UA89890U - Method for bonus calculation to charge card - Google Patents

Abstract

A method for bonus calculation to charge card of consumers involved to loyalty program of trade and service network having multiple terminals at outlets and connected to bank server a payments centre comprising data processing module for bonus calculation according to specified calculation algorithm. The information from consumer charge cards is entered to data base of banking system control server, consumer engages to registration and obtaining paid charge cards at least one external consumer who at will engages another external consumers. External consumers perform sales transaction, thereafter the information on transaction is transferred to control server of banking institution where bonus payment identifier is formed, this contains the information required to the identification of each external consumer as holder of paid charge card, information on payment amount and trade outlet. Thereafter identifier data by means of communication channel is transferred to data processing module of calculation center, wherein the entitlement of each consumer to bonus acceptance is verified, and in case of validation the bonus amount is calculated according to the specified algorithm both to principal and external consumers. Calculation results are sent to the control server of banking institution where transaction on increase of charge card balance by bonus amounts calculated is performed.

Description

The useful model belongs to the transmission, processing and analysis of information about the consumer behavior of buyers and can be used in the field of trade organization when purchasing goods/services in various industries with payment using a payment card and can be used for conducting loyalty programs.

Existing loyalty programs in the trade and service sector are constantly being modified and are unable to achieve a stable position close to the "ideal" program.

This is primarily due to constant changes in the socio-economic life of consumers, as well as many external uncontrollable factors, such as advertising, new values, the disappearance of old ones and the appearance of new goods or services. All this leads to the need for constant modification of both the preferences provided to the consumer and the mechanism of communications of loyalty programs, the development of new opportunities to stimulate and encourage active actions of consumers aimed at increasing the frequency of purchases of additional, in-demand products and connecting new consumers.

One of the most widespread encouraging factors for the activation of buyer actions is the introduction of various discounts on goods and services in trade and service networks.

So, for example, the patent of the Russian Federation No. 2287857 (MPK" (5060) 30/00, publ. 20.11.2006) presents a method of making payments for goods and services with the application of discounts. According to this method, after the purchase of the goods, identification data about the buyer and the product are entered into the data management and processing unit.The buyer pays for the product using a credit card or cash, after which the seller forms the amount of the discount in accordance with the purchased product.

The amount of the discount is returned to the buyer in any form acceptable to him: credited to the card, compensated in cash, credited to the next purchase.

Discounts are accrued by a similar method for the systematic sale of goods with a refund (return of a part of the purchase price), described in the patent of Ukraine Mo 59328 (МПК" 4060 17/60, publ. 15.08.2003, Byul. Mo 8). Refunds are carried out using payment cards, the data from which are read by the communication system when the goods are purchased and transferred to the computer terminals of the banking institution and the manufacturer.

Zo But at the same time recognized specialists in the field of loyalty programs, such as Y.V. Vasin,

L.G. Lavrentiev, A.V. According to Samsonov, this type of reward, such as discounts, is recognized as the least effective. Using discounts, buyers no longer see a tangible difference between two stores that give them the same discount, which is why the discount itself has little effect on the buyer's choice of one or another retail (or service) establishment.

Rewards presented in the form of bonus points (bonuses) are more effective in terms of satisfying the interests of buyers and owners of retail chains.

Loyalty programs, which provide for the use of bonus rewards, allow trade and service enterprises to build permanent relationships with their customers, the purpose of which is to increase revenue, which leads to improved predictability in the development of the company, its turnover and market capitalization.

Bonus points allow trade and service enterprises not to participate in "price wars" with other trade and service enterprises, so for the seller, accrual of bonus points that the buyer can spend on goods or services is a more interesting preference than accrual of a discount of the same amount . The absence of "price wars" for a trade and service enterprise means an increase in its profit, which entails an increase in the quality and quantity of goods and services offered by the trade and service enterprise to buyers. Similarly, for the buyer, receiving bonus points is both a material and a psychological incentive to visit a certain trade and service point.

So, for example, according to the loyalty program developed by the Momizh supermarket chain, the cardholder of this chain can receive a guaranteed bonus of З 95 on all goods in any of the supermarkets of the chain, and, in addition, a 5 U5th bonus on his birthday (pprmlymimi.miv.sot.tsa/rgoiiLouanu). The accumulated bonuses, depending on their size, can be used by the buyer for partial or full payment for goods. In this program, an obvious incentive for the buyer is that he will definitely receive a bonus on his birthday, so he will be especially interested in visiting this particular store.

In the patent of Ukraine Mo 70621 (MPKU: иО6О 20/00, 1060 30/00, СОбЕ 17/00, publ. 25.06.2012,

Bul. Mo. 12) presents the method of forming bonuses in the combined network of sales of goods/services in which the loyalty program operates. Each buyer (consumer), having received a pre-paid plastic payment card, automatically becomes a member of the loyalty program, because it provides for the accrual of bonuses when buying goods or services at a point of sale.

The bonus accumulation mechanism envisaged by the developers of this program is carried out according to the classic scheme: "purchased a product - received a bonus." Such a scheme, although it gives the buyer an unconditional advantage from the point of view of saving money, as a rule, he perceives it quite calmly, because such a concept as a bonus has long become commonplace in everyday life, it is present in many of its spheres, and not only in trade. Moreover, the amount of bonuses is rarely large and, as a rule, is a small percentage of the cost of the product or service. In other words, this scheme is not able to cause the buyer a feeling of increased interest or gambling, which, in turn, could have a considerable impact on the development and growth of the seller's trade business, and in the case of a significant accumulation of bonuses - a tangible incentive for the buyer to make new trade transactions at this point of sale.

The prototype of the useful model is the method of accruing bonuses to the payment card of consumers involved in the loyalty program of the trade and service network, in which bonuses are accrued according to the developed calculation algorithm (patent of Ukraine Mo 62449 (IPC:

СО6О 30/00, publ. 25.08.2011, Bul. May 16, 2011).

According to this method, data about participants is entered into the memory generation block of the output array to identify buyers who have agreed to be participants in this program. After making each purchase, all customers are credited with certain bonuses according to the developed algorithm. Bonuses are accrued to each buyer at the expense of their own purchases and from the purchases of other buyers participating in the loyalty program, and the amount of bonuses is the same for everyone.

The disadvantage of this method is that all participants involved in the program are in the same conditions, they are passive in relation to each other, that is, they do not interact with each other in any way.

The size of the target bonuses depends on the seller and is calculated depending on how much money the buyers spent. In this situation, there are no emotional encouraging factors that would stimulate buyers to communicate with the aim of further increasing their material profit.

In this loyalty program, the "seller-buyer" tandem is practically involved, where the actions of the latter are reduced only to the purchase of goods or services, while he does not interact in any way with other potential buyers for the purpose of attracting them to the program and encouraging them to purchase goods or services in this particular trade network. Here, of course, it works

From the classical principle: why do any actions if there is no personal benefit in them?

Summarizing what has been said, we can say that the loyalty program presented in the prototype actually puts the buyer in the position of a passive participant who does not interact with other participants and is deprived of any stimulating factors for the growth of his own account. His account completely depends only on the seller and the amount spent by him on the purchase of the goods. As a result, he is deprived of the opportunity to receive tangible cash savings on his card due to bonuses, and the seller - to increase the volume of his sales and the number of regular consumers-buyers. It is obvious that in the case of a significant increase in the number of buyers, the seller would be able to civilly oppress his competitors, because in this case he can keep the prices of goods or services at the same level as those of competitors, and increase sales volumes and thus get substantial profits.

The useful model is based on the task of improving the method of accruing bonuses in the trade and service network by automating the accrual of bonuses to the payment card of consumers involved in the loyalty program, while attracting new buyers.

The program provides incentives for its participants to attract new buyers and accrual of bonuses in accordance with the relevant algorithm, which makes it possible to accrue bonus points to the account of each engaged buyer and increase them when they further attract other buyers, subject to the condition of accrual of the maximum bonus for each initiator of acquisitions.

The task is solved by the fact that in the method of accruing bonuses to the payment card of consumers involved in the loyalty program of a trade and service network that has multiple terminals in trading points, and a settlement center containing an information processing module is connected to the bank server, and in to which bonuses are calculated according to the developed calculation algorithm, according to the proposed useful model, information from consumer payment cards is entered into the database of the management server of the automated banking system, the consumer involves at least one third-party consumer in the registration and receipt of paid payment cards, who, if desired, involves other third-party consumers, third-party consumers carry out a trade operation, after which information about the transaction is transferred to the managing server of the banking institution, where a bonus payment identifier is created, which contains the information necessary to identify each third-party consumer as the owner of the offer payment card, information about the total amount of payment and about the point of sale, after which the identifier data are transferred via a communication channel to the information processing module of the settlement center, where the right of each consumer to receive a bonus is checked, and if it is confirmed, it is determined in accordance with the digital value of the amount of bonuses of both the main and third-party consumers is calculated by the developed calculation algorithm, and the calculation results are sent to the bank's management server, where the operation of increasing the balance of the settlement cards by the amount of bonuses determined by the mentioned algorithm for each of the consumers is carried out.

When carrying out each trade operation by third-party consumers, the digital value of the bonus of the main consumer, according to the developed calculation algorithm, is set to the maximum, and the digital value of the bonuses of all third-party consumers - according to the developed calculation algorithm, with a tendency to decrease in relation to the amount of the bonus of the main consumer.

The algorithm for calculating the amount of bonuses is determined depending on the data of the owner of the paid settlement card, the data of the trading point, the amount of the trade transaction and the data structure in the base of the information processing module of the settlement center. Information between the management server of the banking institution and the information processing module of the settlement center is transmitted through a secure Internet site, while allowing the postponement of the calculation of the amount of bonuses and their replenishment of settlement cards for 60 days from the moment of the trade transaction.

The technical result achieved in the process of implementing the proposed useful model consists in automating the accrual of bonuses for both primary and third-party consumers in a single program for accrual of bonuses, and is due to features that distinguish it from similar schemes for accrual of bonuses on paid payment cards of consumers goods or services described in accordance with the known state of the art, in particular in the solution adopted as a prototype.

A distinctive feature of the proposed method is that all participants involved in the loyalty program of the trade and service network are not just trivial buyers who receive bonuses when making purchases, but active initiators of attracting new participants to the program. The motivation for this is that with each engagement, the initiator receives the largest financial reward for making purchases by the customers attracted by him. At the same time, involved buyers also receive their reward for each purchase and, if they wish to increase it, they can always attract others, becoming in this case initiators in relation to those involved again.

The bonus calculation algorithm takes into account the sequence of participation of participants in the program. This sequence is used to verify the right to receive bonuses by each participant and to calculate the amount of bonuses. Thus, the material reward is received directly by the buyer, the initiator of the buyer, the initiator of the initiator, and so on along the chain of the sequence of initiations.

The reward (bonuses) of each of the participants is calculated according to the determined loyalty program of the algorithm (for example, in a geometric progression with a multiplier), which provides for the initiator the largest amount of bonuses, and the amounts of bonuses of other (involved) participants are smaller (their value decreases in proportion to the sequence of involvement of participants to the loyalty program of the trade and service network). Under such conditions, each buyer of goods or services receives a real benefit, which depends on his activity and grows noticeably with the duration of his relationship with the trading institution. In turn, the retail establishment not only increases the volume of its sales, but also increases the positive perception by the buyer of the particular retail network where he receives such bonuses.

In the proposed technical solution, the information processing module of the settlement center, which calculates bonuses on consumer settlement cards, belongs to the intermediary involved in the loyalty program. The program can cover an international banking network consisting of numerous banks, terminals and ATMs, as well as electronic means of making payments. Numerous bank cards of the specified banking network can be connected to the bonus calculation algorithm.

The proposed method is implemented as follows:

A participant of the loyalty program registers by filling out the necessary questionnaire and receives a settlement card. After that, he engages other (third-party) consumers to interact, who also receive payment cards after registration.

When purchasing a product (service) at a certain point of the trade and service system, involved in the loyalty program, by at least one third-party consumer who paid with his card, information about the transaction is sent to the bank's management server.

The latter transfers this data to the information processing module of the settlement center, where the right of each of the involved consumers to receive a bonus is checked (the so-called "connection sequence tree analysis"). If the results of the check confirm these rights, then the digital value of the sum of the bonuses of both the main and third-party consumers is determined according to the developed calculation algorithm. The calculation results are sent to the management server of the banking institution, where the operation of increasing the balance of the settlement cards of all participants of the loyalty program of this trade (service) institution is carried out by the amount of the specified bonuses. When carrying out each trade operation by third-party consumers, the digital value of the bonus of the main consumer (initiator of recruitment) is set to the maximum, and the digital value of the bonuses of all involved consumers - according to the developed calculation algorithm with a tendency to decrease in relation to the amount of the bonus of the main consumer.

Example

The buyer-participant of the loyalty program of the trade and service system (provisionally named A) attracted third-party buyers (B and C) to the program. In turn, buyers B and B attracted one third-party buyer - D and D, respectively. Each of the participants of the program, both the initiator (A) and all the buyers involved in the chain (B, B, G, D) made the necessary purchases, paying with their cards.

After processing by the processing module of the information processing center of the data regarding the completed transactions and confirmation of the right of all involved buyers to receive bonuses, each buyer receives the appropriate amount on his card, determined by the conditions of the developed calculation algorithm.

The chain of initiations is as follows: 0. Calculation center 0.1. Participant A 0.1.1. Participant B 0.1.1.1. Participant G 0.1.2. Participant B 0.1.2.1. Participant D

These conditions provide for the following calculation scheme (figures are provided for a specific purchase example), the calculation may depend on at least the retail network in which the purchase is made). The calculation scheme is shown in the table

Table

Mo torgo- Idents- Chain Bonus for Commission s The amount of the bonus of the check | The amount of the check! fixator | initiation of engagement / Settlement of settlement operations of the buyer / buyer of the buyer of the replenishment center of the center

B - 9.00 hryvnias for the same price

B - UAH 9.00 ze: oyu vo00(vaA 0sbootn photo ov ok

G - UAH 9.00

Check 4 1000.00 |G G-B-A 20.00 UAH 12.00 UAH B-4.50 UAH o /|2.25 UAH

A - UAH 2.25

D - UAH 9.00

Check 5 1000.00 D-V-A 20.00 UAH 12.00 UAH B-4.50 UAH o /|2.25 UAH

A - UAH 2.25

Claims (4)

USEFUL MODEL FORMULA 1. The method of accruing bonuses to the payment card of consumers involved in the loyalty program of a trade and service network that has multiple terminals at trading points and a settlement center connected to the bank server, containing an information processing module, and in which bonuses are accrued according to developed calculation algorithm, which is distinguished by the fact that information from consumer payment cards is entered into the database of the management server of the automated banking system, the consumer involves at least one third-party consumer in the registration and receipt of paid payment cards, who, at will, involves other third-party consumers, third-party consumers carry out trade operation, after which information about the transaction is transferred to the managing server of the banking institution, where a bonus payment identifier is created, which contains information necessary to identify each third-party consumer as the owner of a paid settlement card, information about the amount of payments and in relation to the point of sale, after which the identifier data are transmitted via a communication channel to the information processing module of the settlement center, where the right of each consumer to receive a bonus is checked, and in the event of its confirmation, the digital value of the bonus amount is determined according to the developed calculation algorithm as both primary and third-party consumers, and the calculation results are sent to the managing server of the banking institution, where they carry out an operation to increase the balance of payment cards by the amount of bonuses determined according to the mentioned algorithm for each of the consumers. 2. The method according to claim 1, which is distinguished by the fact that when performing each trade operation by third-party consumers, the digital value of the bonus of the main consumer, according to the developed calculation algorithm, is assigned to the maximum, and the digital value of the bonuses of all third-party consumers - according to the developed calculation algorithm with a decreasing trend in relation to the bonus amount of the main consumer. 3. The method according to claims 1, 2, which differs in that the algorithm for calculating the amount of bonuses is determined depending on the data of the owner of the paid payment card, the data of the trading point, the amount of the trading transaction and the data structure in the base of the information processing module of the settlement center. 4. The method according to claims 1-3, which differs in that the information between the management server of the banking institution and the information processing module of the settlement center is transmitted through a secure Internet site, while allowing for the postponement of the calculation of the amount of bonuses and the replenishment of settlement cards with them for 60 days from the moment carrying out a trade transaction.