JP2008102755A - Customer information management system - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To simply make correspondence between customer specification information and a mail address of a customer's cellular phone. <P>SOLUTION: A customer information management system comprises a customer's cellular phone 1, a data processing part 2, a customer specification information input part 4 connected to the data processing part 2 to input customer specification information, a data output part 5, and a customer information storage part 3. The data processing part 2 is provided with a function for generating a two-dimensional code by integrating customer specification information input through the customer specification information input part 4 into a specific URL, generating the two-dimensional code and outputting it from the data output part 5, and when the specific URL is accessed, specifying the customer specification information integrated into the URL, and storing the specified customer specification information in the customer information storage part 3 corresponding to the mail address of the cellular phone receiving the specified customer specification information. The cellular phone is provided with a function for reading out the two-dimensional code output from the data output part 5, accessing the specific URL and transmitting an e-mail to the URL. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2008,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a system for managing customer information such as retail stores.

At restaurants and retail stores, member cards are issued to keep customers in, and points are awarded according to the number of visits and the amount of usage, and discounts and gifts are given according to the number of points accumulated. It is known that
Stores that provide such services have introduced the following systems, for example.
The management device stores personal attribute information such as a customer's name and address in association with the member ID stored in the member card issued by the store, and a POS device connected to the management device.

Then, when the customer receives the provision of goods or services and settles the price, the member ID is read from the member card by the POS device, and the amount information and the member ID are transmitted to the management device. The management apparatus that has received the member ID stores the member ID in association with the purchase history such as the purchased product, the purchase date and time, and the amount of money.
In recent years, there is also known a system for specifying an individual using biometric information such as a fingerprint instead of a membership card.
JP 2003-178224 A JP 2006-039651 A

As mentioned above, each time a customer visits a member customer, the system that identifies the individual and accumulates usage history and purchase history provides information according to the customer using the accumulated individual customer information. You can also. For example, it is effective to send discount tickets for lunch menus or notifications for changing lunch menus to customers who frequently use lunchtime at restaurants, but send dinner information. Is not very meaningful.
However, it takes time and cost to print and mail a direct mail with different contents for each customer. Therefore, if the number of customers increases, it is not possible to respond very carefully.

  On the other hand, apart from the above system, there is also known a mail member system that distributes discount tickets or transmits sale information using e-mail in order to attract customers to the store. In this way, the system using e-mail not only saves printing effort and costs but also can send information to a large number of customers in a short time compared to leaflet distribution and mail direct mail. There are benefits.

In particular, if an email is sent to a mobile phone, information can be sent to a customer who is a user of the mobile phone without fail, and the customer can check the content of the email even when away from home. Even when a discount ticket is received, unlike when mail is sent to a personal computer at home, it is not necessary to print or forget the ticket, making it easier to use.
Thus, in the system for managing customer information such as the purchase history for each customer as described above, it is conceivable to provide information using mail of a mobile phone.

However, in order to use the mobile phone mail, the mail address of the member customer's mobile phone must be registered in the store management device. If the store side is manually input to register the e-mail address, it takes time and effort, and input errors are likely to occur. For this reason, in the current mail member system, a so-called empty mail with no text is transmitted from the customer's mobile phone to the store side.
However, in order to make it possible to use customer information such as the purchase history, the empty mail from the customer cannot associate the mail address with the customer information stored in the management device.

  An object of the present invention is to provide a customer information management system that automatically associates customer information of each customer with a mail address of a mobile phone, reduces the work burden on the customer and the store clerk, and eliminates input errors. Is to provide.

  The first invention includes a mobile phone for a customer having an e-mail transmission / reception function, a data processing unit, a customer specifying information input unit for inputting customer specifying information connected to the data processing unit, a data output unit, A customer information storage unit, and the data processing unit incorporates the customer identification information input via the customer identification information input unit into a specific URL (uniform resource locator) managed by the data processing unit. A function for generating, a function for outputting the generated two-dimensional code from the data output unit, a function for specifying customer specifying information embedded in the URL when the specific URL is accessed, and the specifying A function for identifying the e-mail address of the mobile phone from the received e-mail in relation to the URL of the mobile phone and the identified e-mail address in association with the above-identified customer identification information. A function of storing information in an information storage unit, and the mobile phone reads a two-dimensional code output from the data output unit to access a specific URL, and transmits an e-mail in association with the URL It has the feature in the point provided with.

It should be noted that the incorporation of customer specific information into the specific URL refers to the case where a different URL is generated for each customer specific information and the customer specific information on the file side specified by the URL when accessing the URL. It is built in so that it can be recognized. In any case, customer-specific information can be specified on the accessed side.
Further, the e-mail transmitted / received in relation to the specific URL is an e-mail transmitted in a state where a web page based on the specific URL is displayed.

  The second invention is based on the first invention and includes a data input unit connected to the data processing unit. The data processing unit receives purchase history information input from the data input unit from a customer specifying information input unit. It is characterized in that it has a function of storing it in the customer information storage unit in association with the input customer identification information.

  The third invention is based on the first or second invention, and the mobile phone for a customer includes an IC having a function of storing a telephone ID unique to the telephone and transmitting the telephone ID. The information input unit is characterized in that it has a function of receiving a telephone ID transmitted by the IC as customer specifying information.

  4th invention presupposes any one of 1st-3rd invention, The said customer specific information input part reads the customer's fingerprint data, and has a function which inputs it to a data processing part as customer specific information It is characterized by the points provided.

  In a fifth aspect of the present invention, the customer information storage unit stores the customer identification information that matches the customer identification information when the customer identification information is input from the customer identification information input unit. It has a feature in that it has a function to search from existing information.

According to the first to fifth inventions, it is possible to easily register the mail address of the customer's mobile phone in association with the customer specifying information.
Therefore, when a system that collects individual customer information such as purchase history has already been introduced, the customer information collected by the system is associated with the e-mail address of the mobile phone via customer identification information such as a member ID. It will be easy to do.
As described above, if the customer information such as the purchase history of the specified product can be associated with the e-mail address of the mobile phone, the shopping information created for each customer based on the customer information can be transmitted. Therefore, it can be expected to attract customers more reliably than when uniform information is transmitted to many mail members.

A first embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS.
This system shown in FIG. 1 includes a mobile phone 1 used by a customer and a computer system provided on the store side.
The mobile phone 1 includes a non-contact IC that stores a phone ID of the mobile phone and includes a transmission circuit for transmitting the phone ID. The IC transmission circuit has a function of inducing power by an external signal to transmit stored data.
Further, the cellular phone 1 has a function of transmitting / receiving e-mail, a function of accessing a web page, and a function of photographing a two-dimensional code and converting it into a code.
Since the telephone ID transmitted by the IC of the mobile phone 1 is information unique to the mobile phone, it is possible to identify the customer as a user. Therefore, in the first embodiment, the telephone ID is used as customer specifying information of the present invention.

The computer system provided in the store includes a data processing unit 2, a customer information storage unit 3 connected to the data processing unit 2, an ID reading unit 4 that reads a telephone ID from the mobile phone 1, and a data processing unit 2. The data output unit 5 and the data input unit 6 display and print data in accordance with the control signal.
The customer information storage unit 3 is a storage unit for storing customer information such as purchase history for each customer. For example, as shown in the table of FIG. 2, the telephone number of the mobile phone, name, gender, The purchase history and the like are stored in association with each other. Note that the mail address of the mobile phone is automatically associated according to the procedure described later by the system of the first embodiment and stored in the customer information storage unit 3.

The ID reading unit 4 has a function of causing the IC of the mobile phone 1 to act as an electromagnetic wave to transmit a phone ID, reading the ID, and inputting the ID to the data processing unit 2. And this ID reading part 4 is equivalent to the customer specific information input part of this invention.
The data input unit 6 is an input unit that links an operation unit for inputting information other than the telephone ID and the mail address among the information in the table of FIG. When registering a customer as a member, basic information such as a name is input from the data input unit 6 in correspondence with the timing of inputting the telephone ID from the ID reading unit 4. The purchase history information is data to be input together with the telephone ID every time the purchase price is settled, but may be input from the data input unit 6 or automatically input from the POS device. It may be. However, the data input unit 6 is not an essential element for the system of the present invention that associates the telephone ID with the mail address.

Next, the operation of the customer information management system will be described in accordance with the processing procedure of the data processing unit 2 when the customer's mobile phone mail address is stored in the customer information storage unit 3 in association with the customer identification information.
Here, a case where customer information not associated with an email address is stored in the customer information storage unit 3 is taken as an example.
First, when performing an operation of registering an e-mail address, the store clerk inputs an instruction signal for starting an e-mail address registration operation to the data processing unit 2 via the data input unit 6. The following series of processing is performed according to a preset mail address registration program. The flow of data associated with this processing is shown in FIG. 1 by broken lines and dashed arrows (1) to (6).

As described above, after the mail address registration program is started, when the customer causes his / her mobile phone 1 to approach the ID reading unit 4 to read the phone ID (arrow (1)), as shown by arrow (2). The telephone ID is input to the data processing unit 2.
The data processing unit 2 incorporates the received telephone ID into the URL of the mail address registration page, converts it into a two-dimensional code, sends it to the data output unit 5 (arrow (3)), and outputs it from the data output unit 5 Let The data output unit 5 discharges the sheet 7 on which the two-dimensional code is printed.

  The customer who receives this sheet 7 reads the two-dimensional code with the mobile phone 1 and converts the code as indicated by the arrow (4), and accesses the mail address registration page by the converted URL. A mail address registration page specified by this URL is displayed on the mobile phone 1, and in this page, mail transmission is prompted and mail is transmitted from the mobile phone 1 (arrow (5)). For example, an e-mail transmission button may be displayed on the e-mail address registration page, and the e-mail can be easily transmitted by clicking on it.

  On the other hand, when the data processing unit 2 accesses a specific URL from the mobile phone 1, the data processing unit 2 specifies the telephone ID incorporated in the URL. Furthermore, the electronic mail from the mobile phone 1 is received (arrow (5)), and the address of the mobile phone 1 that is the transmission source is specified. Then, a mail address is associated with the telephone ID specified earlier and stored in the customer information storage unit 3. This completes the association between the mail address and the telephone ID.

The data processing unit 2 may store the correspondence table between the mail address and the telephone ID in the customer information storage unit 3 separately from the customer information shown in FIG. Information may be specified, and a mail address may be associated with the table of FIG.
In any case, neither the customer nor the store clerk can register the mail address of the customer's mobile phone and the telephone ID that is the customer identification information of the present invention in association with each other without manually inputting a troublesome mail address. it can.
As described above, if the customer identification information and the mail address can be automatically associated with each other, the mail address can be easily associated with the already installed customer management system.

Further, the data processing unit 2 retrieves customer information corresponding to the telephone ID input from the ID reading unit 4 from the customer information storage unit 3 or gives points to the customer information, except for the mail address registration processing. Or a function of adding purchase history information, and a service corresponding to customer information can be provided in the store.
If customer information can be specified at the time of visit, for example, a discount ticket corresponding to the frequency of visit can be issued from the data output unit 5 or a discount service can be provided on the spot.

Note that the computer system shown in FIG. 1 may be configured by a single computer installed in a store, or may be configured by a plurality of devices.
In addition, the processing for associating the telephone ID with the mail address and the processing for reading the telephone ID from the customer's mobile phone or issuing the sheet 7 on which the two-dimensional code is printed are separated, and separate data portion processing It can also be done in the department.

For example, the second embodiment shown in FIG. 3 is a system in which the data processing unit 2 in FIG. 1 is separated into a server side data processing unit 2 a and a terminal side data processing unit 2 b and connected by a communication network N. In this embodiment, a server S is installed in the management center, and a plurality of terminals C are connected to the server S via a communication network N.
The terminal-side data processing unit 2b of the terminal C then transmits the telephone ID read by the ID reading unit 4 to the server S and the sheet 7 on which the two-dimensional barcode received from the server S is printed (see FIG. 1). ) From the data output unit 5, and the server-side data processing unit 2 a performs processing other than the processing executed by the terminal-side data processing unit 2 b in the processing for associating the telephone ID with the mail address. It has a function to execute everything. Other configurations and functions of each component are the same as those in the first embodiment.

Therefore, in the system of the second embodiment, as in the first embodiment, the telephone ID and the mail address can be easily associated with each other.
In addition, although the terminal C is a computer installed in a store, if each terminal C is installed in a different store, customer information of a plurality of stores can be managed by the management server. In this case, if customer information of a plurality of stores in the same group such as a chain store is managed in common, a common service can be provided regardless of the store.

Further, by adding a store ID or the like to the data transmitted from the terminal C of each store, the server S can also manage customer information for each store separately.
Furthermore, in the said 1st, 2nd embodiment, although telephone ID of the mobile telephone 1 is used as customer specific information for identifying a customer individual, customer specific information is not restricted to this. For example, a member card in which a member ID is recorded may be issued, and an ID read by the ID reading unit 4 from the member card may be used as customer specifying information. However, since the mobile phone 1 is necessary when registering an e-mail address and is always carried, it is better to use a telephone ID as in the above embodiment when receiving a service at a store after address registration. However, it is convenient because there are few forgets to carry around like a membership card.

  Furthermore, biometric information such as a fingerprint may be used as the customer specifying information. In that case, a fingerprint reading means is required instead of the ID reading unit 4. When biometric information is used, it is possible to receive a service without carrying a membership card or a mobile phone when visiting a store after registering an e-mail address or the like.

It is a system configuration figure of a 1st embodiment. It is the table which showed an example of customer information. It is a system configuration figure of a 2nd embodiment.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Mobile telephone 2 Data processing part 3 Customer information storage part 4 ID reading part 5 Data output part 7 Sheet 2a Server side data processing part 2b Terminal side data processing part N Communication network S Server C Terminal

Claims (4)

  From a customer mobile phone having an e-mail transmission / reception function, a data processing unit, a customer specifying information input unit connected to the data processing unit and inputting customer specifying information, a data output unit, and a customer information storage unit The data processing unit is configured to generate a two-dimensional code by incorporating customer identification information input via the customer identification information input unit into a specific URL (uniform resource locator) managed by the data processing unit. A function for outputting the two-dimensional code from the data output unit, a function for specifying customer-specific information incorporated in the URL when the specific URL is accessed, and a function related to the specific URL. A function for identifying the e-mail address of the mobile phone from the received e-mail, and the identified e-mail address in the customer information storage unit in association with the identified customer identification information The mobile phone has a function of reading a two-dimensional code output from the data output unit to access a specific URL and transmitting an e-mail in association with the URL. Customer information management system characterized by that.   A data input unit connected to the data processing unit, wherein the data processing unit associates the purchase history information input from the data input unit with the customer specifying information input from the customer specifying information input unit; The customer information management system of Claim 1 provided with the function to memorize | store.   The mobile phone for a customer includes an IC having a function of storing a telephone ID unique to the telephone and transmitting the telephone ID, and the customer identification information input unit uses the telephone ID transmitted by the IC as customer identification information. The customer information management system according to claim 1, further comprising a receiving function.   The customer information management system according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the customer identification information input unit has a function of reading customer fingerprint data and inputting the data as customer identification information to the data processing unit.

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