JP2001338112A - Method and device for providing information - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To collect information for recognizing customer's interest in a specific product or service and to efficiently provide information concerned with the product or service to a customer on the basis of the colleted information. SOLUTION: A questionnaire processing part 7 has a www questionnaire 7a allowed to be accessed and answered through a network 2. A data base management part 5 and a mail processing part 6 transmit electronic(E) mail requesting cooperation in answering the www questionnaire 7a to a customer requiring the provision of information through E mail out of customer data registered in a data base 8. Information concerned with a product or service matching customer's interest is provided though the network 2 in accordance with the result of the questionnaire 7a. When the customer further reacts the information provision, the data base management part 5 and the mail processing part 6 transmit E mail informing the customer of the opening of a fair or an event of the product or service in which the customer is interested.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method for providing information on a product or related products to a customer via a network. In particular, the invention collects the level of customer interest in a product or its related products,
Technology that manages and provides information in line with customer interests.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Manufacturers and service providers or companies generally understand the needs of their customers and provide them with information on their products and services in a timely manner. Sales promotion. In order to grasp such customer needs, information obtained from the customers is managed using a database system or the like.

[0003]

However, in a company that manufactures and sells a large amount of products or has a large number of customers, the amount of data relating to customers held in a database system becomes enormous. For this reason, when providing some information about a company's product or service to a customer, it is difficult to determine which information is best provided to which customer to promote the product or service.

An object of the present invention is to provide an improved technique for managing data relating to a customer and providing information according to the customer's interest via a network in a timely manner. More specifically, the present invention provides an information providing method for collecting information for recognizing a customer's interest in a specific product or service, and efficiently providing the customer with information on the product or service based on the collected information. And an apparatus.

[0005]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention provides a specific mechanism for selecting information according to a customer's interest in a product or service and providing this information via a computer network. The first aspect of the present invention
An information providing method is disclosed in which a communication system is connected to a computer network, and a questionnaire in which a customer can visually recognize the contents is published on the computer network, and the communication system collects information collected from the customer in advance. Based on the screen, select a customer who wishes to provide information by e-mail, send an e-mail prompting the selected customer to answer the questionnaire, and send a reply from the customer who received the e-mail to the computer network. When the information is received via the computer network, the specific information is provided to the customer based on the answer. In the first information providing method, when the specific information is accessed by a customer, other information related to the specific information may be provided according to the access content.

[0006] A second information providing method according to the present invention comprises:
A communication system is connected to a computer network, and a questionnaire on product information such as printers, peripheral parts, printer consumables, etc. is published on the computer network in a form in which the contents can be visually recognized by customers. The system selects a customer who wants a guide notification of the product information by e-mail based on collected information that has been collected from the customer in advance, and transmits an e-mail prompting the selected customer to answer the questionnaire, When the reply from the customer who received the e-mail is received via the computer network, communication for specifying the product information is performed with the customer, and when the product information is specified, the product information is Is provided to the customer. The second information providing method includes the step of sequentially changing the information related to the product information among the information held in the communication system when the customer accesses to provide the information related to the product information. It may be provided.

A communication system according to the present invention is a system for performing two-way communication with a customer via a computer network, and publishes a questionnaire on which the customer can view the contents on the computer network. Means, means for holding collected information previously collected from the customer, and selecting a customer who wants to provide information by e-mail based on the held collected information,
Sends an e-mail prompting a response to the questionnaire to the selected customers, and, when receiving an e-mail from the customer who has received the e-mail via the computer network, sends specific information to the computer based on the response. Means for providing the customer via a network.

[0008] An information providing method according to the present invention is a method executed in a communication system connected to a computer network and holding information about a desired printer and a customer who purchased the printer. Developed products such as upgrading the driver used for the purchased printer, the usage limit time of the purchased printer, and the detection of the expiration date of the consumables used for the purchased printer are detected. According to the information, a customer who wants to be notified of information by e-mail is selected, and the opportunity is notified by e-mail to the selected customer.

[0009]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment in which the present invention is applied to an apparatus for customer management will be described below with reference to the drawings.
In particular, in this embodiment, a customer management system for customer management used in a company that manufactures and sells a printer as a product will be described.

FIG. 1 shows an entire configuration of a customer management system 1 and a state where the system is connected to a network 2. The customer management system 1 is connected to a plurality of terminals 3 via a network 2. The customer management system 1
It comprises a customer data collection unit 4, a database management unit 5, a mail processing unit 6, a questionnaire processing unit 7, and a database 8. The customer data collection unit 4 provides various data collected by registration of various users (customers) to the database management unit 5 as electronic information. As shown in FIG. 1, the data collection form includes, as shown in FIG. 1, a participant in a fair or an event where a product is announced, filling in information on a predetermined form, and a user registration postcard attached when purchasing the product. Examples include information entry on a user registration facsimile sheet and online registration performed via the network 2.

The database management unit 5 stores the database 8
Manage customer data held in The processing and the detailed configuration by the database management unit 5 will be described later. The mail processing unit 6 creates a mail according to an instruction from the database management unit 5 and analyzes a mail sent via the network 2. The questionnaire processing unit 7 receives a predetermined WWW questionnaire 7a in response to access from an arbitrary terminal 3.
Is presented to the terminal 3. In addition, the questionnaire processing unit 7 sends the result of the presented questionnaire to the database management unit 5. The database 8 holds customer data under the control of the database management unit 5. The “mail” described in this embodiment means an electronic mail (E-mail) that can be sent and received electronically on the network 2.

Next, the detailed configuration and interrelationship of the database management unit 5, the mail processing unit 6, and the questionnaire processing unit 7 in the customer management system 1 will be described with reference to FIG. The database management unit 5 includes a customer data registration unit 5
1. It has a product development information input unit 52, a term detection unit 53, a customer selection unit 54, and a customer data update unit 55. The mail processing unit 6 includes a mail generation unit 61, a mail analysis unit 62,
And a mail transmitting / receiving unit 63.

The customer data registration unit 51 registers various data of the customer sent from the customer data collection unit 4 in the database 8 as customer data. For example, there is a user registration postcard attached when purchasing a product as shown in FIG. 3, and data is entered by the customer in these columns. The customer data collection unit 4 digitizes the entered information, and the customer data registration unit 51 registers these data in the database 8. FIG. 4 shows an example of a data format (data table) of the registered customer data. After completing the registration of the customer data, the customer data registration unit 51 notifies the customer selection unit 52 of the registration. The product development information input unit 52 receives information on product development, such as a new product of the printer and an upgrade of a driver used for the printer, from an operator. These pieces of information are sent to the customer selection unit 54. The expiration date detecting section 53 detects expiration dates such as the use limit time of the purchased product and the scheduled expiration time of the consumables used in the purchased product, and notifies the customer selection section 54 of the expiration date.

[0014] The customer selection unit 54 is a customer data registration unit 51.
If the customer wants to provide information by e-mail in response to the notification of the completion of the registration, the e-mail generating unit 61 creates an e-mail requesting cooperation with the WWW questionnaire 7a.
To instruct. In addition, the customer selecting unit 54 refers to the database 8 and selects a customer to whom the information is to be provided, according to the information sent from the product development information input unit 52 and the time limit notified from the time limit detecting unit 53. The mail generation unit 61 is notified of the mail address and the information to be provided of the selected customer.
If there is information to be provided, the customer selection unit 54 further narrows down the customers who provide the information according to the analysis result of the mail sent from the mail analysis unit 62 and the analysis result of the questionnaire sent from the questionnaire processing unit 7. . The narrowed-down result and the information to be provided are sent to the mail generation unit 61 in the same manner as described above. The supply form of the information to be provided to the customer includes a case where the information is input from the operator to the product development information input unit 52, a case where the information is directly transmitted from the input unit (not shown) to the customer selection unit 54, or another storage (not shown). In this case, various forms can be considered, for example, when the information is stored in advance in the section and the customer selection section 54 reads the information. Customer data update unit 55
Updates the customer data stored in the database 8 according to the analysis result of the mail sent from the mail analysis unit 62 and the analysis result of the questionnaire sent from the questionnaire processing unit 7.

The mail generation section 61 creates a mail in accordance with the customer's mail address sent from the customer selection section 54 and information provided to the customer. The created mail is sent to the mail transmitting / receiving unit 63. The mail transmission / reception unit 63 controls transmission and reception of mail with the network 2 according to a predetermined communication protocol. Specifically, it sends out the mail sent from the mail generation unit 61 to the mail address on the network 2 or receives the mail sent from the customer via the network 2. The mail transmitting / receiving unit 63 sends the received mail to the mail analyzing unit 62. Email analysis unit 62
Analyzes the e-mail sent from the customer, sends the analysis result to the customer data update unit 55, and sends information to the customer selection unit 54 as to whether or not the customer requests further information provision. When the contents of the e-mail sent from the customer include a request for an immediate estimate, the e-mail processing unit 6 may notify an external system (not shown) of the request. Then, the external system may present the mail content to a predetermined salesperson, and this salesperson may directly access the customer. The questionnaire processing unit 7 sends the analysis result of the questionnaire to the customer selecting unit 54 and the customer data updating unit 55. An example of a questionnaire presented on the network 2 is shown in FIG.

Next, various processing procedures of the customer management system 1 will be described with reference to the drawings. Each processing procedure described below is for performing a questionnaire presented on the network 2 and providing appropriate information to the customer according to the result.

First, registration of customer data will be described with reference to FIG. When various data relating to the customer are collected by the customer data collection unit 4 for the items shown in FIG. 3, these data are sent to the customer data registration unit 51 (step S101). The customer data registration unit 51 determines whether the received data on the customer is already registered (step S102). If the customer is an unregistered customer (step S102: YES), the customer data registration unit 51 registers various data as a new customer in the database 8 (step S103). In particular,
Based on the data corresponding to the items in FIG. 3, customer data in the format shown in FIG. 4 is created and stored in the database 8 (step S103). If data has already been registered for the collected customers (step S
102: NO), the customer data registration unit 51 updates the customer data registered in the database 8 (Step S)
104). When the registration of the customer data by the customer data registration unit 51 is completed, this is notified to the customer selection unit 54.

If the registered customer wants to provide information by e-mail (step S10)
5: YES), and sends the WWW questionnaire 7a to the mail generation unit 61.
To generate an email asking for help. The mail generation unit 61 sends a W address to the mail address of the registered customer.
The URL where the WW questionnaire 7a is presented (UniformRe
A mail including a message requesting cooperation with this questionnaire is transmitted together with the source Locator (step S106). If the registered customer does not want to provide information by e-mail (step S105: NO), the customer selecting unit 54 does not perform any special processing. Through the above processing procedure, an e-mail requesting cooperation with the WWW questionnaire 7a is transmitted to a customer who wants to provide information by e-mail.

Next, a processing procedure when a customer answers the WWW questionnaire 7a will be described with reference to FIG. When there is an answer from the customer to the WWW questionnaire 7a, the questionnaire processing unit 7 analyzes the answer result (steps S201 and S202). WWW
When the questionnaire 7a is the one shown in FIG. 5 referred to above, if all of the questions (1) to (5) are “NO”, the questionnaire processing unit 7 sends the analysis result to the customer selection unit 54. Is sent to the customer data updating unit 55 without notifying the result of the questionnaire. If any of the answers to the questions (1) to (5) is “YES”, the questionnaire processing unit 7 determines which of the questions was answered “YES” to the customer selecting unit 54. At the same time, the result of the questionnaire is sent to the customer data updating unit 55. The response data is sent from the questionnaire processing unit 7 to the customer data updating unit 55 regardless of the analysis result of the response. The customer data updating unit 55 updates the customer data so that the received response result is reflected in the customer data (Step S203).

When the customer selecting unit 54 receives a notification from the questionnaire processing unit 7 indicating which of the questions (1) to (5) is answered “YES”, the “YE
It is determined whether or not information corresponding to the question for which "S" has been answered is held in the database management system 1 (step S204). Here, if the corresponding information is held (step S204: YES), the customer selecting unit 54
The mail generation unit 61 is instructed to create a mail including the held information to the mail address of the customer. The mail generation unit 61 creates a mail according to the instruction, and sends it to the mail transmission / reception unit 63. The mail transmitting / receiving unit 63 transmits the generated mail to the mail address of the customer on the network 2 (step S205).

Here, the provided information will be described in more detail. For the question (1) shown in FIG.
When the answer of "S" is given, the information provided to the customer uses information obtained by comparing the running costs of a printer manufactured by the company and a printer manufactured by another company. If the answer to the question (2) is “YES”, the customer is provided with information comparing the printing speed of the printer manufactured by the company and the printer manufactured by another company. When "YES" is answered to the question (3), the information of the color printer sold by the company is provided to the customer. When the answer to the question (4) is “YES”, the information about the network-compatible inkjet printer sold by the company is provided to the customer. If the answer to the question (5) is "YES", software (Raster Image Processing) for converting the PostScript (registered trademark) language into a language that can be interpreted by a printer, or a computer equipped with this software Provide information of a device that can be installed between the (host) and the printer to the customer. If the customer requests further information in any of the provided information, a mail address serving as a destination of the request and a URL indicating information requested by the customer are attached. When "YES" is answered to a plurality of questions, all information corresponding to these is provided to the customer.

According to such a processing procedure, it is possible to provide the customer with only the information on the product of interest to the customer and related items thereof in a timely manner. The questions exemplified here are all questions of the form “YES” and “NO”, but are not limited to these. For example, a question that can measure customer interest on a five-point scale may be used. Also,
The information to be provided is not limited to one-to-one correspondence between the question and the information to be provided, and the information to be provided may be specified according to a combination of answers to a plurality of questions. That is, some questions or a plurality of questionnaires may be associated with each other, and information corresponding to these answer patterns may be provided.

Next, an e-mail is sent from the customer to the e-mail address attached to the provided information, or the attached UR
A processing procedure in the case where some reaction has occurred with reference to L will be described with reference to FIG. Step S20 in FIG.
If a mail is sent from the customer to the mail transmitted to the customer in step 5, the mail is sent to the mail analyzing unit 62 via the mail transmitting / receiving unit 63 (step S301). The mail analysis unit 62 analyzes the content of the received mail and checks, for example, which question of the WWW questionnaire 7a is the mail related to. This analysis result is sent to the customer selection unit 54. Customer selection unit 54
If you receive a fair or event about a product or product related to the email you receive,
The mail generation unit 61 is instructed to create a mail for notifying the customer of these dates and venues.

If the customer responds to the information presented to this URL based on the attached URL, for example, a request for information about an event or a fair presented on the page is made. Is clicked in response to "Do you want to do?", The questionnaire processing unit 7 managing the page notifies the customer selection unit 54 of the response of the customer. When a fair or an event is scheduled for a product or a product related to the received e-mail, the customer selection unit 54 generates an e-mail for notifying the customer of these dates and venues. Instruct 61.

The mail generation unit 61 creates a mail in accordance with the instruction of the customer selection unit 54 and sends it to the mail transmission / reception unit 63
(Step S303). The mail analysis result is also sent to the customer data updating unit 55, and the customer data in the database 8 is updated according to the analysis result. According to such a processing procedure, information on fairs and events to be held regarding products that the customer is interested in and related products can be provided to the customer in a timely manner.

Next, information relating to product development, such as a new product of the printer, upgrade of the driver used for the printer, etc., which is input to the product development information input unit 52, and the purchase, detected by the time limit detection unit 53, FIG. 9 shows a processing procedure according to a time limit such as a use limit time of a purchased product and a scheduled time at which consumables used in the purchased product are consumed.
This will be described with reference to FIG. First, when the customer selection unit 54 is notified of product development information from the product development information input unit 52, or when the time limit is detected by the time limit detection unit 53, the customer selection unit 54 refers to the customer data stored in the database 8, The corresponding customers are narrowed down (steps S401, S40)
2). Specifically, when a new product is developed, a customer who is already interested in the product is selected in a WWW questionnaire response or e-mail. If the driver version is upgraded, a customer holding a printer corresponding to this driver is selected. If the usage limit time of the purchased product or the scheduled time at which consumables used in the purchased product will be exhausted is detected, the customer purchasing the product is selected.

The customer selecting section 54 further narrows down the customers who wish to provide information by e-mail from the selected customers (step S403), and transmits an e-mail for providing information to the customer. To the mail generation unit 61 as described above. The mail generation unit 61 creates a mail according to the instruction, and sends the mail to the customer via the mail transmission / reception unit 62 (step S404). Customer selection section 5
In step S405, a printer (not shown) outputs a postcard describing information to be applied to a customer who does not want to provide information by e-mail (step S405). According to such a processing procedure, information on product development and time limit can be provided to customers in a timely manner.

As described above, according to this embodiment, by conducting a questionnaire on the WWW for customers who have registered for the purchase of a product or participation in an event or a fair, a more detailed level of interest of the customer can be obtained. Can be collected. Thereby, the content of the customer data stored in the database 8 can be enhanced. Further, the information to be provided can be provided to appropriate customers in a timely manner in accordance with detection of an event or fair event, product development, or a deadline associated with the product.

Although the customer management system 1 described in this embodiment can be realized by one communication device as a server, other components mainly related to a database (a customer data collection unit, a database management unit 5). ,as well as,
The database 8), the mail processing unit 6, and the questionnaire processing unit 7 may be realized by different devices which are appropriately combined.
Further, in the above-described embodiment, a customer management system for a company that manufactures and sells a printer is described. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and the present invention relates to a person who manufactures and sells another product or provides a predetermined service. Or it can be applied to a customer management system for companies.

[0030]

As described above, according to the present invention, by managing data relating to a customer, information according to the customer's interest in a specific product or service can be provided through a network in a timely manner. In particular, by conducting a questionnaire on the WWW, the degree of interest of the customer can be measured, and information on the product or service can be efficiently and gradually provided to the customer based on the collected information.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram for explaining a configuration of a customer management system and a connection state to a network according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a database management unit of the customer management system;
The figure for demonstrating the structure and mutual relationship of a mail processing part and a questionnaire processing part.

FIG. 3 is an example of a user registration postcard.

FIG. 4 is a configuration example of customer data held in a database of the customer management system.

FIG. 5 is an example of a WWW questionnaire held in a questionnaire processing unit of the customer management system and accessible via a network.

FIG. 6 is a procedure explanatory diagram for explaining a customer data registration process in the customer management system.

FIG. 7 is a procedure explanatory diagram for explaining a process according to reception of a result of a WWW questionnaire in this customer management system.

FIG. 8 is a procedure explanatory diagram for explaining a process when an e-mail corresponding to information provision is received in the customer management system.

FIG. 9 is a procedure explanatory diagram for explaining a process performed in response to input of product development information or detection of a time limit in the customer management system.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Customer management system 2 Network 3 Terminal 4 Customer data collection part 5 Database management part 6 Mail processing part 7 Questionnaire processing part 8 Database 51 Customer data registration part 52 Product development information input part 53 Expiration detection part 54 Customer selection part 55 Customer data update Unit 61 mail generation unit 62 mail analysis unit 63 mail transmission / reception unit 7a WWW questionnaire

 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page (72) Inventor Minoru Ichimura 3-3-5 Yamato, Suwa-shi, Nagano Seiko Epson Corporation (72) Inventor Tsukasa Ito 6-24-1, Nishishinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo Epson Sales Co., Ltd. (72) Inventor Hidemi Miura 6-24-1, Nishi Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo Epson Sales Co., Ltd. F-term (reference) 5B049 AA06 BB49 EE05 GG02 GG09

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. A communication system is connected to a computer network, and a questionnaire in which a customer can visually recognize the contents is published on the computer network, and the communication system uses collected information collected from the customer in advance. A customer who wants to provide information by e-mail is selected based on the e-mail, and an e-mail for prompting an answer to the questionnaire is sent to the selected customer, and a response from the customer who has received the e-mail is sent via the computer network. An information providing method for providing specific information to the customer via the computer network based on the answer when the customer is received. 2. The method according to claim 1, wherein when the customer accesses the specific information, other information related to the specific information is provided according to the access content. Information provision method. 3. A questionnaire regarding product information such as a printer, peripheral parts thereof, and consumables for a printer, which is connected to a communication system on a computer network, is published on the computer network so that a customer can visually recognize the contents. In addition, the communication system may select a customer who wishes to receive the product information guide notification by e-mail based on collected information collected from the customer in advance, and send an e-mail prompting the selected customer to answer the questionnaire. And, when the response from the customer who received the e-mail was received via the computer network, communication was performed with the customer to specify the product information, and the product information was specified. And providing the product information to the customer. 4. When the customer accesses to provide the information related to the product information, the information related to the product information among the information held in the communication system is provided in a stepwise manner. The information providing method according to claim 3, characterized in that: 5. A system for performing two-way communication with a customer via a computer network, comprising: a means for publishing a questionnaire on which the customer can view the contents on the computer network; Means for holding the collected information that has been collected, selecting a customer who wants to provide information by e-mail based on the held collected information, and sending an e-mail prompting the selected customers to answer the questionnaire. Means for transmitting, when receiving a reply from the customer who received the e-mail via the computer network, providing specific information to the customer via the computer network based on the reply. A communication system, characterized by: 6. Connected to a computer network,
A method executed in a communication system that retains information about a desired printer and a customer who has purchased the product. The method includes the steps of developing a product such as a new product of a printer, upgrading a driver used for the purchased printer, and purchasing the product. Detected when the printer's usage limit has expired and when the consumables used in the purchased printer will be exhausted,
An information providing method, wherein a customer who wants to be notified of information by e-mail is selected according to the held information, and the opportunity is notified to the selected customer by e-mail.