JP2001319158A - Consultation job charging system by electronic mail - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To solve a problem that charging, requesting and paying management is complicated on performing a toll consultation business by the transfer of an electronic mail and that a manual operation is required and management cost is raised for interlocking a system which the electronic mail of a response to consultation even if the system for asking and paying management is introduced. SOLUTION: In the consultation business charging system by the electronic mail, a customer to be charged is specified by referring to a customer data base with address information of the electronic mail sent from a consulting person (hereafter, customer) being the customer as a key and customer ID is given to a sent consultation content. A person in charge of consultation business (hereafter, person in charge) mentions information required for charging in the electronic mail sent to the customer. The charging system automatically performs charging in accordance with the instruction of the person in charge by referring to the charging information, automates request business and payment management business and automates the stop of mail distribution at the time of nonpayment and when an advance lacks.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

[0001] 1. Field of the Invention [0002] The present invention relates to a billing system in a consultation service by electronic mail.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In the prior art, a reply can be almost accurately returned by using a reply function of a mail client. It was also possible to build a system that integrated billing, billing, and payment management, but both were independent systems, and the person in charge needed to separately enter billing information into the billing system and determine whether a response was possible. there were.

[0003]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention solves the above-mentioned drawbacks of the prior art, and automatically specifies a billing destination by linking various databases with e-mail, and a person in charge answers on a single screen. And the billing process can be made possible, and whether or not a response can be made is automatically determined.

[0004]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention comprises two systems, a receiving system and a transmitting system. The receiving system receives an e-mail from a customer, and a source recorded on the e-mail. The customer is identified by referring to the customer database using address information such as an address, a return address, and a destination address as a key, and the customer ID is added to the content of the original mail received from the customer and transmitted to the person in charge.

[0005] As a method of transmitting the information to the person in charge, a method of displaying it as a web screen, a method of displaying it on a client-side screen of a dedicated application, or a method of transmitting an electronic mail can be used.

[0006] The sending side system receives the billing amount or the billing information given by the person in charge and the answer in which the customer ID given by the receiving side system is described on the terminal screen of the person in charge or by e-mail. The charge information is sent to the management database, and the answer created by the person in charge is sent to the customer by e-mail.

[0007] The receiving system refers to the billing / payment management database and the charging rule database at the time of reception from the customer and the transmitting system refers to the billing / payment management database and the charging rule database at the time of transmission to the customer, and investigates the reason for rejecting the answer registered in the unpaid etc. charging rule database. If there is a reason for rejecting the answer, it is possible not to send it.

[0008] If there is a reason for rejection of the reply, in the case of the receiving system, the mail from the customer is not transmitted to the person in charge, and in the case of the transmitting system, if the reply mail is not transmitted to the customer, the mail is transmitted to the customer. It is also possible to send an e-mail alerting the fact or an invoice.

[0009]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. In FIG. 1, a customer sends an e-mail for consultation to an e-mail receiving server device 10.
The receiving side system 12 receives the e-mail sent to the e-mail receiving server device 10, searches the customer database 40 using the transmission source address and the like recorded on the e-mail as a key, specifies the customer, and obtains the customer from the customer database. The client ID is added and transmitted to the client interface device 30. At this time, the charging rule database 42 is searched using the customer ID as a key to investigate whether there is a reason for rejecting the answer. When the answer is to be rejected, the answer is not transmitted to the client interface device 30. It is also possible to send an e-mail warning of the existence, and to send an instruction to the billing database 44 to send a billing e-mail to the customer.

[0010] The client interface device 30 transmits the received information to any or all of the client device such as the web browser device 32 and the dedicated client application device 34 or the mail server device 36.

[0011] The client device or the mail server device described in the preceding paragraph receives the information including the answer of the person in charge and the billing information, and transmits the information to the client interface device 30.

The client interface device 30 transmits the received information to the transmitting system 22, and the transmitting system 22 transmits the charging information to the charging database 44 based on the received information, and simultaneously transmits the charging information to the e-mail transmitting server device 20. Send consultation answers and billing information in the form of e-mail.

The e-mail transmission server device 20 transmits the received e-mail to a customer address on the Internet network.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a conceptual diagram of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

10, 20 E-mail server device 40 Customer database 12, 22 Receiving system and transmitting system 30 of this system 30 Client interface device 32, 34, 36, 38 for connecting this system and the client used by the person in charge Client for contact and email interface for contact 42 Billing rule database 44 Billing database

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A customer database is searched using a mail address such as a source mail address, a reply mail address, and a destination mail address of an e-mail received from a consultant (hereinafter referred to as a customer) as a customer, and the customer is specified. A receiving system in which information (hereinafter referred to as a customer ID) is added to an e-mail received from a customer and transmitted to a consultation service person (hereinafter referred to as a person in charge), and a customer ID and a counselor assigned by the person in charge by the system described above Receives the answer with the charged amount or the information necessary for charging, sends the charging information to the billing and payment management database for each customer,
A system that integrates a sender system that sends a response created by a person in charge to a customer by e-mail. 2. The system according to the preceding clause, wherein upon receipt from the customer or transmission to the customer, the system refers to the billing / payment management database and the charging rule database to investigate a reason for refusal of reply such as unpaid, A system that does not send if there are. 3. The system according to the preceding claim, wherein a warning or an invoice mail is sent to the customer when the reply is not sent due to a reason for rejecting the answer.