System and method of optimizing matching of leads

Abstract

One disclosed system includes a processor, a network interface in communication with the processor, a data storage device in communication with the processor, and computer-executable instructions stored in computer storage. The instructions are configured, when executed by the processor, to cause computer hardware to perform operations comprising: (1) matching a consumer lead comprising information about a consumer with one or more vendors selected from a set of vendors identified in data records stored on the data storage device; (2) sending, via the network interface, the lead to the matched vendors; (3) receiving a real-time indication of a rejection from one of the matched vendors; (4) matching the lead with a replacement vendor; and (5) sending the lead to the replacement vendor.

Description

BACKGROUND

The invention relates to the field of computer systems. In particular, it relates to a computer system for matching leads with providers of goods or services such as, for example, credit products.

Service providers and vendors, such as banks, credit unions, automobile dealers, and the like, offer loan and credit products to their customers. These products may include automobile loans, home mortgage loans, personal loans, student loans, credit cards, and other such financial products. Those products may often fluctuate over time, so that interest rates, down payment amounts, loan criteria, and other parameters may vary from day to day. Additionally, service providers may offer a variety of products to consumers with different criteria. For example, loans at different interest rates may be offered to consumers with better or worse credit ratings, consumers at different income levels, consumers of different ages or occupations, and so on.

Traditionally, in order to find a loan or credit product, a consumer would shop around at various providers to compare the rates or products that each provider was willing to offer. Additionally, service providers may have used mass marketing techniques to advertise their products to potential new clients. However, such techniques have limited effectiveness, because they tend to flood consumers with information, making the decision-making process difficult and inefficient.

SUMMARY

As a result, what is needed are systems and methods for automatically optimizing the matching of consumers to service providers and vendors, to ensure that interested consumers are matched to service providers offering products with criteria that are met by the interested consumers, and preferably identifying multiple service providers in order to offer the consumer with a choice of service providers. An automated system has the advantage that it can, in real time, retrieve up-to-date product pricing and rate information and, to the extent possible, provide results to the user of the system without significant delay, thus resulting in a desirable user experience.

In one embodiment, a system for matching consumers with vendors includes a processor, a network interface in communication with the processor, a data storage device in communication with the processor, and computer-executable instructions stored in computer storage. The instructions are configured, when executed by the processor, to cause computer hardware to perform operations comprising: (1) matching a consumer lead comprising information about a consumer with one or more vendors selected from a set of vendors identified in data records stored on the data storage device; (2) sending, via the network interface, the lead to the matched vendors; (3) receiving a real-time indication of a rejection from one of the matched vendors; (4) matching the lead with a replacement vendor; and (5) sending the lead to the replacement vendor.

In one embodiment, a method for matching consumers with vendors includes the steps of: (1) using a computer processor to match a consumer lead comprising information about a consumer with one or more vendors selected from a set of vendors identified in data records stored on a data storage device in communication with the computer processor; (2) sending, via a network interface in communication with the computer processor, at least a portion of the lead to the matched vendors; (3) receiving a real-time indication of a rejection from at least one of the matched vendors; (4) using the computer processor to match the lead with at least one replacement vendor; and (5) sending, via the network interface, the lead to the replacement vendor.

This Summary section does not define or limit the invention. Rather, it provides a concise summary of only some embodiments. The inclusion of particular components, features, or method steps in this Summary section does not indicate, suggest, or imply that those components, features, or method steps are required in every embodiment of the invention. Similarly, the description of particular components, features, or method steps in the Detailed Description section does not indicate, suggest, or imply that those components, features, or method steps are required in every embodiment of the invention. The claims define the scope of the invention.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 shows computing hardware and software included in computer systems included in embodiments of the invention.

FIG. 2 shows another view of computing hardware and software included in computer systems included in embodiments of the invention.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart of a method of matching plans to leads, as performed according to embodiments of the invention.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart of a method of managing asynchronous processes, as performed according to embodiments of the invention.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart of a method of selecting plans, as performed according to embodiments of the invention.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart of a method of matching plans to leads in real time, as performed according to embodiments of the invention.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart of a method of matching plans to leads in a background process, as performed according to embodiments of the invention.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart of a fallback method of matching plans to leads, as performed according to embodiments of the invention.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart of a method of matching plans to leads, as performed according to embodiments of the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Various embodiments of the invention will now be described, with reference to the accompanying figures.

An embodiment of a computer system configured to operate embodiments of the invention is depicted in FIG. 1. In one embodiment, the system described herein runs on one or more computing devices 101. Moreover, in some embodiments, the features of the system are available via a fully-hosted application service provider that manages and provides access to the system, for example, via a web interface or other interface. In other embodiments, the system may be available via partially hosted ASPs or other providers. In additional embodiments, the system may be accessed through a broad assortment of interface channels, including XML, fixed format data inquiry, batch or a comprehensive and easy-to-use web browser user interface. In yet further embodiments, the system may be a customer-side installed solution and may be included and/or in direct communication with one or more third party systems.

The system includes one or more software modules 104. In general, the words “module,” “function,” and similar terms, as used herein, refer to logic embodied in hardware or firmware, or to a collection of computer-executable software instructions, possibly having entry and exit points, written in a programming language, such as, for example, Java, C or C++. The computer-executable instructions of a software module are generally stored in computer-readable storage on a tangible medium, such as, for example, a compact disc, a hard disk drive, a flash drive, or the like. The computer-executable instructions define operations that are performed by computer hardware when the instructions are executed by a computer processor. A software module may be compiled and linked into an executable program, installed in a dynamic link library, or may be written in an interpreted programming language such as, for example, BASIC. Perl, or Python. It will be appreciated that software modules may be callable from other modules or from themselves, and/or may be invoked in response to detected events or interrupts. Software instructions may be embedded in firmware, such as an EPROM. It will be further appreciated that hardware modules may be comprised of connected logic units, such as gates and flip-flops, and/or may be comprised of programmable units, such as programmable gate arrays or processors. The modules described herein are preferably implemented as software modules, but may be represented in hardware or firmware. Generally, the modules described herein refer to logical modules that may be combined with other modules or divided into sub-modules despite their physical organization or storage.

In some embodiments, the computing devices 101 include and/or communicate with a database module or data source 108 or 112. The database module or data source may be implemented using one or more databases, such as a relational database, such as Sybase, Oracle, CodeEase and Microsoft® SQL Server as well as other types of databases, such as, for example, a flat file database, an entity-relationship database, and object-oriented database, and/or a record-based database. The database may be operated on the same computing device or devices as other modules 108, or they may be operated on different computing devices 112. In some embodiments, some or all of the databases are operated by an entity different from the entity operating the analysis. The databases may be operated by an independent service provider.

In one embodiment, each of the computing devices are IBM, Macintosh, or Linux/Unix compatible. In another embodiment, the computing devices comprise a server, a laptop computer, a cell phone, a personal digital assistant, a kiosk, an interactive voice response device, a voice response unit, or an audio player, for example. In one embodiment, the computing devices include one or more CPUs 105, which may each include microprocessors. The computing devices may further include one or more memory devices 107, such as random access memory (RAM) for temporary storage of information and read only memory (ROM) for permanent storage of information, and one or more mass storage devices 102, such as hard drives, diskettes, or optical media storage devices. In one embodiment, the modules are in communication via a bus system, such as, for example, a bus system using a Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI), Microchannel, SCSI, Industrial Standard Architecture (ISA) or Extended ISA (EISA) architecture. In some embodiments, components of the computing devices communicate via a network, such as a local area network that may be secured.

The computing devices are generally controlled and coordinated by operating system software, such as the Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Linux, SunOS, Solaris, PalmOS, Blackberry OS, or other compatible operating systems. In Macintosh systems, the operating system may be any available operating system, such as MAC OS X. In other embodiments, the computing devices may be controlled by a proprietary operating system. Conventional operating systems control and schedule computer processes for execution, perform memory management, provide file system, networking, and I/O services, and provide a user interface, such as a graphical user interface (“GUI”), among other things.

The computing devices may include one or more commonly available input/output (I/O) devices and interfaces 106, such as a keyboard, mouse, touchpad, microphone, and printer. Thus, in one embodiment the computing devices may be controlled using the keyboard and mouse input devices, while in another embodiment the user may provide voice commands to the computing devices via a microphone. In one embodiment, the I/O devices and interfaces include one or more display device, such as a monitor, that allows the visual presentation of data to a user. More particularly, a display device provides for the presentation of GUIs, application software data, and multimedia presentations, for example. The computing devices may also include one or more multimedia devices, such as speakers, video cards, graphics accelerators, and microphones, for example.

In one embodiment, the I/O devices and interfaces provide a communication interface to various external devices and the communications medium via wired or wireless communication links. For example, the computing devices may be configured to communicate with the communications medium using any combination of one or more networks 111, including LANs, WANs, or the Internet, for example, via a wired, wireless, or combination of wired and wireless communication links. The communication links thus enable the computing devices to communicate with, among other things, external user computing devices 109 and 110.

An embodiment of a computer system in accordance with one embodiment is shown in FIG. 2. A rematch system 202 includes computing hardware and software configured to perform the methods disclosed herein. The system 202 may include a single processor or multiple processors, and may be entirely contained in a single computing device or distributed among multiple computing devices connected via a network. It will be understood that any of the components of system 202 described herein may be operated within the system 202 or external to the system. It will also be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art that any of the disclosed components may be removed from the system, or other components may be added to it, as are known generally within the art.

In an embodiment, the system 202 includes a rematch engine 203. The rematch engine is configured to perform the rematching methods described in this specification, including, for example, those described with reference to FIG. 3. The rematch engine may be embodied in executable code stored in volatile or non-volatile storage media within the system 202, and it utilizes various other modules included on that system.

In an embodiment, the system 202 includes a web interface 204 configured to serve web pages to users 201 wishing to use the system. The web interface 204 also receives inputs from users and provides those inputs to the rematch engine 203, to be used for the rematching methods. For example, the inputs received from the web interface 204 may be used to generate leads based on personal information provided by users 201. The web interface may be configured to communicate over a public network such as the Internet, or over a private network such as a LAN. In addition or alternatively to web interface 204, embodiments of the invention may include other interfaces for communicating with users 201, such as an email interface, an audio interface, a touch-tone telephone system, or other similar interfaces known to those of ordinary skill in the art. Furthermore, although the web interface or other interfaces may be used to receive personal information from users directly, this need not be the only source of personal information about users. The system 202 may access internal databases or external databases to gather demographic information, credit records, addresses, or other personal information relating to users. This “external” personal information may be gathered, for example, by identifying matching records against personal information provided by the user.

Another interface used by the system 202 for communicating with users in an embodiment is email system 205. This email system receives data from the rematch engine 203 to be sent out to users 201 who connect to the system. In some embodiments, the rematch engine 203 provides the email system 205 with results from performing a loan rematching method, and the email system 205 composes an email based on those results to be sent to the appropriate user. Those of ordinary skill in the art will understand that other methods of communicating those results to users may be employed in addition or alternatively to the email system 205, including, for example, a web-based system, a telephone system, a text messaging system, an instant messaging system, or the like. Additionally, the email system or other communication system may be configured to send out information to users immediately, or it may batch multiple communications and send them out on a periodic basis, such as every few minutes.

An embodiment includes monitoring interface 206, which is configured to monitor the performance and activities of the rematch engine 203. The monitoring interface 206 may record information including requests from users coming in from the web interface 204, outgoing communications through the email system 205, communications with the B2B delivery system 207, communications with databases 208, 209, and/or 210, or other processes or algorithms performed by the rematch engine 203. The monitoring interface may store its results in one or more log files, it may email the results to system administrators, or it may process the monitoring results in other ways known to those of skill in the art.

In an embodiment, the system 202 includes a Business-to-Business (B2B) delivery system configured to transmit data between the rematch engine 203 and various service providers 211. The B2B delivery system 202 communicates via a network interface, which may be the same network interface as used by the web interface 204 and email system 205, or any or all of them may use separate network interfaces. The B2B delivery system 207 may transmit information about leads to service providers 211, who offer various loan or credit products such as auto loans, credit cards, mortgages, or similar products, in which users 201 may be interested. In that respect, the 13213 delivery system 207 may employ specialized protocols to communicate with service providers 211, or it may employ standard network protocols such as HTTP.

In an embodiment, the rematch engine 203 and/or other components of the system 202 may utilize one or more databases. For example, a results database 208 may be used to store the results of the rematch methods performed by the rematch engine 203. Also, a plans database 209 may be used to store information about service providers 211 and various plans and products offered by those service providers. Databases may be internal to the system, or they may be external such as external databases 210, which may be external because they are hosted by a company different from the one operating the rematch system 202, or for other reasons such as efficiency. Any of the databases may be of various types of databases, including a SQL database or other relational database, a flat or hierarchical structure of files, a single flat-file store, a key-value mapping system, or other forms of data storage known to those of ordinary skill in the art.

An embodiment includes plans database 209. This plans database may include information about products offered by service providers 211, the products being, for example, loan offerings, credit cards, mortgages, or similar products. Although this specification generally discusses products being loans such as auto loans, it is contemplated that the products may be other products, such as goods and/or services. In an embodiment, the plans in the plans database 209 include criteria for whether a person qualifies for a particular plan. The criteria may be based on, for example, a person's credit score or credit history, personal information, demographic information, or other information about the individual. A service provider may offer only a single plan or may offer multiple plans which may have different criteria. This is useful, for example, to support different plans for people meeting different criteria, such as people having different credit scores, as a service provider would then be able to offer, for example, auto loans with different rates based on credit scores. Additionally, plans may be associated with a bounty value, that is, an amount that the service provider associated with the plan is willing to pay to an operator of the rematch engine in exchange for the rematch engine providing the service provider with a set of requested personal information about an individual, otherwise known as a lead. It may be the case that the service provider is willing to pay a bounty value if the rematch engine identifies a lead matching the criteria of the plan. The bounty value may be fixed, or it may be adjusted depending on the nature of the lead or on other factors.

Although plans may be stored in a database such as plans database 209, plans need not be stored in a database. In an embodiment, plans are dynamically received from service providers upon a request from the rematch system 202 to the service providers 211. For example, upon receiving a request from a user 201, the rematch engine may transmit some personal information about the user to some or all of the service providers 211. Such “dynamic” plans may only have identifying information stored in the database sufficient to inform the rematch engine that the service provider should be contacted in order to retrieve the full specification of the plans, or may have additional information but still require further data from the service provider before they can be fully considered. One use for dynamic plans, for example, is for plans where the pricing or other factors such as interest rates for the plans are highly volatile. The dynamic plan scheme would allow for the rematch engine to retrieve the most up-to-date pricing or rates for those plans at the time of the user request.

In one embodiment, as part of determining the bounty that each service provider is willing to pay for a lead, the system may transmit some of the information contained in the lead to multiple service providers in order to obtain an instant bid from those service providers. Preferably, in such embodiments, the lead information sent to the service providers includes enough information to allow the service provider to determine the value of the lead to the service provider without providing enough information to the service provider to allow the service provider to contact the consumer associated with the lead. For example, the lead information may include general information about the type of good or service desired by the consumer and information about the consumer, such as income, credit score, and the like, that may assist the service provider in determining the value of the lead, but may not include the name of the consumer or contact information of the consumer. Preferably, each service provider has an automated system, which may include software, for processing the lead information, for generating a bid of what the service provider is willing to pay for the lead, and for transmitting the bid to the matching system as part of an electronic message. The system may then take service provider bids into account in the process of matching the consumer leads to service providers. Such a system for receiving bids may be known as an instant bid or ping-post system.

A method performed by an embodiment is shown in FIG. 3. In an embodiment, the method is performed in real time when a user submits a request to the rematch system, but in other embodiments the method may be performed, for example, during a periodic batch operation.

In accordance with this method, eligible plans are first ranked at step 301. In an embodiment, plans are ranked by total bounty value. The bounty value may be determined based upon information previously submitted by service providers or may be determined based upon an instant bid or ping-post system, as previously described. Other factors may be used to rank plans, however, such as the closeness of the match between the user, the reliability of the associated service provider, the frequency or infrequency of use of the service provider, or other factors, or a combination of factors.

At step 302, the top-ranked plans are selected for processing. In various embodiments, the number of plans selected may be one plan or a fixed number of plans, or plans may be selected based on a threshold value based on the rankings. Although the method of FIG. 3 and other related methods throughout this specification can be understood to refer to processing a single plan at a time, it will be understood by those of skill in the art that multiple plans could be processed in serial or in parallel.

At step 303, leads are sent to service providers associated with the top-ranked plans selected from step 302. In an embodiment, the leads are sent via the B2B delivery system. The leads are generally constructed by the rematch system to include appropriate personal information required by the service providers. As a result, the leads may follow a standard format, or they may vary by each service provider depending on that service provider's requirements. In an embodiment, the lead is formatted using a standard file format such as XML, in order to facilitate interoperability of systems.

In one embodiment, the sending of leads to service providers comprises sending a complete lead to the service providers. As used herein, a complete lead is one that contains sufficient consumer information that a service provider is able to contact the consumer associated with the lead in order to offer to provide the good or service desired by the consumer. Alternatively, the sending of leads to service providers comprises sending a partial lead that includes information to allow the service providers to accept or reject the lead. In such embodiments, the complete lead may be sent to those service providers that accept the lead, and may not be sent to any service providers that reject the lead. Sending the complete lead only to those service providers that accept the lead may advantageously reduce abuses of the system, such as, for example, rejecting a lead but still contacting the consumer in order to offer to provide the good or service desired by the consumer.

At step 304, the system determines whether any service providers have rejected the lead. In one embodiment, the system makes this determination, at least in part, by receiving electronic messages from service providers indicating whether each service provider accepts or rejects the lead. Preferably, each service provider has a lead response module that is configured to determine, upon receipt of the lead by the service provider, whether the lead is acceptable to the service provider. Preferably, a service provider's lead response module performs automated operations, such as checking whether the lead meets internal criteria, to determine whether the lead is acceptable. A service provider may reject a lead for a number of reasons, including, for example, that the lead is a duplicate of a lead that the service provider already has, that the lead matches or fails to match one or more filters, that a threshold number of leads matching a particular profile have already been identified (the lead profile has “capped out”), or some other reason. Preferably, a service provider's lead response module is configured to accept or reject a lead nearly instantaneously, such that lead rejections can be received by the system sufficiently quickly so that the system can match the lead with another service provider that will accept the lead quickly enough to inform the user which service providers the user has been matched with substantially without delay and without interruption to the user's browsing session. In addition, it is preferable that the re-matching process is completed without the user knowing or suspecting that a lead has been rejected by a service provider.

Generally, a service provider can accept a lead or reject it, and the service provider may or may not provide a reason for rejecting the lead. Preferably, the service provider accepts or rejects the lead by sending an electronic message to the system that indicates acceptance or rejection. If a lead is rejected, the rejection message may include a rejection code that indicates a reason for the rejection, but such a code is not required. Alternatively or additionally, the system may be designed to tolerate errors on the service provider's side that may cause the system to not receive any response from the service provider. In one embodiment, the system is configured with a timeout, and if a response is not received before the timeout, then the service provider is treated as having provided no response. In one embodiment, non-responses are treated as rejections. Alternatively, non-responses may be treated as acceptances. Some embodiments of the system may be equipped to process a response that is received after a timeout, such as, for example, by sending a lead to an additional matched service provider when the system receives an acceptance from that service provider after the timeout period, or performing a supplemental match of another service provider when the system receives a rejection from a matched service provider after the timeout period. It will be appreciated, however, that some embodiments may not process responses received after a timeout period because such processing may be disruptive. For example, in some cases it is desirable to notify the user of all of the matched service providers during the user's live session, and a user may have already terminated his or her live session when a response is belatedly received by the system. Thus, while it is advantageous in some embodiments to provide for processing of delayed responses, it is not a requirement of every embodiment.

If, at step 304, the service providers accept the lead, then the method proceeds to step 305, where a response is prepared for the user. The response, in this case, may indicate that the various plans matched, and it may contain information about the service providers and the plans to which the user was matched. The response may also provide contact information for the service providers. The response may be provided by a variety of communication media. In one embodiment, the response is provided by displaying a web page to the user during the user's live session. Advantageously, such a response provides immediate information to the user regarding which service providers have been matched with the user. However, in other embodiments in which such immediate response is not as important, the response may be provided by email or other means. Thus, the user can be provided with real-time feedback where appropriate, but is not constrained to wait for a web page to load in the case that the method takes longer than desirable to execute.

If, on the other hand, one or more of the service providers reject the lead or otherwise do not accept it at step 304, the system proceeds to determine if there are further plans to consider, at step 306. In general, these would be plans that fell lower in the rankings than the originally selected plans. However, in some embodiments it is possible for multiple plans to have the same rank and, in such embodiments, the newly selected plans may have the same rank as at least one of the originally selected plans. In cases in which multiple plans have the same rank, the system may break ties by random selection or by another method.

If there are no further plans to consider, then the method proceeds to step 305, where a response is prepared for the user. In this case, if no plans were matched to the user, the user is provided with appropriate information. In an embodiment, the user is provided with default information relating to the requested type of product that the user was seeking. For example, if the user was looking for an auto loan but did not match any auto loans, the user may be provided with a general advertisement for auto loans. Of course, this default information need not be displayed only when no plans were matched to the user; instead, the default information may be displayed at any appropriate time.

If there are further plans to consider at step 306, then the method proceeds to select the next most highly ranked plans, at step 307. In an embodiment, only a sufficient number of plans are selected to fill in the number of plans that were rejected at step 304. In this way, the number of matched plans will not exceed a certain maximum number. Once those alternate plans are selected, the method returns to step 303 to perform rematching on those plans. Thus, in an embodiment, the matching process continues until a sufficient number of plans are matched to the user or the list of plans is exhausted. In other embodiments, other conditions may be used to determine when to terminate the rematching process, including, for example, a timeout.

Because the rematching process may iterate multiple times, a response to the user may be prepared optionally either only once after the process completes, or at various times during the process. For example, the user may be notified once the first iteration of the rematching process completes and then receive updates whenever additional products are matched to the user.

In preferred embodiments, the system provides users with real-time responses. However, in some circumstances, real-time responses may not be provided because more time may be needed to receive responses from the service providers. For example, if a user is visiting the rematch system via a web interface, the user may not be willing to wait for a long period of time to receive a response. However, the service providers may require longer than the user is willing to wait, to respond to the rematch system. In order to solve this problem, a method such as the one shown in FIG. 4 may be employed in certain embodiments.

In accordance with the method of FIG. 4, a rematch method or algorithm is initiated in an asynchronous manner, at step 401. For example, the rematch method may be initiated in a separate thread or run on a separate processor or computer system. Alternately, the rematch process may be executed on a single thread, but an interrupt may be provided for on the processor on which the process is executing, to provide an asynchronous signal during that process's execution.

At step 402, a computer processor waits for the earlier of the completion of the rematch process or the expiration of a timeout period. The timeout period expiration may be detected by a thread running independently on the rematch system, or it may be detected based on a processor interrupt. The method next determines, at step 403, whether the rematch process completed before the timeout period expired. If the rematch process did complete, then a web page may be transmitted to the user confirming the results of the rematch process, at step 404. Additionally, at step 405, a confirmation email with the match results may be transmitted to the user. The contents of this email and web page may depend on the results of the rematch process.

If, at step 403, it is determined that the rematch process did not complete before the timeout period expired, then at step 406, a processing page is transmitted to the user. The processing page may be used to indicate that the rematch process is still ongoing, and it may include partial results. In this way, regardless of whether the rematch process completes before the timeout period, the user may be sent a real-time notification that their request is being processed. After the processing web page is displayed, a confirmation email may be sent to the user at step 405 indicating the status and/or results of the rematch process. The email may be sent after the entire rematch process completes, or one or more emails may be sent to keep the user apprised as to the status of the request.

In an alternate embodiment, the real-time processing described above may be performed by installing code throughout the rematch engine. The installed code would be configured to detect, when it is executed, whether a timeout period has expired. If the timeout period has expired when that code is run, then the code may provide similar notifications to the user, and it may then cause the rematch engine to branch to executing a different portion of instructions to complete the execution of the rematching process. In this way, the rematching engine is also not prematurely terminated, but the user is able to receive a real-time response to the submitted request.

A method of identifying plans to be used for some embodiments of the rematching process is shown in FIG. 5. In accordance with this method, plans are retrieved from a data store, at step 501. Next, at step 502, the plans are pre-filtered. The pre-filtering step may involve, for example, comparing any criteria included in each plan with personal information received from a user via a web or other interface. Other criteria may be used for pre-filtering, such as information about the service provider associated with the plan; criteria requested by the user such as a requested type of plan, location of the service provider, or other such criteria; and other information. The result of pre-filtering in step 502 is a “mix” of plans to be considered with respect for the user initiating the request.

At step 503, the mix of plans is inspected to determine if any of those plans are dynamic plans. As explained previously, the information for a dynamic plan is retrieved from a service provider. If there are no dynamic plans in the mix, then the list of plans may be directly returned to the rematch engine, at step 504. However, if there are dynamic plans to be considered, then the method proceeds to step 506, in which the corresponding service providers are pinged for dynamic plan parameters. This ping process may be performed over the B2B delivery system, using a protocol agreed upon between the rematch system and the service provider. In response, the dynamic plan parameters are sent back to the rematch system, at step 507. Once the rematch system receives those parameters, it adds the dynamic plans to the mix of plans, and the full set of plans can be returned at step 504. The set of selected plans is then used to perform matching at step 505, in accordance with the various methods described herein, such as with regard to FIG. 3.

FIGS. 6-8 show various embodiments that elaborate upon the general method described above with regard to FIG. 3 of rematching leads to service providers. FIG. 6 depicts the initial method performed in an embodiment, when a user request is received. At step 601, the matching engine selects plans, according to a method such as that described with respect to FIG. 5. At step 602, the selected plans are analyzed. If no plans are selected, then the method proceeds to step 603, where a default web page is displayed to the user. As described previously, this default web page may contain general information or advertisements relating to the type of product that the user was seeking, such as a general auto loan advertisement. Alternatively, at step 603, a fallback matching algorithm may be used, such as that described with regard to FIG. 8.

If some or all of the matched plans are indicated as “batched plans,” then the matching engine understands this to mean the service provider has requested that those plans are to be sent in batches at regular time intervals. In this case, the method may proceed to step 604, where leads are created for the selected plans. The leads include personal information about the requesting user, based on information received about the user from either the user directly or other external or internal data sources. Once the leads are prepared, then they may be batched and queued for delivery at step 605. They may be batched with other leads to be sent to the same service provider, in order to provide for compact network transactions. The delivery may occur at specified time intervals, and may be performed in accordance with an automated scheduling system such as a cron daemon. Additionally, once this is done, the user may be notified by email or web page response of the resulting activity.

If the determination at step 602 indicates that some or all of the plans are to have leads delivered in real time, then the system proceeds to step 606 for real-time delivery of leads. The rematch engine determines the best plan, based on total bounty value of that plan or other factors, as described previously. It then creates a lead based on information about the user, and at step 607, the lead is transmitted to the appropriate service provider via the B2B delivery system or other means. The system then awaits a response from the service provider at step 608, and it makes a determination based on the response received.

If the lead is successfully matched, then the method proceeds to step 609 and a match web page may be displayed. Additional information may be communicated to the user by email. If the service provider rejects the lead or an error such as a timeout is otherwise detected, then the method may proceed to step 610, where a processing web page is transmitted to the user, as described previously. Then, at step 611, control is transferred to an asynchronous or background process, such as that described in FIG. 7. Alternatively, instead of proceeding directly to step 610, the method may return to step 606 and apply the next best plan according to total bounty value or other criteria. It is noted that this method may optionally be used in conjunction with a timeout method such as the one described with reference to FIG. 4, to transfer control to an asynchronous process after an appropriate amount of time has elapsed.

If a rematching process is unable to complete prior to a specified timeout, then in an embodiment, an asynchronous or background process may be performed such as that shown in FIG. 7. An asynchronous process would be run separately from the web request, so that the response to the web request would not be delayed from transmission to the user. The asynchronous process may be employed if the methods described above, such as those described with respect to FIGS. 5-6, do not complete in time; in those cases, this method is entered at the appropriate place corresponding to where the other method was executing when the timeout occurred.

At step 701, the list of selected plans is received. At step 702, the selected plans are analyzed. If no plans are selected, then a fallback matching algorithm is employed, at step 703. One such fallback algorithm is described with respect to FIG. 8. In the alternative, a default message such as an email may be sent to the requesting user. The default email, as described above, may include default advertisements or information.

If some or all of the selected plans are batch plans, then in a manner analogous to that described above, leads are created at step 704 and the leads are batched for delivery at step 705. If some of the plans are indicated to have leads delivered in real time, then the method proceeds to step 704, where the best plan is selected and a lead is generated for that plan. At step 705, the created lead is transmitted via the B2B delivery system to the appropriate service provider. At step 706, the system awaits a response from the service provider. If the lead is successfully matched, then an order confirmation email (OCE) or other communication is sent to the user, indicating that the selected plan matched.

It on the other hand, the service provider rejects the lead or otherwise causes an error, then the method proceeds to step 708. At this step, the service provider and all plans associated with that service provider may be removed from the mix of potential plans. This may be done on the assumption that if one lead for a service provider did not match, then other leads are likely not to match for the same service provider. This may also be the case if the service provider is sent the lead not in conjunction with any particular plan, but the service provider is sent the lead generally to determine if it has any matching plan. In alternate embodiments, only the non-matching plan is removed, but other plans from the same service provider are retained. It will be understood that, in other methods and processes described throughout this specification, the failure of a lead to match for a given service provider may result in the rematch engine not considering other plans for that same service provider.

After the appropriate plans are removed from the mix in step 708, the method may return to step 701 or step 704 to start the rematch process and attempt to match the next best lead. Because this process is asynchronous, it may continue on for as long as necessary, if that is desirable, until a sufficient number of leads are matched or until the list of selected plans is exhausted. Other considerations, such as the need to conserve network or processor resources, may be reason in some embodiments not to allow the rematch process to continue on until full completion.

If no plans are selected for consideration by the rematch engine, then some embodiments may employ a fallback matching procedure such as that described in FIG. 8. According to this procedure, a best fixed price plan is first identified at step 801. A fixed price plan is a non-dynamic plan; that is, it is a product for which the parameters do not need to be retrieved from a service provider. The determination of which fixed price plan is best may be made based on a variety of factors, such as total bounty value, closeness of match with the requesting user, characteristics of the service provider, and so on. Once the best fixed price plan is selected at step 802, then a lead status for a lead generated for the user can be updated based on this selected fixed-price plan at step 803, and the lead can be batched and queued for delivery at step 804.

If no best fixed price plan exists, then the method proceeds to identify the best dynamic plan, at step 805. The dynamic plan may be selected according to criteria as described above. If a best dynamic plan is identified, then the best dynamic plan is selected at step 806, and the method proceeds to step 803 to have the lead status updated and then to step 804 to have the lead batched and queued for delivery. On the other hand, if no best dynamic plan is identified, then the method concludes with no match, at step 807. At that point, the method may take no further actions, or the user may be notified that no match could be found. The user notification may be sent based on whether a previous notification was already sent to the user, in order to avoid sending duplicate or redundant messages.

In this disclosure, the use of the phrase “service provider” should not be interpreted strictly to suggest that the systems and methods disclosed herein cannot be used to match consumers with vendors of goods, as opposed to services. Rather, it will be understood by a skilled artisan that the systems and methods disclosed herein can match consumers with vendors of goods, services, or both. Thus, the phrase “service provider” herein is used interchangeably with the term “vendor,” and should be interpreted broadly to include any vendor that sells (or rents) goods, provides a service, or both.

In an embodiment, a rematch method is performed as shown in FIG. 9. This method may be performed on a rematch engine as part of a rematch system. At step 901, a lead is matched with one or more vendors. The lead is generated based on information received about a particular individual. The information received may originate from an online interface, or it may come from other sources such as third-party data sources, external or internal databases, or the like. The lead, as described elsewhere in this specification, includes personal information of interest to the vendors in determining whether or not to offer a particular loan or credit product to the particular individual. In some embodiments, the lead may be matched to multiple vendors, in order to take advantage of parallel processing; in other embodiments only one vendor is matched. The vendors may be matched based on various criteria described throughout this specification, including, for example, a total bounty value associated with the particular vendor or with a plan provided by that particular vendor, or based on other criteria.

Next, at step 902, the generated lead is sent to the vendors to which the lead was matched. The lead may be sent using a B2B delivery system over a network, to be received at the vendors' server or other computer. This allows the vendor's server to perform additional processing to determine how to handle the lead. In an embodiment, the vendor's server is configured to respond to the lead in an efficient manner, so that the response is received within a certain period of time to allow for real-time delivery of leads on the rematch engine's end. However, the processing done on the vendor's server may be out of the control of the rematch engine or the operator of the rematch system, so it may not always be the case that the vendor's server may be configured to provide a response within a certain amount of time.

At step 903, a real-time rejection is received from a vendor. The rejection may be indicated in a status code sent in accordance with a protocol used by the B2B delivery system. Alternately, the vendor may indicate an error in processing the lead, or it may fail to respond, causing the rematch engine to determine that a timeout has occurred. The vendor may include a reason or explanation for why it rejected the lead. In some embodiments, the system may use the reason for rejection to improve further matching, such as by removing other selected plans or vendors that are likely or certain to reject the lead for the same or similar reasons.

At step 904, a replacement vendor is identified in response to the rejection being received. It need not be the case that every vendor to which the lead was sent during step 902 reject the lead before step 904 is performed; rather, a replacement vendor may be identified if one or more of the vendors reject the lead, even while other vendors accept it. This allows for a full set of vendors to be matched to the lead, thus ensuring a high bounty return to the operator of the rematch engine. The replacement vendor may be identified based on various criteria described previously, such as a total bounty value associated with a plan for that vendor. At step 905, the lead is sent to the replacement vendor. In an embodiment, the lead is sent using the B2B delivery system as described previously.

Although particular embodiments have been described generally and in detail throughout this specification, it is not intended that the invention be limited to the particular embodiments described herein. Those of ordinary skill in the art will understand that modifications may be made to any part or the whole of the disclosed embodiments, and that elements of the embodiments may be combined or removed within the spirit of the invention. Accordingly, the invention should not be construed as limited by the foregoing disclosure, but rather should be understood as having the scope specified by the claims that follow.

Claims

1. A privacy protection lead matching method, the method comprising: initiating a consumer browsing session on a first consumer device, and during the consumer browsing session:providing, via a display screen on the first consumer device, an electronic interactive user interface configured to prompt a first consumer for lead information, wherein the lead information is based at least partly on information about the first consumer and is stored on one or more data storage devices;receiving, via a network interface lead information comprising a request from the first consumer for a matching of the first consumer with one or more vendors, wherein the request does not specify a particular vendor with whom to match the first consumer, wherein the network interface is configured to communicate with: a plurality of consumers comprising a first consumer device associated with a first consumer,a plurality of vendors comprising a first vendor device associated with a first vendor and a second vendor device associated with a second vendor, anda first third-party device associated with a third-party database;obtaining, via the network interface and from a first third-party device associated with a third-party database, supplemental data associated with the first consumer;generating, via one or more hardware computer processors, a first consumer lead profile comprising at least a portion of the lead information and at least a portion of the supplemental data, wherein the first consumer lead profile is associated with the first consumer;determining, via the one or more hardware computer processors, a vendor ranking score for each vendor in the vendor list;matching, via the one or more hardware computer processors, the first consumer lead profile with one or more vendors selected from the vendor list, wherein the matching of the first consumer lead profile with the one or more vendors is based, at least in part, on the vendor ranking score;updating, via the one or more hardware computer processors, the vendor ranking scores based at least partly on the determined matches such that matched vendors have a vendor ranking score at least as high as non-matched vendors;generating, via the one or more hardware computer processors, a private lead profile associated with the first consumer lead profile;sending, via a network interface, the private lead profile to a first vendor device associated with a first vendor, wherein the private lead profile comprises enough information from the first consumer lead profile so that the first vendor can accept or reject the lead but cannot contact the first consumer associated with the lead;receiving, via the network interface, an electronic message from the first vendor that includes an indication of a rejection of the lead;matching, via the one or more hardware computer processors the lead with a second vendor, wherein matching of the lead with the second vendor is based, at least in part, on the vendor ranking score and wherein the second vendor has a vendor ranking score at least as high as non-matched vendors;sending, via the network interface, an electronic message from the second vendor that includes an indication of an acceptance of the lead; andnotifying, via a display screen on the first consumer device on the electronic interactive user interface, the first consumer of the matched vendors excluding any vendors that rejected the lead,wherein the notification occurs during the consumer browsing session.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein matching the lead with one or more vendors comprises calculating bounty values for each of the vendors of the one or more vendors, the bounty values being calculated based on the information about the consumer.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein matching the lead with a second vendor comprises selecting the second vendor from the vendor list, based at least in part on the received indication of the rejection.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein indication of rejection is received from fewer than all of the matched vendors.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising sending information to the first consumer device based on responses received from the one or more vendors, wherein the information sent to the first consumer device is based at least in part on the amount of time that has elapsed in performing the method.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein matching the lead with one or more vendors comprises identifying a dynamic plan associated with one of the vendors and retrieving information relating to the dynamic plan from an external server, the information relating to the dynamic plan comprising pricing information.

7. A privacy protection lead matching system, the system comprising: a network interface configured to communicate with: a plurality of consumers comprising a first consumer device associated with a first consumer;a plurality of vendors comprising a first vendor device associated with a first vendor and a second vendor device associated with a second vendor; anda first third-party device associated with a third-party database;one or more data storage devices configured to store: consumer lead information;a vendor list comprising one or more vendors;a plurality of computer-executable instructions;one or more hardware computer processors, in communication with the one or more data storage devices, when executing the plurality of computer executable instructions, configured to: initiate a consumer browsing session on the first consumer device, and during the consumer browsing session: provide, via a display screen on the first consumer device, an electronic interactive user interface configured to prompt the first consumer for lead information, wherein the lead information is based at least partly on information about the first consumer and is stored on the one or more data storage devices;receive, via the network interface, lead information comprising a request from the first consumer, for matching the first consumer with one or more vendors, wherein the request does not specify a particular vendor with whom to match to the first consumer;obtain, via the network interface and from the first third-party device, supplemental data associated with the first consumer;generate, via the one or more hardware computer processors, a first consumer lead profile comprising at least a portion of the lead information and at least a portion of the supplemental data, wherein the first consumer lead profile is associated with the first consumer;determine, via the one or more hardware computer processors, a vendor ranking score for each vendor in the vendor list;match, via the one or more hardware computer processors, the first consumer lead profile with one or more vendors selected from the vendor list, wherein the matching of the first consumer lead profile with the one or more vendors is based, at least in part, on the vendor ranking score;update, via the one or more hardware computer processors, the vendor ranking scores based at least partly on the determined matches such that matched vendors have a vendor ranking score at least as high as non-matched vendors;generate, via the one or more hardware computer processors, a private lead profile associated with the first consumer lead profile;send, via the network interface, the private lead profile to a first vendor device associated with a first vendor, wherein the private lead profile comprises enough information from the first consumer lead profile so that the first vendor can accept or reject the lead but cannot contact the first consumer associated with the lead;receive, via the network interface, an electronic message from the first vendor that includes an indication of a rejection of the lead;match, via the one or more hardware computer processors, the lead with a second vendor, wherein matching of the lead with the second vendor is based, at least in part, on the vendor ranking score, and wherein the second vendor has a vendor ranking score at least as high as non-matched vendors;send, via the network interface, the private lead profile to the second vendor;receive, via the network interface, an electronic message from the second vendor that includes an indication of an acceptance of the lead; andnotify, via a display screen on the first consumer device on the electronic interactive user interface, the first consumer of the matched vendors, excluding any vendors that rejected the lead,wherein the notification occurs during the consumer browsing session.

8. The computer system of claim 7, wherein the one or more hardware computer processors are further configured to: transmit, via the network interface, data relating to one or more vendors that indicate acceptance of a lead, the transmitted data being based at least in part upon a determination of whether a timeout expired during the performance of the rematch method.

9. The computer system of claim 7, wherein the vendor list comprises records of a plurality of plans, each plan comprising one or more matching criteria.

10. The computer system of claim 9, wherein each plan further comprises a bounty value.

11. The computer system of claim 9, wherein at least a portion of the plurality of plans are dynamic plans, each dynamic plan comprising identifying information associated with an external service provider, wherein the processor is further configured to contact the external service provider associated with one of the dynamic plans and retrieve, from the external service provider, real-time pricing information associated with the dynamic plan.

12. The computer system of claim 7, wherein matching the first consumer lead profile with one or more vendors comprises determining bounty values associated with each of the vendors, the bounty values being determined based at least in part on the consumer lead information, and selecting the one or more vendors based on the determined bounty values.

13. The computer system of claim 7, wherein the vendor list comprises information relating to matching criteria associated with products offered by the vendor list, and wherein matching the consumer lead with one or more vendors comprises comparing the consumer lead information with matching criteria associated with the offered products.

14. A privacy protection lead matching method, the method comprising: initiating a consumer browsing session on a first consumer device, and during the consumer browsing session:providing, via a display screen on the first consumer device, an electronic interactive user interface configured to prompt a first consumer for lead information, wherein the lead information is based at least partly on information about the first consumer and is stored on one or more data storage devices;receiving, via a network interface, lead information comprising a request from the first consumer, for a matching of the first consumer with one or more vendors, wherein the request does not specify a particular vendor with whom to match the first consumer, wherein the network interface is configured to communicate with: a plurality of consumers comprising a first consumer device associated with a first consumer,a plurality of vendors comprising a first vendor device associated with a first vendor and a second vendor device associated with a second vendor, anda first third-party device associated with a third-party database;obtaining, via the network interface and from a first third-party device associated with a third-party database, supplemental data associated with the first consumer;generate, via one or more hardware computer processors, a first consumer lead profile comprising at least a portion of the lead information and at least a portion of the supplemental data, wherein the first consumer lead profile is associated with the first consumer;determining, via the one or more hardware computer processors, a vendor ranking score for each vendor in the vendor list;matching, via the one or more hardware computer processors, the first consumer lead profile with one or more vendors selected from the vendor list, wherein the matching of the first consumer lead profile with the one or more vendors is based, at least in part, on the vendor ranking score;updating, via the one or more hardware computer processors, the vendor ranking scores based at least partly on the determined matches such that matched vendors have a vendor ranking score at least as high as non-matched vendors;generating, via the one or more hardware computer processors, a private lead profile associated with the first consumer lead profile;sending, via a network interface, the private lead profile to a first vendor device associated with a first vendor, wherein the private lead profile comprises enough information from the first consumer lead profile so that the first vendor can accept or reject the lead but cannot contact the first consumer associated with the lead;receiving, via the network interface, an electronic message from the first vendor that includes an indication of a rejection of the lead;matching, via the one or more hardware computer processors, the lead with a second vendor, wherein matching of the lead with the second vendor is based, at least in part, on the vendor ranking score, and wherein the second vendor has a vendor ranking score at least as high as non-matched vendors;sending, via the network interface, an electronic message from the second vendor that includes an indication of an acceptance of the lead; andnotifying, via a display screen on the first consumer device on the electronic interactive user interface, the first consumer of the matched vendors, excluding any vendors that rejected the lead,wherein the notification occurs during the consumer browsing session.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein matching the lead with one or more vendors comprises calculating bounty values for each of the vendors of the one or more vendors, the bounty values being calculated based on the information about the consumer.

16. The method of claim 14, wherein matching the lead with a second vendor comprises selecting the second vendor from the vendor list, based at least in part on the received indication of the rejection.

17. The method of claim 14, wherein indication of rejection is received from fewer than all of the matched vendors.

18. The method of claim 14, further comprising sending information to the first consumer device based on responses received from the one or more vendors, wherein the information sent to the first consumer device is based at least in part on the amount of time that has elapsed in performing the method.

19. The method of claim 14, wherein matching the lead with one or more vendors comprises identifying a dynamic plan associated with one of the vendors and retrieving information relating to the dynamic plan from an external server, the information relating to the dynamic plan comprising pricing information.