EP1344169A1

EP1344169A1 - Systems and methods for internet loyalty building

Info

Publication number: EP1344169A1
Application number: EP01989648A
Authority: EP
Inventors: Jean-Luc Farat
Original assignee: Maximiles
Current assignee: Maximiles
Priority date: 2000-12-20
Filing date: 2001-12-20
Publication date: 2003-09-17
Also published as: FR2818413A1; US20040215512A1; US7359866B2; CA2432042A1; WO2002050728A1; FR2818413B1

Abstract

The invention concerns a method for customer loyalty-building characterised in that it comprises a step which consists in recording digital data identifying site visitors in a first database comprising a recording table on a loyalty building server for single identifiers of recorded visitors and specific data, and recording on the equipment of the visitor a digital file containing the identifier assigned to him, and it further comprises steps which consist in recording on the server of a member merchant site a digital file producing an active pictogram itself including a link to the point management computer programme, and steps which consist in attributing reward points.

Description

SYSTEMS AND METHODS OF LOYALTY ON THE INTERNET

The present invention relates to the field of systems and methods for loyalty of customers using computer equipment interconnected by the Internet, by the allocation of digital coupons opening rights to rewards.

We know in the prior art the offer from the company NETCENTIVES, described in particular in US patents US05774870 or US06009412. PCT patent WO9921103 is also known, which relates to a method and a system for applying incentive programs in a computer network in which a host can allow sponsorship companies: - to purchase incentive programs conditioned on the 'advance or self-generated;

- offer these incentive programs to consumers;

- allow sponsorship companies and resellers to associate rewards with incentive programs;

- to offer attractive rewards to sponsorship companies, resellers and consumers; - and memorize and manipulate databases containing all of the above.

Another PCT patent WO9946708 discloses a system making it possible to define, distribute electronically, display dynamically for the attention of a consumer, exchange and compensate for promotional incentives on a network. One or more parameters associated with promotions can be determined dynamically as a function of one or more characteristics of the consumer, in particular their location on the network where the promotion is viewed. PCT patent WO0060517 describes a computerized electronic bonus system and method for which targeting, distribution, selection, storage, exchange, clearing, reimbursement and data management is done electronically. The system makes the premiums available in a central bonus system located in a computer system, targets the premiums to specific consumers or groups of consumers, allows consumers to select the premiums. The system stores names or numbers identifying consumers against the premiums selected by consumers, transmits consumer purchases when the consumer makes a purchase from a retailer, and gives the retailer the identification of the consumer. The retailer then connects to the central premium system and compares the purchases to the selected premiums stored for the consumer. In the event of a match, the premium is applied and the consumer is automatically compensated. The system also provides for automatic reimbursement from the retailer. In addition, consumer purchase and premium exchange data is kept in memory and used for targeting future premiums to the consumer or a group to which the consumer belongs. The invention aims to provide a system and method for organizing the allocation of points in real time, with high security against fraud, through a central server and computer resources installed on the servers. affiliated merchants on the one hand, and identified customers on the other.

To this end, the invention relates, in its most general sense, to a method for retaining customers, characterized in that it comprises a step of recording digital data identifying site visitors in a first database. comprising a registration table on a loyalty server for the unique identifiers of the registered visitors and specific data, and recording on the visitor's equipment a digital file containing the identifier assigned to it, and in that '' it further includes steps for registering on the server of an affiliated merchant site a digital file producing the display of an active pictogram comprising a link to a point management computer program, said file comprising an identifier unique of the affiliated merchant, and steps for allocating reward points consisting in recording in a database a table comprising an identifier of the visitor and a counter of allocated points, to be prepared, in response to an activation by a user of said link appearing on the page of the merchant site, a file comprising at least the numerical identifier of the merchant and an identifier of the visitor, transmit this file to the loyalty server, carry out a search for the visitor's identifier, increment enter the point counter according to the information contained in the digital file in the case where the visitor is already registered, and transmit a digital registration form otherwise. According to a preferred embodiment, the method according to the invention comprises a step of comparing the digital file transmitted by the visitor's equipment with a digital file of anomalies recorded on the server, and incrementing the visitor's counter only when said comparison is positive.

Preferably, the method comprises a subsequent step of transmission to the visitor's equipment by the server of a file producing the display of an information message of the state of the visitor's counter. According to another variant, the method comprises a step of personalizing the award attribution rules consisting in selecting at least one parameter from the merchant station and recording in a table of the server containing the merchant identifier and the attribution parameters rewards.

The present invention will be better understood on reading the description of a nonlimiting exemplary embodiment which follows: The description which follows relates to a nonlimiting exemplary embodiment. The loyalty process uses a loyalty server connected to the Internet, as well as merchant servers and client servers

Merchant servers are made up of IT equipment connected to the Internet, operated by affiliates of the loyalty server.

The loyalty system provides a first step in the affiliation of a new merchant. This step consists in registering on a database a unique identifier of the new merchant, as well as information relating to his identity. In this database are also recorded parameters specific to a loyalty program selected by this merchant. These parameters define the terms and conditions for awarding the awards:

- visitor action triggering the allocation of points,

- duration of the action and consequence

- authorization to repeat or not the action - frequency of actions giving rise to a reward

These parameters are defined using a digital form transmitted by the server to the merchant station, allowing the values to be selected corresponding to procedures stored in a procedure library.

This step of personalization of the loyalty program by the merchant will give rise to the registration of a profile associated with the merchant's identifier, and to the transmission by the server of a digital file which will be recorded in the merchant site. This file corresponds for example to a line of HTML code entered on the page of the merchant site to produce the display of a pictogram when a visitor accesses this page. In addition, this pictogram will be associated with a link putting the visitor in connection with the loyalty server.

When the visitor activates the link, it triggers the execution of a script sending a file containing a possible visitor identifier, recorded in the form of a "cookie" and the merchant identifier.

When the server receives a message in which the visitor's identifier does not exist, it transmits to the visitor station a digital form allowing him to register. This registration consists in recording in a database information associated with a unique identifier of the visitor. In the case where the visitor is already registered, the server proceeds to an anomaly detection consisting in analyzing the connection file, as well as the previous connection files originating from the same visitor, and in comparing his files with an anomaly file . In the event that this comparison reveals that the new file proves to be abnormal, the awarding process is interrupted.

An anomaly consists, for example, of an excessive number of actions on the same link by the same visitor, for example by using an automatic machine for the generation of requests. In this case, to avoid unjustified allocation of rewards, the granting of rewards should be prohibited when the number of requests exceeds a threshold value corresponding to an abusive approach.

The description which follows relates to an example of particular implementation of the invention, aiming to simplify as much as possible the integration of the tools specific to the invention in the affiliated sites,

- eliminate as much as possible the transactions between the affiliated sites and the server in order to offer a comfort (speed) of navigation, to obtain a risk of fraud close to zero. The invention proposes different methods for a visitor to acquire loyalty points, that is to say an affiliate assigns loyalty points to a visitor: automatically from the loyalty point server site (after a questionnaire, anniversary date, etc.): no security problem since no transaction transits through the network, when consulting a Web page (click on a link, frequency of visits, etc.): see section " indirect transfers ”. following a specific action with the affiliated site (online purchase, shop purchase, quiz, etc.): see section "direct sales"

When registering on the server site, the visitor (Internet user wishing to benefit from the advantages offered) receives a cookie indicating their visitor number

(ID). This number can only be read by the server site. It can also be read or modified by the user, but the only consequence of such a change is to allow another visitor to benefit from his earnings.

If the visitor uses several browsers or loses his configuration, a choice allows him, on the server site, to redefine his cookie by simple re-identification (login + password).

1. Indirect transfers

Indirect assignments are not managed by the affiliate but by the server.

First, the affiliate provides the server with a list of earnings conditions; eg the condition named ACCUEILOl is valid from ¹ April 2000 to 30 April 2000 and saves the visitor 5 points due to a gain per week at most.

This is a blank table provided to the site affiliated by the server:

Integration of earning conditions (indirect sales)

A gain condition is represented by:

- condition name: an identifier chosen by the affiliate over 40 characters at most. Only numbers and letters are accepted (no punctuation; no accent, no space). The server will distinguish upper / lower case.

- a date and time when the condition begins - a date and time when the condition ends, the number of maxipoints earned the periodicity of the gain: this is broken down into the type of periodicity: minute, day, week, month, single, fixed date

- minute number of minutes to wait before winning again day number of days week number of weeks

- month once a month unique we only win once fixed date we can win once dd / mm

- periodicity value: a numerical value or dd / mm for the periodicity type "fixed date". for example: type = week, value = 2 means that it is possible to earn the code “generating act” once every two weeks: in most cases, it will be code 500. If the affiliated site offers to win Maxipoints following a competition, it will be necessary to define one (and only one) condition bearing this code (283). The list of code, of generating acts appears in the following table:

To avoid cascading errors, if a gain condition has the same name as a previous condition, the second replaces the first.

Integration on the affiliated site

The integration of indirect sales is equivalent to the integration of an HTML tag for an advertising banner:

The affiliate places on its site a link to an image on the server's site. This image is called HOME. The server recognizes: the visitor by his unique ID stored in his cookie, the affiliate by the headers transmitted by the browser

- the condition by its name "HOME"

The server then verifies that the HOME condition is indeed fulfilled (validity dates, frequency, etc.). In the three cases that then arise, the resulting images are integrated into the affiliate's website and the operation is transparent to the visitor:

The winning conditions are met: the visitor is immediately credited and the server sends him an image indicating that he has won 5 points. The visitor has already won the 5 points in the week and he receives an image which indicates that he has already won for this condition.

The user is not recognized as a visitor: they are asked to become a visitor or, if they already are, to redefine their cookie ("Win" image).

A precise statement of indirect transfers will be provided at the end of the month to each affiliate so that they can control the transfer of points and replenish their account when they run out of points.

The winning conditions will be transmitted by the affiliate by means of an encrypted electronic message.

The data transmitted to the server will always consist of 7-bit ASCII text files. If accented characters must be transmitted, the encoding can be extended to 8 bits and use the ISO 8859 standard.

1.

The examples given relate to a fictitious "ACME" affiliate

All data sent by email from the affiliate to the server is encoded with the server's public key and signed with the affiliate's private key. The subject of the message will contain: [Conditions] when the electronic message is a list of winning conditions

The body of the message will contain the data to be transmitted, encrypted and signed. The encryption procedure is specific to the environment of the affiliate and their choice of implementation (directly on the http server machine or on another machine).

Transmission of earnings conditions The server provides the affiliate site with a blank table type document containing the fields to be completed. The affiliate will fill out this grid (all fields are required), export it to a text file which he will send to the server by electronic message to the email address of the server administrator, encrypted as indicated in the procedure. use of a cryptosystem.

The affiliate fills this table to define its parameters and transmits it to the server. An acknowledgment of receipt will be sent to the affiliated site. It will indicate: the addition of conditions, the replacement of conditions, rejections: if a condition could not be treated by the Maxipoints automaton, this indicates the cause of the rejection and the affiliate must send this condition again after rectification. For a visitor to earn points when viewing an affiliated html page, the latter integrates a CGI call to the server on his page in the form of a delocalized image (<IMG SRC = "xxxx">). The image returned by the server depends on the satisfaction (or not) of the winning condition (see § indirect transfers). The affiliate html page includes:

The affiliate_identifier is issued by the server.

The images displayed will be of a first type "already won": - When the visitor earns 100 points or is already on a winning page.

- When the visitor is not recognized as a registered visitor. Another image can be integrated but this time manually by the affiliate to indicate on which section the visitor can earn points.

Other graphic elements may be integrated into the pages of the affiliated site to enhance the server on its site.

2. Direct transfers

For online purchases in particular, the transfers of points will be codified by the affiliated server and transmitted by electronic message in an encrypted manner.

The main interest of direct transfers lies in the free integration of the points principle on the affiliate's website. This system is not limited to purchases. It is very flexible, since the affiliate can decide on the actions that will generate a gain depending on his service. For example, writing a message in a forum can generate a gain of 50 points for the person who writes the message, and a gain of 5 points for the same person, each time someone goes to read their message. This system can also be applied to a contest organized by the affiliate which will win different prizes after drawing lots etc.

This flexibility simply implies that the affiliate site collects the visitor's points identifier in order to be able to apply the gain to it. This approach can be carried out in several ways, either during a purchase, for example, when registering the person's contact details, once the articles have been chosen, it is possible to add an “identifier” field to fill in, in this case for each purchase, by the visitor. Or, if the site manages accounts for its own visitors, add a specific field to the identifier in its visitor file, so it is no longer necessary to request this identifier for each gain, the server will be able to look through of his visitor record if the person is registered or not, in order to attribute a gain.

When an affiliate wishes to donate points to a visitor, he must: - codify the transfer according to the standard specified in the paragraph Transmission of sales (direct transfers) ”; the document will indicate the visitor's access name, the date and time of the transfer (in order to manage the transfers of maxipoints via maxipoints.com with retrocessions) and the number of maxipoints transferred. this document will then be encrypted with the Maxipoints public key, signed with the affiliate's private key and sent to a specific Maxipoints email message address: adminθmaxipoints .com On receipt of messages on this specific email message account, the server will: - check that the sender of the message is indeed the affiliate (thanks to the signature), decrypt the document with the private key of the server,

- check the validity of the donation (date of the condition, number of winnings per period, etc.)

- put the credit on hold pending validation: once the sale has been verified by the affiliate, the latter will validate (or invalidate) the gain in points. This validation will also encrypted and sent to the server by email. or directly validate the gain if the affiliate can immediately ascertain the validity of the purchase.

A monthly statement will summarize for the affiliate all the donations validated by the server.

Transmission of sales (direct transfers) If the affiliate must ensure the validity of the sale before transferring the points, he will first send by email a text file in the following format: (each line ends with a carriage return) AFFILIATE: <affiliate_name> VISITOR LOGIN: <visitor_login> TIMECODE: <date_and_time_of_sale>

NBPOINTS: <number of points earned> CATEGORY: <sales_category> IDENTIFIAN: <sales_identifier_of_affiliate> DESCRIPTION: <personalized description of the transaction>

DATEVALID: <transaction validation date>

<Ligne_vide>

It is possible to send several assignments simultaneously (for example one at the end of each day). To do this, simply add the transfer information afterwards, taking care to always leave a blank line between two transfers. The values transmitted are: <name of the affiliate>

This name is provided by the server to the affiliate site, (affiliate identifier) Example: AFFILIATE: ACME <login du_visiteur> User ID (entered at the time of online purchase); This identifier is composed of a maximum of 20 alphanumeric signs.

Example: LOGINVISITEUR: PIERRE201

<Date_et_heure_de_la_vente>

Date and time of the sale coded according to the mask: DD / MM / YYY HH: MN: SS

Example: TIMECODE: 05/21/2000 12:34:56

<Nombre_de_points_gagnés>

Number of points acquired following the sale

Example:

NBPOINTS: 50 <sale_category>

The sales category is the code corresponding to the type of product / service sold according to the table below.

Example (the sale corresponds to toys):

CATEGORY: 580 <sales_identifier_of_affiliate>

Unique identifier generated by the affiliate at the time of the sale (for example invoice number) which will be used to validate the sale. This identifier can contain up to 80 alphanumeric characters (numbers, letters with respect to the case, punctuation on 7bits)

Example:

ID: A45678_BA? 12300 / 1220-2

DESCRIPTION: <personalized description of the transaction> Detailed description of the transaction which will be indicated to the visitor when consulting their account.

Example:

DESCRIPTION: Jean-Hugues Mansard from Douomond. Voyage Paris - Brives La Gaillarde on 18 Nov 2000. Price = 390 Francs. Ref: 123456789. DATEVALID: <transaction validation date>

Date of validation of the transaction on the visitor's account according to the mask: YYYYMMDD Example:

DATEVALID: 20000109

Transmission of online sales validations (direct sales)

After verification of the sale leading to a gain of points or if the affiliate does not have to wait to validate the sale, he will send via electronic message a confirmation in the form of a text file having the following format:

AFFILIATE: <affiliate_name> LOGINVISITEUR: <visitor_login>

TIMECODE: <date_and_time_of_the_sale>

NBPOINTS: <number of points won>

CATEGORY: <sales_category>

IDENTIFIER: <sales_identifier_of_affiliate> VALIDATION: <YES or NO>

<Ligne__vide>

These fields will be strictly identical to those sent during the transmission of the sale (see this §) increased by the "validation" field <YES or NO>

The 3 characters of the answer. Yes indicates that the sale is validated and the visitor is credited definitively; No indicates that the sale has been refused and the points are not credited. Example:

VALIDATION: YES

If the VALIDATION line is absent or empty, the gain is put on hold pending validation and will only be credited after the deadline provided by the affiliate (minimum of 8 days). If during this period the gain is refused (refusal to payment, refusal of delivery etc.), the affiliate must return the same file, with the line VALIDATION: NO to cancel the gain.

Again, it is possible to confirm multiple sales by separating the information with an empty line.

Return of errors

If the affiliate gives us an email response address for transactions, he can receive the same file he transmitted with an additional result line. This result line can be explained as follows:

Resuit: 0 everything is OK

Resuit: 1 Unknown visitor login Resuit: 2 Number of points <= 0

Result: 3 Invalid affiliate

Result: 4 Internal problem

Resuit: 5 Exception during the updating of the files (invalid date etc.) Agreements

The transmitted data will always consist of 7-bit ASCII text files. If accented characters must be transmitted, the encoding can be extended to 8 bits and use the ISO 8859-1 standard.

The examples given relate to a fictitious "ACME" affiliate

Encryption and data transmission via e-mail All data transmitted by e-mail from the affiliate will be encoded with the server's public key and signed with the affiliate's private key.

The subject of the message will contain: [Gain] when the email relates to a direct assignment

4. Affiliation control

It is a question of determining if the people who clicked on the affiliate links of the server site arrive well on the site of the requested affiliate and if the page of this affiliate is well seen in full by the Internet user. When the user chooses to go to one of the affiliates, he clicks on the link of the corresponding affiliate.

This link calls up a page on the server which, among other things, tracks requests for access to the affiliate sites and then directs them to the requested affiliate site.

However, it is impossible to know whether the request was successful and whether the Internet user has seen the entire affiliate page.

The system set up consists of putting an HTML tag (TAG) on the affiliate site at the end of the page called from the server. This TAG calls a script located on the server site.

This script will check if this request follows the request for access to an affiliated site from the server site, and will trace it accordingly.

Integration on the affiliated site consists of placing the following HTML TAG at the end of the page:

<IMG SRC≈ "http: // ww .maxipoints .com / maxiblanc .p hp? Affiliate_identifier" ALIGN = "BOTTOM" BORDER = "0"> Visually this integration does not display anything and does not change the aesthetics of the affiliate site.

The invention is described in the foregoing by way of example of embodiment and implementation of the loyalty-building method.

Claims

1 - Method for customer loyalty characterized in that it comprises a step of recording digital data identifying site visitors in a first database comprising a registration table on a loyalty server for unique identifiers registered visitors and specific data, and recording on the visitor's equipment a digital file containing the identifier assigned to it, and in that it further comprises steps of recording on the server '' an affiliated merchant site with a digital file producing the display of an active pictogram comprising a link to a computer program for managing points, said file comprising a unique identifier of the affiliated merchant, and steps for allocating points reward consisting in registering in a database a table comprising an identifier of the visitor and a counter of points awarded, for prepa rer, in response to an activation by a user of said link appearing on the page of the merchant site, a file comprising at least the digital identifier of the merchant and a visitor's identifier, to transmit this file to the loyalty server, to carry out a search for the visitor's identifier, to increment the point counter according to the information contained in the digital file in the case where the visitor is already registered, and to transmit a digital registration form in the opposite case.

2 - Method for customer loyalty according to claim 1, characterized in that it comprises a step of comparing the digital file transmitted by the visitor's equipment with a digital file anomalies recorded on the server, and incrementation of the visitor counter only when said comparison is positive.

3 - Method for the loyalty of customers according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that it comprises a subsequent step of transmission to the visitor's equipment by the server of a file producing the display of a message of visitor counter status information.

4 - Method for the loyalty of customers according to any one of the preceding claims, characterized in that it comprises a stage of personalization of the rules of attribution of reward consisting in selecting at least one parameter from the merchant station and recording in a server table containing the merchant identifier and the reward allocation parameters.

5 - Method for the loyalty of customers according to any one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the data transmitted by electronic message from the affiliate to the server are encoded with the public key of the server and signed with the private key of the affiliated.

6 - Method for the loyalty of customers according to any one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the affiliated site integrates into the page causing an advantage a CGI call to the server in the form of a delocalized image (<IMG SRC = " xxxx ">), the image being returned by the server depending on the satisfaction (or not) of the winning condition. 7 - Method for the loyalty of customers according to any one of the preceding claims, characterized in that it comprises a step of registration on the site of the server of a new visitor, consisting in transmitting a digital file [cookie] indicating his visitor number (ID).

8 - Method for the loyalty of customers according to any one of the preceding claims, characterized in that it comprises a step of specification of the conditions of allocation of points by the affiliate, consisting in supplying the server with a list of conditions of gains in the form of a table provided to the affiliate site by the server.