Patent Application
20130024277
Embodiments of the present invention relate generally to providing product services. More particularly, embodiments of the invention relate to providing advertisements to users of registered products.
Prior to the advent and prolific use of distributed network environments such as the Internet, customer service sessions typically occurred over a teleconference between a customer service agent or service specialist and a customer. These teleconferences, which incidentally are still very popular today, are initiated by a customer placing a phone call to a customer service agent. The customer service agent's phone receives the call through a public-switched telephone network (PTSN). Many support centers handle a large volume of inquiries, usually by phone, for sales, information, customer support and other services. Typical support centers provide the ability to route multiple incoming, customer-initiated calls to agents which provide sales, information, or support on behalf of an entity interested in establishing or maintaining a relationship with the customer.
Modern support center systems selectively route incoming calls based on a number of factors such as the number called or dialed, the originating number, the queued sequence of the caller, the geographic location of the caller, accumulated caller history, and other relevant criteria. Once the system has evaluated the inbound caller's information, if any, the system searches for an available agent to service the call. Availability of agents may be dependent on any number of factors such as a skill level or a schedule of the agent. The number of agents within the contact center and available to the system may often be limited by the physical space available for the agents to operate. Contact centers have to deal with a limited number of agents to handle a large number of incoming customer calls.
As the Internet is getting more popular, customer service providers now provide for computer-based customer service interaction by way of the World Wide Web. Instead of initiating a customer service session by using the phone, customers may access a website and engage in a web-based customer service session to make inquiries (e.g., technical support) and/or perform tasks (e.g., paying bills). Web-based customer service sessions offer numerous advantages over teleconference-based sessions. For example, the graphical user interface of web-based customer service applications permit customers to view illustrations or written explanations and thus ameliorate the miscommunications which may arise with oral conversations between a customer service agent and a customer.
Further, web-based customer service sessions enable a customer to directly target his/her needs on the website and thus reduce the time expended both in navigating through a series of vocal menu choices inapplicable to the consumer's particular needs and in waiting to speak to a service agent. Significantly, web-based customer service sessions are particularly cost-effective for the customer service provider given that fewer agents are required to communicate with customers. Indeed, customers are provided functionality for finding answers to their questions or performing tasks without any help from a live agent. These customer service sessions may be entirely computer-based or, alternatively, involve interaction with a customer service agent.
While there are advantages to performing customer service sessions over the web or other distributed network environments, there has been a lack of efficient platforms to take full advantage of today's technologies, particularly, the mobile technologies. In order to obtain customer support from a service center, the customer is still required to take many steps of manual processes such as a complicated process for registering a product. While there are many ways (e.g., email, chat, voice) to communicate between a customer and an agent, there has been a lack of an efficient mechanism to provide the customer the best available and cost effective communication channels to an agent.
In addition, a typical support center only provides support services to the customers; it does not provide any other services for the customers' products. In particular, a conventional support center does not provide advertisement services for vendors of products associated with the users in an efficient way. A conventional support center also does not provide a mechanism to connect users having common products and/or social community memberships to connect with each other.
Embodiments of the invention are illustrated by way of example and not limitation in the figures of the accompanying drawings in which like references indicate similar elements.
Various embodiments and aspects of the inventions will be described with reference to details discussed below, and the accompanying drawings will illustrate the various embodiments. The following description and drawings are illustrative of the invention and are not to be construed as limiting the invention. Numerous specific details are described to provide a thorough understanding of various embodiments of the present invention. However, in certain instances, well-known or conventional details are not described in order to provide a concise discussion of embodiments of the present inventions.
Reference in the specification to “one embodiment” or “an embodiment” means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic described in conjunction with the embodiment can be included in at least one embodiment of the invention. The appearances of the phrase “in one embodiment” in various places in the specification do not necessarily all refer to the same embodiment.
According to some aspects, a service center provides a single platform to provide not only support services to a product or loyalty program registered by a user, but also other services such as selling or disposal of the product, participation in a discussion forum associated with the product, and providing advertisements, promotions, rewards, and/or recall associated with the product on behalf of a vendor of products such as a client or manufacturer. These services can be provided to or initiated from a user through an application running within a mobile device through a variety of communications channels, without having to leave the same application from the mobile device and without requiring the user to provide detailed information about the product.
According to one aspect, in addition to registering a product with the service center, a user can also register, for example, through the application running within a mobile device, one or more social communities, one or more payment processing providers, and/or one or more eCommerce sites by storing the necessary credentials (e.g., usernames and passwords) of the servers hosting the social communities, the payment processing sites, and eCommerce sites in a database (e.g., user database) of the service center, where the database is associated with a user of the mobile device (but not limited to the mobile device). Subsequently, the user can transmit from the mobile device a sales request to sell or dispose a registered product by specifying one or more of the eCommerce sites. Similarly, a user can also post a message or item to one or more of the registered social communities from the application running within the mobile device without having to individually access the social communities.
In another aspect, a user can also configure a set of one or more rules to specify whether certain types of messages or advertisements received from vendors or parties (e.g., retailers, manufacturers, social communities, or other advertisement providers), which may or may not be related to a registered product, should be routed to the user. These rules serve as part of message delivery or filtering rules. The service center engages with the related parties to allow the related parties to get in touch with the user by sending certain messages such as product promotions, rewards, and/or recalls, etc. to the user. The service center may send a message to a user via one or more communications channels preferred by the user, which may also be configured as a set of rules and stored in a database associated with the user.
According to another aspect, an advertisement received from a vendor is delivered by the service center to a mobile device of a user based on a set of delivery rules associated with the user. The advertisement is displayed on a display of the mobile device by an application running therein. In addition, the service center and/or the application are configured to track interactions of the user with respect to the displayed advertisement to determine user behaviors, patterns, or trends in view of the displayed advertisement. An analysis is performed on the user interaction and the result of the analysis may be utilized to configure further advertisement delivery by the service center and/or the vendors.
According to another aspect, a service center is configured to identify users that have at least one common product registered with the service center and are also members of a social community. The service center is configured to send a message to those users to invite them to connect (e.g., becoming friends or following a friend) with each other via the social community. The social community is hosted by a third party and communicatively coupled to the service center over a network. The service center may also deliver messages or items posted by one of those users to another one of those users on behalf of the social community, without requiring such users to individually or directly accessing the social community. The service center can also deliver messages or items to a particular user posted by other users of the social community, where the messages or items are related to a registered product of that particular user.
According to a further aspect, an application running on a mobile device provides a user friendly graphical user interface (GUI) to allow a user to configure a set of one or more delivery rules concerning whether certain types of messages or advertisements should be received at the mobile device from a service center. The service center is configured to deliver messages or advertisements on behalf of a message or advertisement provider, which can be a client to the service center, a retailer, a manufacturer, a social community, or other content providers. A user can utilize the GUI to configure, for each of the providers, whether a message associated with a particular registered product of the user or all products in general related to the provider should be received by the mobile device. The settings of the delivery rules are then transmitted from the mobile device to the service center to allow the service center to delivery subsequent messages or advertisements on behalf of the message or advertisement providers accordingly.
Service center 102 may be implemented in a centralized facility or server. Alternatively, service center 102 may be implemented in multiple facilities or servers in a distributed manner (e.g., cloud-based service platforms). Service center 102 provides services to a variety of products or services from a variety of clients or vendors. A client may be a manufacturer, a distributor, a retailer, a service provider or broker, a purchasing facility (e.g., Amazon™, Expedia™, or ISIS™), or a combination thereof. In one embodiment, service center 102 includes service APIs 104 to communicate with other systems such as mobile device 101, client's site 117, social communities 116, contact center 114 including agents or experts 115, client backend systems 118, manufacturer backend systems 119, eCommerce sites 120 and other auxiliary systems (e.g., billing system). Service center 102 can handle service requests from customers of multiple clients. For example, a service center may handle customer service requests for a number of retail sales companies, sales calls for catalog sales companies, and patient follow-up contacts for health care providers. In such a structure, the service center may receive service requests directly from the customers or through client support management systems.
In one embodiment, service center 102 further includes community service system 105, support services system 106, post market service system 107, messaging system 108, and data warehouse 109. Support services system 106 is responsible for handling support services requests from the users, including identifying and registering a product, creating an instance case context, selecting and assigning a customer representative (also referred to herein as an agent, specialist, or expert) to provide support services to the users, and managing work flows, etc. An agent may be selected based on a skill set or expertise of the agent, as well as other factors such as geographic location, of the agent. The term “agent,” “specialist,” or “expert” refers to a service center personnel or a computerized application, in some cases, that respond to customer requests. An agent may be locally situated at the service center or remotely situated over a network. Throughout this application, the terms of “agent,” “specialist,” and “expert” are interchangeable terms dependent upon the circumstances. In most cases, the term of “agent” collectively refers to a customer representative, a support agent, a support specialist, a support expert, or a combination thereof, which may be a service center personnel and/or a computerized application.
In one embodiment, community service system 105 is responsible for communicating with social communities 116 via an API, for example, to post a message received from a user and to route the responses received from social communities 116 back to the user. Post market service system 107 is responsible for handling post market activities associated with the registered products, including selling a registered product on eCommerce sites 120 and arranging a disposal facility to dispose or recycle the product, etc. Messaging or advertisement system 108 is responsible for handling any messages received from a variety of partners or parties, such as client sites 117, client backend systems 118, manufacturer backend systems 119, and eCommerce sites 120. Messages may be related to the registered products of the user, such as, promotions, rewards, and recall messages. Messages may include advertisements from a variety of advertisement providers.
In one embodiment, data warehouse 109 includes product database 110, client database 111, user database 112, and knowledgebase 113. Product database 110 is configured to store any data related to the registered products including user manuals, etc. Client database 110 is configured to store information related to clients such as client's preferred communications mechanisms. User database 112 is used to store information related users, such as, for example, registered products associated with a user, communications channel preference of a user, credentials necessary for a user to access other sites, and/or messaging filtering settings of a user, etc. Knowledgebase 113 is used to store knowledge collected and compiled over a period of time, which can be used by agents 115 and/or users for self-support purposes.
In one embodiment, service center 102 further includes a multi-channel communication system (not shown) to provide one or more communication channels to any user or client to concurrently access service center 102. Examples of communication channels include email, chat, texting (e.g., short messaging services or SMS), voice (e.g., automated IVR, real-time, or VoIP), video, Web (e.g., Web conferencing), and/or online community forum (e.g., Facebook™ or Twitter™), etc. Note that the multi-channel communication system may be fully or partially integrated with service center 102 or alternatively, it may be maintained or provided by a third party or partner (e.g., communicatively coupled via service API 104 over a network). Service center 102 further includes an automatic caller distribution (ACD) system (not shown) to receive, route, and manage voice calls exchanged via the multi-channel communication system.
A customer can obtain support services from service center 102 via a variety of communication mechanisms. A customer can initiate a support request to contact a live agent such as agents 115 in a live manner. Alternatively, a customer may browse certain knowledgebase, such as KB 113 via a Web interface, in an attempt to find a solution to a problem of a product he/she purchased from a manufacturer via a client of service center 102.
According to one embodiment, application 103 is installed on mobile device 101 of a customer or user, where application 103 can serve as a central service point to service center 102 that provides support services to a variety of products or services provided by a variety of vendors. The vendors can be, for example, manufacturers, distributors, retailers, service brokers, purchasing houses, etc. of the products. Vendors may be the clients of service center 102 or entities having a business relationship with service center 102. A user (also referred to herein as a customer) can activate application 103 from the user's mobile device 101 to reach agents 105 the service center 102 or KB data center 114 via a variety of communication channels or media, such as, for example, email, chat, voice (including automated interactive voice recognition or IVR, voice over Internet protocol or VoIP), video, Web, and/or online community-based forum, etc. Application 103 can be a thin/thick client application or a Web-based application.
Note that a service center described throughout this application is not limited to a traditional service center or support center, nor is it implemented in a single physical location. A service center described herein represents a collection of service logic or providers communicatively coupled to each other over a network in a distributed or a cloud-based fashion. The term of a service center herein represents any kind of service providers that provide a variety of services to customers or users. As described throughout this application, a service center can be a set of enabling cloud-based service APIs, which enable a variety of consumer product services and support offerings via an intelligent set of technologies providing automated and/or live communications. In one embodiment, services provided by a service center can include, but not limited to: 1) user, product, and loyalty registration and support services; 2) product wish list, reviews, and comparisons; 3) purchasing and accessorizing services; 4) social community support and integration services; 5) intelligent knowledge support services; and 6) integrated sales and product disposition services, etc.
Also note that an agent, an expert, or a customer representative described throughout this application is not limited to a real person. The term of an agent, an expert, or a customer representative can also refer to any processing logic or functional block that is configured or programmed to provide automated services to a customer, for example, via services APIs of the service center, without a need of a real person involved. Such processing logic and/or functional blocks can be implemented in software, hardware, or a combination thereof. Further detailed information concerning service center 102 can be found in co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/085,397, filed Apr. 12, 2011, which is incorporated by reference in its entirety.
In one embodiment, a user can configure a set of one or more delivery rules 205 specifying whether a particular type of messages or advertisements should be routed to the user. Delivery rules 205 may also specify whether a message or a particular type of messages associated with a particular registered product should be received by the user. Delivery rules 205 can also specify whether a message received from a particular source should be forwarded to the user. In one embodiment, certain types of messages are not available to be filtered out. For example, any recall message of any registered product must be routed to users, regardless of the configuration of delivery rules 205. A message may be routed to a user using one or more communications channels configured by the user as communications preference, which may also be stored in user database 112.
A message may include an advertisement of products and/or services for a consumer or user delivered via a traditional advertisement service such as Google®, etc. A message may include an offer to a customer provided directly from a manufacturer, loyalty provider, etc., where an offer may be all offers for a product line or only for products registered, or a wish list via the service center. A message may include a social feed received from a variety of social communities. A social feed may be related to user community feedback, comments, suggestions or experience of a particular product or service discussed by their community members or friends.
In one embodiment, in response to a message received one of sources 116-120, message processing module 202 is configured to determine whether the message should be delivered to a user associated with mobile device 101 based on a set of delivery rules 205 associated with the user. If delivery rules 205 permit, the message is routed to mobile device 101 or one of other devices associated with the user dependent upon the settings of the communications channel preference (not shown). As described above, message may be related to a registered product specified in asset store 206 of the user. Alternatively, the message may be related to other products or services that are likely interesting to the user, for example, based on user's interactive history, habits, and/or registered products or services, which may be captured and determined over a period of time by monitoring module 203 and/or analysis module 204 and stored as part of user interactions 207.
According to one embodiment, a user of mobile device 101 can set its preference via application 103 for any messages, advertisements, offers, or feeds that would be presented to mobile device 101. Application 103 provides user friendly GUIs to allow the user to specify the message delivery preferences, including manufacturer offers (e.g., product or service offers from a variety of manufacturers such as Dell®, Samsung®, etc.), loyalty offers (e.g., products or services offers from a variety of loyalty or brand providers such as Best Buy®), social feeds (e.g., feeds based on products from social communities such as Facebook® or Twitter®), and other advertisement providers. For each of the message sources, in one embodiment, a user can turn off message delivery for the particular source, turn on the message delivery only for the products registered by the user (e.g., registered products or wish list), or turn on the message delivery for all products provided by the particular source, regardless whether such products have been registered.
At block 403, the selection information is received at the service center and stored in a database (e.g., user database or user profile) associated with the user of the mobile device as a set of delivery rules for delivering subsequent advertisements. Subsequently at block 404, in response to an advertisement received from an advertisement provider, the set of delivery rules of each user associated with the service center is examined to determine whether the advertisement should be delivered to the corresponding user. If the delivery rules permit, the advertisement is transmitted to a mobile device of the associated user and displayed on a display of the mobile device.
When an advertisement is presented to a user and displayed on a display of a mobile device, according to one embodiment, user interaction with the advertisement currently displayed is monitored and captured for further analysis.
The advertisement is then displayed by application 103 on a display of mobile device 101. The advertisement may be displayed in a reduced version such as a rolling band or a thumbnail image within application 103. A user can access the advertisement by activating (e.g., clicking, touching, swiping, or via a key stroke or voice command) the displayed advertisement. When the advertisement is activated, an enlarged version of the advertisement may be displayed. The enlarged version of the advertisement can be displayed within application 103 or alternatively, it can be displayed by another application such as a browser application. The detailed content of the advertisement may be retrieved from a remote server via a link such as a universal resource locator (URL), which may be embedded within the reduced version of the advertisement.
The server that provides content of the advertisement may be maintained by the corresponding advertisement provider. Alternatively, the advertisement may be maintained by service center 102, for example, via a Web interface. In one embodiment, user interaction with the advertisement (e.g., activation of a specific portion or location of the advertisement) is tracked and captured, either by the application presenting the advertisement such as application 103 or a browser application running within mobile device 101. In addition or alternatively, the tracking may be performed by service center 102 or the corresponding advertisement provider, particularly, when the advertisement is presented by service center 102 or the advertisement provider.
If the user interaction is captured by mobile device 101, in this example, application 103, the captured user interaction is transmitted from mobile device 101 and received by monitoring module 203 of service center 102 as part of user interaction information 207. Analysis module 204 is configured to perform an analysis on the user interaction information 207 to derive certain user behaviors or trends with respect to the advertisement. The user interaction with the advertisement may represent certain user interests or attraction of the advertisement. The result of the analysis may be fed back to the advertisement providers for market analysis. As a result, the advertisement providers can further adjust their future advertisements, for example, for better targeted advertisements. Alternatively, the result of the analysis may be utilized by service center 102 to further adjust or modify the associated delivery rules of the user for the purpose of delivering future advertisements.
In addition, according to one embodiment, a client of service center 102 that provides a custom offer to a user or users within service center 102 can receive user data and/or product data (desensitized) collected by service center 102 that will allow the client to derive the marketing data to identify the type of users that has purchased another product over the client's products as a part of a consumer behavior analytics report, to identify number of users having certain products for certain periods of time, thus may be looking to change or upgrade the products, and to identify users that have not elected to purchase or renew service contracts, etc. The client may also create a customer offer to a targeted audience; define the days, times, and terms of the offers that will be presented to the customers; and receive user participation and yield metrics on the activities of the customer offers, etc.
Loyalty page 702 can be used to list one or more loyalty programs that are associated with the user and registered with the service center. A loyalty program can also be registered by scanning a machine-readable code (e.g., barcode of the loyalty card) and sending the machine-readable code to the service center. Account page 703 can be used to configure an account associated with the user, including setting preferences such as communications preference to communicate with the service center and/or agents of a contact center for support services. Services page 704 can be used to obtain a variety of services provided via the service center including, but are not limited to, support services, community services, post market services, and advertisements or messaging service on behalf of a variety of clients. Further detailed information concerning these functionalities can be found in the above incorporated-by-reference patent application.
Referring back to
Referring now to
In the embodiment as shown in
In one embodiment, when a message (e.g., a notification, offer, advertisement) is received at the mobile device from the service center, the message is displayed on a display of the mobile device as shown in
Similarly, on loyalty page as shown in
Referring to
Referring to
According to another embodiment, a service center is configured to identify users that have at least one common product registered with the service center and are also members of a social community. The service center is configured to send a message to those users to invite them to connect (e.g., becoming friends or buddies, or following a friend) with each other via the social community. The social community is hosted by a third party and communicatively coupled to the service center over a network. The service center may also deliver messages or items posted by one of those users to another one of those users on behalf of the social community, without requiring such users to individually or directly access the social community. The service center can also deliver messages or items to a particular user posted by other users of the social community, where the messages or items are related to a registered product of that particular user.
According to one embodiment, when a user wishes to post a message to one or more of social communities 804-805, the user can create a message on a GUI page of application 103 and specify the social community or communities. The request for posting a message is then transmitted from mobile device 101 to service center 102 and received by social posting engine 802. In one embodiment, the request includes information identifying a message to be posted, one or more social communities in which the message is to be posted, and a registered product associated with the posting. Based on the request, social posting engine 802 is configured to retrieve the necessary credentials from credential store 205 for accessing the social communities. The credentials for accessing social communities 804-805 may be previously registered with service center 102 and stored in credential store 205. Examples of the credentials 205 may include usernames and passwords.
Based on the registered product, social posting engine 802 can also identify one or more discussion threads or forums of social communities 804-805 that are associated with the product. Thereafter, social posting engine 802 transmits via APIs 801 the message and the necessary credentials to one or more of social communities 804-805 for the purpose of posting the message. If a connection to a social community is unavailable at the point in time, social posting engine 802 may store the post in a queue (not shown) until the connection becomes available. As a result, a user does not have to provide the necessary credentials to service center 102 at the time of posting. The user may not have to identify which of the discussion forums or discussion threads in which the message should be posted. All the user needs is to specify which of the social communities and the product associated with the posting.
Similarly, when a response is received from social communities 804-805 in response to the posted message, social posting engine 802 is configured to route the response back to mobile device 101. Alternatively, the response may be routed to the user according to one or more communications channels preferred by the user, which may be configured previously and stored in user database 112 (e.g., user profile). Thus, a single message can be posted onto multiple accounts of the same social community. A single message can also be posted onto multiple accounts across multiple social communities. A social community can be hosted or maintained by a third-party social networking provider (e.g., Facebook®, Twitter®), a retailer (e.g., Amazon®, Bestbuy®), or a manufacturer (e.g., Samsung®).
According to one embodiment, community service system 105 further includes social monitoring engine 803 configured to monitor message postings to social communities 804-805 via social posting engine 802 and the responses received from social communities 804-805. In one embodiment social monitoring engine 803 is configured to collect data concerning all the social posting activities. The data collection may include, but is not limited to, user IDs and date and time of post, communities the pose is made to, user accounts post is being made to, user account the post is being made from, device the post is being made from (e.g., mobile, tablet, Web), etc. Based on the monitoring, social posting statistics 807 can be generated. In one embodiment, social posting statistics 807 includes, but is not limited to, a number of posts by time and day, number of posts by day of week, number of users creating posts, number of products with posts, number of brands or loyalty with posts, and products least posted about, etc.
In one embodiment, an enhanced analysis may be performed on the collected data and statistics to identify trends, activities based on events, including, but not limited to, most social channels used to post, the types of accounts (e.g., user accounts, manufacturers/loyalty accounts or both) of the posts, products associated with the posts, services associated with the posts, the brands associated with the posts, number of the posts by products and services, and times of day and days of week of the posts, etc.
Social monitoring engine 803 is configured to monitor a social environment gathering data about topics posted in communities 804-805. In one embodiment, social monitoring engine 803 is configured to identify posts that have both positive and/or negative sentiments regarding a product or brand. Social monitoring engine 803 may also identify activities based on either the positive or negative sentiment such as whether the traffic is heavy on the topic, whether a positive sentiment is trending negative, and whether a negative sentiment is trending positive. Social monitoring engine 803 may also determine other social community sites that are discussing the same or similar topics or trends. Social monitoring engine 803 may also determine the most active users participating in the community and/or whether the community is working to find a solution or the community needs an assistance to move forward. The sentiment data or social statistics 807 can be utilized by agent/expert/specialist 806 to participate in the discussion, for example, by interjecting comments into a negative discussion and attempting to turn it positive, or identifying a solution that the community has found to be positive and posts to other communities that may not have knowledge of the resolution. The solution or comments posted in a discussion forum may also be converted into knowledgebase (e.g., KB 113 of
In one embodiment, based on the monitoring, a user having participated in a discussion and posted positive comments about a product may be rewarded by the service center, a retailer, and/or a manufacturer associated with the product. A user having posted a negative comment about a product may be contacted by an agent, expert, or specialist to resolve the issues in an attempt to turn the negative experience into a positive one. Further detailed information concerning community service system 105 can be found in co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/185,213, entitled “Platform for Providing Life-Cycle Product Support Services,” filed Jul. 18, 2011, which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.
According to another embodiment of the invention, referring back to
In one embodiment, based on users' social community settings, social posting engine 802 or another component can identify those users are members of the same social community. Based on the product asset stores of the users, social posting engine 802 can identify the users who have at least one common registered product. Based on the user interactions or behaviors with the service center (e.g., tracked by social monitoring engine 803 of
For example, based on a variety of information available to service center 102 as described above, social posting engine can identify users associated with mobile devices 101A and 101B have at least one common registered product and they are members of at least one common social community. Social posting engine 802 can send a message to a user of mobile device 101A to invite the user to connect with a user of mobile device 101B, or vice versa. Social posting engine 802 can send a message including information identifying at least one common product registered by both users. Social posting engine 802 can also send a message including an item recently posted by the other concerning at least one common product or service. Social posting engine 802 can also send a message including an item posted by another member of the same social community concerning a registered product or a product that may be interesting or related to a user based on the user's past interaction or behaviors. Reposting information of a user is available so information received from a user being followed can be shared further with user following the user who is attempting to repost a users post.
In addition, GUI 1200 includes a list of social communities 1203-1206 that the user has previously registered with the service center, including providing the necessary credentials for accessing social communities 1203-1206, as described above with respect to
For example, if a user selects link 1203, a posting page associated with selected social community is displayed as shown in
In response to the activation of button 1213, the underlying application is configured to transmit the message, the associated product identifier, and identifier(s) identifying one or more social communities to the service center. The service center can then compile the necessary detailed product information to determine one or more discussion threads or forums, as well as the necessary credentials for accessing the selected social communities. Thereafter, the service center posts the message to the identified discussion threads of selected social communities on behalf of the user using associated credentials. As a result, the user does not have to identify the discussion threads or provide the necessary credentials for accessing the selected social communities. Similarly, a user can post a message in community 1204 via GUI 1222 as shown in
Note that a single message can be posted, via a single transaction from a mobile device, on different social communities, different accounts of the same social community, or different accounts on different social communities. Also note that the GUIs as shown in
Some portions of the preceding detailed descriptions have been presented in terms of algorithms and symbolic representations of operations on data bits within a computer memory. These algorithmic descriptions and representations are the ways used by those skilled in the data processing arts to most effectively convey the substance of their work to others skilled in the art. An algorithm is here, and generally, conceived to be a self-consistent sequence of operations leading to a desired result. The operations are those requiring physical manipulations of physical quantities.
It should be borne in mind, however, that all of these and similar terms are to be associated with the appropriate physical quantities and are merely convenient labels applied to these quantities. Unless specifically stated otherwise as apparent from the above discussion, it is appreciated that throughout the description, discussions utilizing terms such as those set forth in the claims below, refer to the action and processes of a computer system, or similar electronic computing device, that manipulates and transforms data represented as physical (electronic) quantities within the computer system's registers and memories into other data similarly represented as physical quantities within the computer system memories or registers or other such information storage, transmission or display devices.
Embodiments of the invention also relate to an apparatus for performing the operations herein. Such a computer program is stored in a non-transitory computer readable medium. A machine-readable medium includes any mechanism for storing information in a form readable by a machine (e.g., a computer). For example, a machine-readable (e.g., computer-readable) medium includes a machine (e.g., a computer) readable storage medium (e.g., read only memory (“ROM”), random access memory (“RAM”), magnetic disk storage media, optical storage media, flash memory devices).
The processes or methods depicted in the preceding figures may be performed by processing logic that comprises hardware (e.g. circuitry, dedicated logic, etc.), software (e.g., embodied on a non-transitory computer readable medium), or a combination of both. Although the processes or methods are described above in terms of some sequential operations, it should be appreciated that some of the operations described may be performed in a different order. Moreover, some operations may be performed in parallel rather than sequentially.
Embodiments of the present invention are not described with reference to any particular programming language. It will be appreciated that a variety of programming languages may be used to implement the teachings of embodiments of the invention as described herein.
In the foregoing specification, embodiments of the invention have been described with reference to specific exemplary embodiments thereof. It will be evident that various modifications may be made thereto without departing from the broader spirit and scope of the invention as set forth in the following claims. The specification and drawings are, accordingly, to be regarded in an illustrative sense rather than a restrictive sense.
