Patent Application
20130101100
The present disclosure relates to incenting and enhancing telephony service usage.
Conventional mechanisms for incenting and enhancing use of landline and mobile telephony services are limited. Some mechanisms include reduced per minute charges, reduced rate tiered calling plans, simplified calling plans, reduced cost long distance, prepaid calling cards, etc. Other mechanisms include improved telephony service accessibility particular in remote regions, high call quality, and improved telephony add-on services like call waiting, caller identification, and multi-party calling.
Nonetheless, in many geographic regions, telephony service usage is falling despite efforts to incent and enhance telephony service. In many instances, telephony service is being replaced with other modes of communication including data based communications such as instant messaging, social networks, email, etc. Consequently, it is desirable to provide improved mechanisms for increasing, enhancing, monetizing, and incentivizing use of telephony services, particularly when existing infrastructure supports increased usage.
Techniques and mechanisms for incented telephony service monitoring are provided.
The disclosure may best be understood by reference to the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, which illustrate particular embodiments of the present invention.
Reference will now be made in detail to some specific examples of the invention including the best modes contemplated by the inventors for carrying out the invention. Examples of these specific embodiments are illustrated in the accompanying drawings. While the invention is described in conjunction with these specific embodiments, it will be understood that it is not intended to limit the invention to the described embodiments. On the contrary, it is intended to cover alternatives, modifications, and equivalents as may be included within the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims.
For example, the techniques and mechanisms of the present invention will be described in the context of particular servers and telephony networks such as public switched telephone networks (PSTNs). However, it should be noted that the techniques and mechanisms of the present invention apply to a variety of different servers and networks. In the following description, numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the present invention. Particular example embodiments of the present invention may be implemented without some or all of these specific details. In other instances, well known process operations have not been described in detail in order not to unnecessarily obscure the present invention.
Various techniques and mechanisms of the present invention will sometimes be described in singular form for clarity. However, it should be noted that some embodiments include multiple iterations of a technique or multiple instantiations of a mechanism unless noted otherwise. For example, a system uses a processor in a variety of contexts. However, it will be appreciated that a system can use multiple processors while remaining within the scope of the present invention unless otherwise noted. Furthermore, the techniques and mechanisms of the present invention will sometimes describe a connection between two entities. It should be noted that a connection between two entities does not necessarily mean a direct, unimpeded connection, as a variety of other entities may reside between the two entities. For example, a processor may be connected to memory, but it will be appreciated that a variety of bridges and controllers may reside between the processor and memory. Consequently, a connection does not necessarily mean a direct, unimpeded connection unless otherwise noted.
Mechanisms are provided to incent and enhance telephony service usage. Telephony call setup requests are monitored at a system for incenting telephony service usage and participants in a telephony service usage incentive program are identified. The system may be associated with a telephony central office. If a particular caller or call setup request is associated with a milestone, such as every nth caller or every mth minute, corresponding to the incentive program, the caller is provided with an incentive award. Callers or call setup requests near the milestone are provided with an indication of proximity to the milestone. Eligibility may be determined by identifying callers enrolled in a particular calling plan, callers having opted into receiving advertising during a call, and callers that have opted into call monitoring. Advertising may be provided before call connection, during, or after a call and selected advertising may be provided by determining caller characteristics and caller phone interaction information.
Current techniques for promoting use of landline and mobile telephony services are limited. Conventional techniques tend to revolve around monetary incentives and quality of service based incentives. Monetary incentives include reduced rate calling plans, tiered calling plans, simplified services, reduced cost long distance, prepaid calling cards, etc. Quality of service based incentives include improved telephony service accessibility particularly in remote regions, high call quality, and improved telephony add-on services like call waiting, caller identification, and multi-party calling.
Nonetheless, in many geographic regions, telephony service usage is falling. In many instances, telephony service is being replaced with other modes of communication including data based communications such as instant messaging, social networks, email, short message services, etc. Consequently, the techniques and mechanisms of the present invention provide improved mechanisms for increasing, enhancing, monetizing, and incentivizing use of telephony services, particularly when existing infrastructure supports increased usage.
According to various embodiments, the total number of calls in a particular network is continuously monitored. Incentives, including monetary incentives are provided to every nth caller. In some examples, one hundred credits may be provided to every thousandth caller. Callers close to being the thousandth caller may be notified after dialing and partial call connection but prior to full call connection. In other examples, one hundred thousand credits may be provided to every millionth caller as detected by an incentive monitoring system connected to a telephony network central office, while smaller monetary incentives may be provided at particular milestones leading up to an nth caller. According to various embodiments, callers that opt in to a particular calling plan, a particular amount of advertising exposure, call monitoring and call characteristic profiling, etc. In other examples, callers may qualify for incentives including monetary rewards by making a certain number of calls or using a certain number of minutes per month.
In particular embodiments, callers that come close to obtaining a particular monetary incentive are informed that their calls were close. The information may come at the beginning or end of a particular call in the form of an audio announcement. According to various embodiments, audio announcements can also be used to provide information, advertisements, offers, etc. In particular embodiments, targeted advertisements are provided based on caller profile information. The caller may agree to provide preference information, demographic data, call histories, interests, etc., and this information can be used to select audio advertisements, offers, or information for a particular caller. Caller phone interaction characteristics can also be used to identify information about a particular caller. For example, how quickly a caller dials, how many errors are made in dialing, how loud a caller talks, how frequently calls are made, when calls are made, etc., can all be used to identify characteristics about a particular caller. This caller phone interaction characteristic information need not even be consciously conveyed, but instead is typically provided subconsciously and detected automatically by a telephony system.
In some examples, if a caller is a particular slow dialer and calls mostly during daylight hours, slower paced advertising may be provided. Alternatively, if a caller speaks rapidly and dials quickly, faster paced advertising may be provided. In particular jurisdictions, opt ins may be required to obtain caller characteristics information. In particular embodiments, audio advertisements may be presented while a caller is waiting for a call to connect, or after a call is complete. Incentives may also be provided to a caller for listening to a complete advertisement. Incentives may be supported by particular rate plans or advertising revenue.
According to various embodiments, the caller profile system 113 identifies caller characteristics information. Some caller profile information may be manually provided by a caller. Other caller information profile information may be obtained based on the way a particular caller interacts with a telephone, e.g. dialing speeds, talking speeds, call frequency, etc. Based on caller characteristics information, advertising may be selected from an advertisement content database 115. Advertisements may be provided in audio form to particular telephone users. It should be noted that even though conventional plain old telephone service (POTs) telephones are shown, various techniques and mechanisms can also be applied to mobile devices, internet protocol (IP) phones, etc. However, various techniques and mechanisms are particularly useful for POTs lines because POTs calls conventionally do not provide much information about a caller and there are limited mechanisms for incenting POTs line usage. Advertising is also not typically provided to a caller by an entity associated with the network. Advertising may be provided by a party at the other end of a call, but is not typically provided by a network mechanisms or service provider.
Incentives may include free minutes, cash, prizes, awards, points, etc. According to various embodiments, instead of providing incentives to an nth caller, incentives are provided to callers who use an nth minute. In particular embodiments, a system for incenting telephony service usage may monitor minutes usage and provide incentives every millionth minute of aggregate usage at 211. This would encourage not only call volume, but increase call duration. In particular embodiments, the system for incenting telephony service usage monitors aggregate minutes usage since a last payout and will provide an audio indicator to current callers when an nth minute is near. According to various embodiments, an audio award indicator will be provided to a caller that actually is still on a call during the nth minute trigger at 213.
According to various embodiments, audio advertisements may be provided when a caller initiates a call, when a caller is placed on hold at or is being transferred to another line, or at the end of a call at 311. According to various embodiments, advertisements, offers, and services can be provided at the end of a call after a caller on the other end disconnects. According to various embodiments, an incentive may be provided if the caller remains on the line during the duration of an audio advertisement at the end of a call at 313.
Alternatively, if the particular caller is known to be impatient and hangs up quickly and dials quickly at 409, fast paced advertising or advertising suited to busy individuals may be provided at 409. In particular embodiments, the types of calls and destinations of calls are identified to provide caller interest information. For example, a system for incenting and enhancing telephony services may determine that a caller has been calling general contractors. Advertisements pertinent to this interest may be provided. According to various embodiments, advertisements, offers, services, programs, are selected based on caller characteristics such as caller submitted characteristics or caller phone interaction characteristics at 411.
In addition, various very high-speed interfaces may be provided such as fast Ethernet interfaces, Gigabit Ethernet interfaces, ATM interfaces, HSSI interfaces, POS interfaces, FDDI interfaces and the like. Generally, these interfaces may include ports appropriate for communication with the appropriate media. In some cases, they may also include an independent processor and, in some instances, volatile RAM. The independent processors may control such communications intensive tasks as packet switching, media control and management.
According to particular example embodiments, the system 900 uses memory 903 to store data and program instructions and maintained a local side cache. The program instructions may control the operation of an operating system and/or one or more applications, for example. The memory or memories may also be configured to store received metadata and batch requested metadata.
Because such information and program instructions may be employed to implement the systems/methods described herein, the present invention relates to tangible, machine readable media that include program instructions, state information, etc. for performing various operations described herein. Examples of machine-readable media include hard disks, floppy disks, magnetic tape, optical media such as CD-ROM disks and DVDs; magneto-optical media such as optical disks, and hardware devices that are specially configured to store and perform program instructions, such as read-only memory devices (ROM) and programmable read-only memory devices (PROMs). Examples of program instructions include both machine code, such as produced by a compiler, and files containing higher level code that may be executed by the computer using an interpreter.
Although many of the components and processes are described above in the singular for convenience, it will be appreciated by one of skill in the art that multiple components and repeated processes can also be used to practice the techniques of the present invention.
While the invention has been particularly shown and described with reference to specific embodiments thereof, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that changes in the form and details of the disclosed embodiments may be made without departing from the spirit or scope of the invention. It is therefore intended that the invention be interpreted to include all variations and equivalents that fall within the true spirit and scope of the present invention.
