JPH10171880A - Point management device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To make it possible to acquire customers' latent needs also in addition to market inspection by acquiring demand information and sales results through a network, giving prescribed points in accordance with the acquired contents, storing the points, and operating the accumulated points of each customer. SOLUTION: A customer who utilizes Internet accesses the home page of a server 20 through a public line 80 and a provider 90. The home page provides a questionaire. The user answering the questionaire requests a management station 10 to issue an IC card in which user's own mail address is stored. At the time of accounting, a POS terminal 40 acquires the user's mail address and its corresponding accumulated points are displayed on the terminal 40 through a public digital line 50. Points corresponding to a prescribed discount amount from a purchased amount are added to the accumulated points. The accumulated points are returned to the server 20 and its corresponding record is updated.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a point management apparatus for managing service points for customers, and more particularly, to a point management apparatus capable of simultaneously managing sales results and demand results.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, as this type of point management apparatus, one disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 63-14297 is known. In this publication, a point is given according to the purchase amount of a customer at a POS terminal, the accumulated points of each customer are stored, and when the accumulated points are equal to or more than a predetermined point, the predetermined amount is returned to the customer. It has become.

[0003]

However, the conventional point management apparatus described above has the following problems. In other words, in order to give points to the sales amount at the POS terminal, it is possible to conduct a market research on which products are the best sellers, but what kind of products the customer wants to appear in the future, etc. Did not know the potential needs of

[0004] The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and has as its object to provide a point management device capable of acquiring not only a mere market survey but also information on potential customers' needs.

[0005]

According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a point management apparatus which operates on a predetermined network, wherein the point management apparatus acquires demand information of a customer via the network. Information acquisition means;
Sales result acquisition means for acquiring sales results to customers via the network, point storage means for giving predetermined points according to the sales results and demand information, and storing cumulative points for each customer; Point operating means capable of operating the accumulated points of each customer stored in the storage means.

[0006] The point management device is a device that gives a certain type of points to a customer who has provided information and manages accumulated points for each customer. It is very common to provide customers with benefits such as giving money back according to points. Here, although information is provided, there are a case where the customer actively provides the information and a case where the customer is provided with the information as a result even though the customer is not conscious that the information has been provided.

[0007] For example, the former corresponds to a questionnaire or an opinion box, which makes it possible to grasp demand information as to what kind of product the customer wants to appear in the future. On the other hand, the latter corresponds to a so-called POS system, which makes it possible to grasp market trends based on sales results and efficiently perform inventory management and the like.

The present invention is a point management apparatus for managing such demand information and sales results using a network. The demand information is obtained by the demand information obtaining means via the network, and the sales results are obtained by the sales method. Acquire by the achievement acquisition means. Demand information acquisition means, for example, to a wide area network accessible to general users,
A host computer may be installed to provide a certain type of access point, and a customer may be provided with a predetermined questionnaire at the same access point for writing. An existing POS system that collectively manages POS by a host computer may be considered.

Of course, the host computer having the demand information obtaining means and the host computer having the sales result obtaining means may be provided separately, or the demand information obtaining means and the sales result obtaining means may be provided by one host computer. However, in order to simplify the description, the description will be made based on the latter configuration.

According to the demand information and the sales performance acquired as described above, the point storage means assigns and stores predetermined points for each customer. In this regard, various known techniques such as the use of existing databases and applications can be applied to the host computer.

[0011] Then, when the points of a certain customer are accumulated and become equal to or more than a predetermined point, the user of the point management device gives the customer an advantage such as performing a monetary return as described above. At this time, it is necessary to operate the accumulated points, such as referring to or updating the accumulated points of the customer, and such an operation is performed by the point operating means. Specifically, it may be considered to incorporate the point operation application into the POS terminal connected to the host computer.

By the way, unless the customer who provided the demand information and the sales record can be uniquely identified, it is impossible to manage the accumulated points for each customer. Of course, if the customer's name, address, etc. are written in the questionnaire described above, it is possible to detect who provided what kind of demand information, and based on this information, the accumulated points of each customer Can also be managed. However, since existing personal identification information such as a user ID for identifying a user exists on a network, it is preferable to use such personal identification information on the network.

Therefore, according to a second aspect of the present invention, in the point management device according to the first aspect, the demand information acquiring means can acquire personal identification information on a network. In this configuration, the accumulated points for each customer are managed based on the personal identification information. Here, the personal identification information means at least information on a network that can identify a certain customer. As described above, not only the user ID but also the network of a network connection device such as a personal computer used by the customer. It also includes the address.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, in the point management device according to the second aspect, the point operating means includes information reading means for reading information from a predetermined storage medium, and stores the personal identification information. It is configured to operate the accumulated points of each customer based on the information acquired from the stored storage medium. That is, each time the accumulated points are operated by the point operating means, the personal identification information is obtained from a storage medium such as an IC card storing the personal identification information without manually inputting the personal identification information.

Further, according to a fourth aspect of the present invention, in the point management device according to any one of the first to third aspects, the point service device exists on the Internet, and the demand information obtaining means includes: In this configuration, demand information from customers is acquired on a homepage on the Internet. Today, the Internet is so widespread in the home that customers can stay at home,
Answer questionnaires provided on the website and accumulate points.

[0016]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a point management device according to an embodiment of the present invention.
In FIG. 1, the point management device includes a server 20 of a management station 10 and POS terminals 40 of retail stores 30 scattered in a plurality of regions.
Are connected to each other by a public digital line via an appropriate connection device to construct a wide area network (WAN) as a whole, and the server 20 is connected to the Internet via a dedicated line 60.

In this embodiment, the management station 10 and the retail store 30 are connected via the public digital line 50. However, the present invention is not particularly limited to this configuration. It is only necessary to be able to communicate with. Therefore, the connection may be made using a dedicated line or a public analog line, and may be changed as appropriate.

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram showing the input and output of the server 20. In FIG. 1, a server 20 has opened a homepage 21 on the Internet using a plurality of applications and data files (not shown), and provides a questionnaire 21a on customer demand information on the homepage 21. That is, the customer of the Internet user accesses the homepage 21 via the general public line 80 and the provider 90 using the personal computer 70 at home, and what kind of product is desired to appear, or an improvement on the existing product. And the like, and the homepage 21 constitutes demand information acquisition means in this sense.

In this embodiment, the home page 21
Is configured to directly input the demand information described above, but this is not necessarily the case in terms of acquiring demand information. For example, it is sufficient that at least information about what the customer wants can be obtained by obtaining an answer in a YES / NO format to a predetermined question, and it may be changed as appropriate. Absent.

Before inputting the questionnaire 21a, the homepage 21 requests the customer to input a mail address, which is personal identification information capable of uniquely identifying the user of the Internet, and inputs the mail address. Wait for the questionnaire to be entered. When the input of the questionnaire 21a is completed, the contents of the input are stored in a hard disk (not shown), a predetermined point is given to the customer who answered the questionnaire, and the customer's total points are stored based on the mail address. .

As a technique for storing the accumulated points, various known techniques can be applied. In this embodiment, an RDBMS (Relati not shown) is used.
Online Data Base Management
System) and a record operation application. That is, a record including the customer's mail address obtained as described above and the customer's accumulated points corresponding to this mail address is stored using the RDBMS.

When a message is received from the POS terminal 40 of the retail store 30 through the public digital line 50 as described later, the record operation application
A record is searched using the customer's e-mail address included in the message, and a record operation is performed on the corresponding record. In this sense, the RDBMS and the record operation application constitute a point storage unit.

In the present embodiment, the accumulated points are stored based on the personal identification information of the customer's e-mail address. The personal identification information is such that at least each customer can be uniquely identified. Any other address can be used, and it is also possible to use an address other than the email address. For example, the name of the customer may be used as the personal identification information, or the network address of the personal computer used by the customer may be used as the personal identification information. However, if the mail address of the customer is stored as the personal identification information as in the present embodiment, it is also possible to send a new product guide or the like to the customer by mail.

Further, the point management device in the present embodiment includes a POS terminal 40 of the retail store 30 as the point operating means and the sales record obtaining means, and the POS terminal 40 serves as the information reading means. An IC card reader 41 is provided. The IC card reader 41 is connected to the POS terminal 40, reads the e-mail address from the IC card 41a storing the e-mail address of the customer, and outputs the e-mail address to the POS terminal 40. Such I
The C card 41a can be acquired by a customer having an Internet mail address making a request to the management station 10.

The POS terminal 40 is composed of an electronic computer having a plurality of applications (not shown) and peripheral devices such as a display, a keyboard, a receipt issuing machine, and the like. When the customer purchases the product, the POS terminal 4
0 acquires a mail address from the IC card reader 41 and sends a search message for a record corresponding to the mail address to the server 20 of the management station 10.

On the other hand, when the server 20 receives this search message, the record operation application searches for a record stored in the RDBMS, and transmits the corresponding record to the POS terminal 40 that transmitted the search message. The POS terminal 40 receiving this displays the accumulated points on a display (not shown).

Here, the operator of the POS terminal 40 discounts a predetermined amount from the purchase amount according to the accumulated points, and subtracts the points used for the discount from the accumulated points to obtain the discounted purchase amount. New points are added according to. The accumulated points calculated in this manner are transmitted to the server 20 of the management station 10, and the record operation application updates a record stored in the RDBMS. Of course, when such a discount is not performed, only points according to the purchase amount are added, and the accumulated points after the addition are transmitted to the server 20 of the management station 10 and updated.

Next, the operation of this embodiment will be described. The Internet user's customer is a personal computer 7
0, the homepage 21 in the server 20 can be accessed via the general public line 80 and the provider 90, and the homepage 21 provides a predetermined questionnaire 21a.

In order to receive a response from a customer, the questionnaire 21a requests input of a customer's own e-mail address, and waits for the input of the e-mail address before receiving a response to the questionnaire. When the input of the answer to the questionnaire 21a is completed, the homepage 21
The answer to the questionnaire is stored in a hard disk (not shown), and points are given to the customers who answered the questionnaire.
The DBMS and the record operation application are linked to manage the total points of the customer.

By the way, the questionnaire 21
The customer who has responded to a requests the management station 10 for the issuance of the IC card 41a in which his or her own mail address is stored.
Bring 1a. Then, at the time of accounting at the POS terminal,
The customer's e-mail address stored in the IC card 41a is acquired by the C card reader 41, the accumulated points corresponding to the e-mail address are acquired via the public digital line 50, and displayed on a display (not shown) of the POS terminal 40. Is done.

Here, the operator of the POS terminal discounts a predetermined amount from the purchase amount in accordance with the accumulated points, subtracts points corresponding to the discount amount from the accumulated points, and obtains the discounted purchase amount. Add minutes points. The accumulated points calculated in this way are returned to the server via the public digital line 50, and the record operation application receiving this updates the corresponding record.

As described above, the server 20 of the management station 10
The POS terminals 40 of the retail stores 30 scattered in a plurality of regions are connected to each other using the public digital line 50 to collect sales performance information at each retail store 30, and the server 20 is connected to the Internet to establish a homepage. Since the customer's demand information is collected on the homepage, it is possible to provide a point management device capable of acquiring not only a mere market survey but also information on potential needs of the customer.

[0033]

As described above, according to the present invention, it is possible to provide a point management apparatus capable of acquiring not only a mere market survey but also information relating to potential customer needs. Further, according to the second aspect of the invention, the point management becomes easy by using the existing personal identification information on the network.

According to the third aspect of the present invention, the burden on the operator can be reduced without manually inputting personal identification information every time a point operation is performed. Furthermore, in the invention according to claim 4, since demand information can be acquired using the Internet, which is an existing wide area network, there is no need to construct a new network, and costs can be reduced.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a point management device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram showing input / output in a server.

[Explanation of symbols]

 Reference Signs List 10 management station 20 server 30 retail store 40 POS terminal 41 IC card reader 41a IC card 50 public digital line 60 dedicated line 70 personal computer 80 general public line 90 provider

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A point management device operating on a predetermined network, comprising: a demand information acquisition means for acquiring customer demand information via the network; and a sales performance acquisition for acquiring sales performance for the customer via the network. Means, a predetermined point is given according to the sales result and the demand information, and a point storage means for storing a total point of each customer; and a total point of each customer stored in the point storage means is operated. A point management device, comprising: a point operating means capable of managing demand and sales results together with sales results. 2. The point management device according to claim 1, wherein the demand information acquisition means can acquire personal identification information on a network, and the point management device can acquire the personal identification information based on the personal identification information. A point management device for managing accumulated points for each customer. 3. The point management device according to claim 2, wherein the point operation means includes information reading means for reading information from a predetermined storage medium, and the information is obtained from the storage medium storing the personal identification information. A point management device for operating a total point of each customer based on information. 4. The point management device according to claim 1, wherein the point service device exists on the Internet, and the demand information acquisition means is provided on a homepage on the Internet. A point management device characterized by acquiring demand information from a customer.