Classifications

• • G—PHYSICS
  • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
  • G06Q—INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
  • G06Q30/00—Commerce
  • G06Q30/02—Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising

Definitions

• the present invention relates to an interaction system and to a method of efficient interaction between service providers and users, for example for allowing the efficient obtaining of products and/or to ensure that users are offered the products according to their needs.
• a service provider will generally be a supplier of products and/or services
• a user will generally be a potential customer.
• the invention provides an electronic system for interaction between a specific user and a service provider, comprising:
• control means for the service provider for providing and displaying one or more system responses to the input provided under (a) ;
• (c) means for initialising one or more business rules for each type of system response, said business rules specifying the match between the system response and the user profile, and also the desired outcome in terms of actions to be taken by the user;
• (d) means for selecting the most appropriate business rule for the user, based on the input given under (a) ;
• the invention provides a method for improving interaction between a user and a service provider, wherein said method uses a system according to claim 1 and comprises the following steps: (i) the user electronically provides information for establishing a user profile; (ii) the system selects the business rule which is most appropriate for the user based on the information given under (a) ; (iii) based on this business rule, the appropriate system response is provided and displayed; (iv) the behaviour of the user is observed and compared with the desired behaviour specified by the business rule; and
• Systems in accordance with the invention provide an improved way of interaction between a service provider and a user such that the needs of the user are better served. Furthermore, such interaction systems are designed to be personalised systems which are suitable to give each individual user what is best for him. In this connection, a user of a system of the invention will generally be a potential customer who is looking for information about products and services .
• the interaction system of the invention is not only a personalised system. It is also a self-adaptive and learning system since it contains means for updating the business rules based on the difference between actual observed behaviour and desired behaviour.
• the electronic system of the invention is preferably a computer system or a telecommunication system.
• the user profile is the user profile
• the user profile consists of information about a specific user of the system of the invention.
• the user profile desirably comprises information selected from the group consisting of purchase behaviour, demographics, habits, attitudes, needs, preferences, certainty factor, psycho-graphics, linguo- graphics, diagnostics and combinations thereof.
• the user profile may be mapped into a representative space using dimension reduction techniques such as graphical modelling, and multidimensional scaling. If applied, this mapping should take into account the uncertainty of the data in the user profile and the missing values.
• each individual user is a point in a representative mapping space.
• the system selects the business rule that is most appropriate for the user based on the profile provided by said user, and based on this business rule the appropriate system response is provided.
• system responses are selected from the group consisting of providing information content, offering a marketing lever, asking questions, and combinations thereof.
• the information content to be provided as system response may be any relevant information such as the indication of a Web page, fashion information, a recipe, a description of a product, a comparison between various products or combinations thereof.
• the information may also contain games and entertainment .
• the marketing lever to be offered as system response is preferably selected from the group consisting of product promotion, a free sample, a free service and combinations thereof.
• the product promotion will usually include a discount of the price.
• the questions raised as part of the system response may effectively be used for electronic market research purposes.
• the system of the invention comprises one or more business rules for each type of system response.
• business rules are designed to be a description of the ideal' user for whom the specific system response concerned has been designed.
• each of the business rules is used for specifying the match between the system response and the related user profile of an actual user who operates the system of the invention.
• the business rules also specify the desired outcome in terms of actions to be taken by the user. This desired outcome may include the following actions: reading of the information provided, taking up of the promotion offered, or answering of questions raised.
• the desired outcome may also include behaviour of the user at some later date, e.g. the purchase of a product some weeks later when it is no longer on promotion.
• said system selects the business rule or rules that are most appropriate of that user, by evaluating the distance between all business rules and the user profile provided by said user. These one or more business rules are subsequently initiated and the appropriate system response is provided and displayed for the user.
• the behaviour by the user is then observed and compared with the user profile concerned, and if needed, the user profile may be suitably updated. Furthermore, the difference between the desired outcome and the observed behaviour is used for updating the business rules that were initiated. A number of algorithms may be applied for calculating this difference and for carrying out this updating. These new updated business rules may also be suitably analysed for gaining information on changes in user behaviour.
• This example relates to the marketing of Pepsodent toothpaste (with a toothbrush) in rural India, whereby the system of the invention is used.
• the so-called “Neem-Stick” is currently generally used for tooth brushing purposes.
• the electronic interaction system of the invention is used for informing potential customers about Pepsodent toothpaste, aiming at higher sales thereof .
• the user profile is designed to contain the following items:
• item (2) is included in the user profile so as to measure the extent of affluence of the users .
• the system contains the following response types : 1) Here is a promotion of Pepsodent
• Each response type is assigned three Business Rules as a weighting in the space of the user profile.
• the Business Rule (BR) weightings for response types 1) -3) are used for matching purposes with respect to items (l)-(3) in the user profile.
• the first user logs on the system.
• the system action includes the offering of a promotion for Pepsodent.
• the desired behaviour for the user is to buy Pepsodent full price.
• the observed behaviour in this case, is measured by this question.
• the difference between desired behaviour and actual observed behaviour is calculated based on the table of responses below:
• the Euclidean distance between user (a) and i-BR is the Euclidean distance between [0 0.7500 0.6667] and
• Example 2 This example describes the situation, wherein the 1 st user is known to the system of the invention, since this user has - amongst others- operated the system as described in Example 1. After the 1 st user has again logged on to the system, the system reacts by displaying the following: "Welcome back, user (a) , I have some things you may be interested in These include: a promotion for your favourite Thai cooking sauce; a preview of a recent song release by one of your favourite artists; - five short questions to answer. In return, we will offer you a free sample of a conditioner, and can provide a better interactive service in future.

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• Business, Economics & Management (AREA)
• Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
• Accounting & Taxation (AREA)
• Development Economics (AREA)
• Strategic Management (AREA)
• Finance (AREA)
• Game Theory and Decision Science (AREA)
• Entrepreneurship & Innovation (AREA)
• Economics (AREA)
• Marketing (AREA)
• Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
• General Business, Economics & Management (AREA)
• General Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
• Theoretical Computer Science (AREA)
• Management, Administration, Business Operations System, And Electronic Commerce (AREA)

Priority Applications (1)

Applications Claiming Priority (3)

Publications (1)

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• 2004
  • 2004-04-14 WO PCT/US2004/011464 patent/WO2004093367A2/en not_active Application Discontinuation
  • 2004-04-14 EP EP04750113A patent/EP1645091A2/de not_active Withdrawn
  • 2004-04-14 BR BR0405230-7A patent/BRPI0405230A/pt not_active Application Discontinuation
  • 2004-04-14 AU AU2004229619A patent/AU2004229619A1/en not_active Abandoned
  • 2004-04-14 CA CA002489020A patent/CA2489020A1/en not_active Abandoned
  • 2004-12-01 ZA ZA200409734A patent/ZA200409734B/xx unknown

Non-Patent Citations (1)

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