selection criteria; and

the showing to the buyer the effect of changing said service selection criteria includes showing to the buyer the effect on the plurality of the service response sets of changing said weights assigned to the service selection criteria.

17. The method according to claim 16, wherein, for each of the services and service enhancers, the travel provider modifies values of one or more of said attributes, including a unit price, capacity, bundling parameters, and recommendation schemes.

18. The method according to claim 17, further comprising:

the travel service provider using combinatorial auctions to configure said travel service response sets, including enabling each of a plurality of travel service suppliers to view an auction request from the travel service provider and to submit one or more bids to the travel service provider, the travel service provider initiating a reverse auction process for a new travel service package developed in response to criteria and conditions specified on a buyer detail specification workspace, said criteria and conditions including affective and emotive data identified by the buyer, and relative weights identified by the buyer to give to the affective and emotive data.

15. A tangible program storage device readable by a computer system, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by the computer system to perform a method for a self service comprising and delivering customized of travel services bundles, said method comprising:

receiving from a buyer a query for a travel service and one or more user context elements, each context element representing a context associated with a current state of the buyer and having context attributes and attribute values associated therewith;

receiving from the buyer input specifying relevant travel service selection criteria for expression of relevance of travel service results in teems of user context, said criteria including affective and emotive data identified by the buyer;

using said affective and emotive data and in an adaptive algorithm to determine a plurality of travel service response sets for the buyer, each of the travel service response sets including a bundle of travel services for said each buyer;

once the context associated with the current state of the buyer is received, showing to a travel service provider a service enhancer combination page for the buyer context, said page showing a plurality of service enhancers for a selected primary service;

providing the buyer with the plurality of travel service response sets having travel services that match the buyer'"'"'s query, the user context attributes and user defined relevant travel service selection criteria;

presenting the travel service response sets to the buyer, including expressing a relevance of each of the travel service response sets in terms of the user context attribute values to facilitate said each buyer selecting one of the travel service response sets for purchase and to enable increased specificity and accuracy of the query from the buyer;

receiving from the buyer input changing the service selection criteria; and

showing to the buyer the effect on the plurality of the travel service response sets of changing said service selection criteria; and

the travel service provider setting one or more parameters for business effectiveness measurements, selecting one or more of the buyer contexts setting values for detail attributes of services and service enhancers for the buyer context, and selecting criteria for pricing and bundling guidelines.