SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR REAL-TIME UPDATING SERVICE PROVIDER RATINGS
Service providers are evaluated and rated according to criteria that includes customer satisfaction with the services provided by the service provider. If the service provider meets and/or exceeds certain predetermined criteria, the service provider is certified, and a list of certified companies together with a satisfaction rating, can be posted on an website maintained by the rating company for access by the consuming public. A member using the service of a certified company, may register his/her credit card with the Rating Company. When the service is rendered, and paid for by the registered credit card, the payment is detected to trigger the sending of Internet e-mail to the consumer to solicit information as to the consumer's satisfaction with the service. A response to the Internet e-mail by the Rating Company is used to update on a real-time basis the customer satisfaction of the service provider that provided the service.
This application is a continuation application of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/458,381 entitled “System and Method for Real-Time Updating Service Provider Ratings,” filed Jun. 11, 2003 (now U.S. Pat. No. 7,720,705), which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/487,963 entitled “System and Method for Real-Time Updating Service Provider Ratings,” filed Jan. 18, 2000 (now abandoned), both of which are incorporated herein by reference in their entireties.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTIONThe present invention relates generally to a rating system that for gathering consumer feedback in order to rate businesses according to predetermined criteria. The ratings information developed thereby is made available to members of the consuming public to allow them to make a selection of a local business based upon the customer satisfaction experiences of others. More particularly, the invention relates to a method, and a system for implementing that method, for updating the ratings on a real-time or near real-time basis, based on specific, verified transactions between consumers and businesses.
When searching for a local service (i.e., anything from dentistry to window replacement to legal advice), the consuming public is often faced with a daunting array of choices. It is believed that approximately $2 trillion is spent annually with six million or so service companies now doing business in America. Thus, searching through the available services to find that one that best satisfies one's needs and expectations is not an easy task. One solution is to use the familiar “Yellow Pages” for a list of unselective self-promotions of various businesses and service providers. A better approach would be the recommendation of a friend or acquaintance, but this provides only a small sampling of satisfied (or not so satisfied) customers of the business in question.
Another alternative has been to turn to those who make available evaluations and surveys through magazines, ranking various businesses and services according to predetermined criteria. One such evaluation system provides a rating scheme in which a satisfaction value is obtained through a sampling of a business' customers. Coupled with the satisfaction value so developed from the sampling is and investigation that checks to ensure that the business in question has proper and appropriate “documentation” (i.e., licenses, insurance, and the like). Those businesses meeting a predetermined criteria of customer satisfaction and proper documentation are “certified,” and lists of the certified companies are then made available to the consuming public, either in hard copy (e.g., a magazine) or via a Web page (see, e.g., http://valuestar.com). In addition, the certified businesses are subjected to annual follow-up checks to ensure that they still meet the criteria necessary for retention of the certification. Those who have let their customer satisfaction slip below a certain level are removed.
However, the time-lapse between the annual follow-up checks of a certified business can present a problem. Businesses previously certified may become inattentive or otherwise not perform up to an expected level, thereby letting its customer satisfaction drop. Until the business is reevaluated it is still identified as being certified, keeping the customer satisfaction value it obtained prior to its slide, thereby misleading consumers.
Other ratings systems exist whereby consumers can register their opinions about particular service businesses over the Internet. Unfortunately, these systems allow consumers to volunteer ratings for businesses not recently, or indeed never, used by the particular consumer. Still other electronic ratings systems are tied to specific “e-commerce” transactions over the Internet. However, most local businesses reside in the “bricks and mortar” world. Accordingly, a system for tracking e-commerce transactions cannot possibly offer a statistically significant rating that is tied to verifiable transactions between consumers and businesses. Thus, there is need for updating a real time ratings system, particularly one that is based on specific, verified transactions local to the consumers.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTIONThe present invention is a method for updating business ratings provided by an on-line rating service on a real-time, or near real-time, basis. Thereby, a consumer using the on-line consumer guide to look for a service can be relatively sure that the customer rating value of the service rendered by a service provider business in question is as current as possible.
Broadly, the invention involves identifying a transaction between a customer and service provider soon after the transaction is consummated and paid for, and sending the customer a communication that solicits the customer's satisfaction of the service provided through the transaction. One embodiment of the invention uses a communication medium, including a conventional Internet connection, to communicatively interconnect the customer, the service provider business, the Rating Company and a Financial Service Processor (e.g., bank or credit card processing company). Using the Internet connection, the customer registers a financial services account number (e.g., a credit card number or a checking account number) with the Rating Company. A database containing this customer's financial services account number together with those of other similarly registered customers or buyers is forwarded to and stored by the Financial Service Processor. The Rating Company also supplies the Financial Service Processor with the merchant numbers of all the service providers certified by it—either by inclusion in the database containing customer financial services account numbers, or in a separate database. Then when a register customer makes a purchase of a service from a certified service provider, and pays for that service with a credit card or check or other electronic payment means tied to a financial services account number previously registered with the Rating Company, that purchase will be detected at the Financial Service Processor. The Financial Service Processor notifies the Rating Company of the purchase. This notification will trigger the transmission of an email to the customer with a simple electronic form that asks for information concerning the customer's satisfaction of the service received. Upon receipt of the filled-out form, the Rating Company updates the database containing the information about the business.
In another embodiment of the invention, the Rating Company may contract with particular Financial Service Processors such as a bank or credit card company to register all its customer checking or credit card accounts, and supply the account numbers of the customers to the Rating Company. The Rating Company may then supply the Financial Service Processor with flyers to send to its customers, notifying them of registration and of the rewards (e.g., frequent flyer miles) of using companies certified by the Rating Company. The customer, should he/she choose to reply to the flyer, will supply the same information as described above, i.e., a financial services account number of one type or another (e/g/, credit card number), and email address.
A number of advantages are achieved by the present invention. The invention retrieves the satisfaction of a customer while the recollection of the service provided is still fresh in the customer's mind. Also, using the recollection to update the satisfaction “quotient” of a business provides a realistic, real-time rating of the business.
These and other advantages and aspects of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in this art upon a reading of the following description of the invention, which should be taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.
The particular consumer guide to which the present invention is directed is in both a magazine and on-line form. It is the on-line form that the invention finds particular use. The assignee of the present invention is a rating company that rates service provider businesses based upon: (1) a check of the legal and financial status of the service provider; (2) checks to verify that the service provider carries the necessary state licenses for the services it offers; (3) a check to verify the service provider's certificates of insurance; and (4) a survey of a sampling of the service provider's customers to determine how satisfying the customers found the services were, to obtain therefrom a customer satisfaction rating. If these checks and verifications reach and/or exceed a predetermined standard, the service provider is “certified,” and put into a list of similarly certified service providers. The list of certified service providers is then made available to the consuming public.
The on-line version of the list, accessible via a searchable Internet Web site (with the consumer using proper Internet connection equipment, such as is illustrated in
Assume that a consumer is looking to hire a catering service for a planned party or other function. The consumer logs onto the Rating Company's on-line consumer guide Internet Web site, and performs a search. The search delivers a list of several catering services in the consumer's geographical area that meet the consumer's needs, ranked by the ratings that those caterers had received from previous consumers. The consumer can select one or more of them for more information, being ultimately directed to a Web page that provides pertinent information about the business.
Referring now to
As used herein, a Financial Service Processor (FSP) is a financial payment service of one type or another. For example, an FSP may be a bank with which the service provider does business, or with which a customer has a checking account, or it may be a credit card processing company. Alternatively, it may be an on-line payment service, or it may be a check verification service. As will be seen, any of these services will operate with the present invention.
Continuing with
There need not be a communicative interconnection between the Service Provider node 14 and the Rating Company node 16 or Consumer nodes 12 for application of the present invention. It is preferable, however to have a communicative connection between the Service Provider node 14 and the FSP node 18. This latter connection is preferably by a dedicated line or other secure connection for data transfer involving transactions consummated by the Service Provider Node and consumers (i.e., the business at the node). Similarly, the communicative connection between the Rating Company node 16 and the FSP node 18 is preferably a secure line of one sort or another.
Thus, the communicative network 22 symbolizes an aggregate of communicative interconnections commonly used in today's commerce and as may exist or be available between the nodes 12-18.
As
Referring now to
The consumer node 12j could be a conventional television set with a WebTV connection rather that the PC system shown in
The Rating Company node 16 will make available to the consuming public, via its Internet Web site, the identification and a relative rating of the various service providers it has evaluated—based upon on information gathered by the Rating Company. Such information may include a listing of those service providers found to have met and/or exceeded predetermined criteria set by the Rating Company, including a customer satisfaction value indicative of the satisfaction of those consumers who have purchased or have been provided with the services rendered by the service provider. A real-time updating of the customer satisfaction value of the service provider is an object of the present invention according to the steps outlined in the flow diagram illustrated in
The information provided by the consumer to the Rating Company is placed in the database 16a maintained by the Rating Company node 16. The list of service providers certified by the Rating Company will also be in the database 16a, together with the merchant number(s) of each certified service provider, or the list may have previously been sent to the FSP node separately for storage in the database 18a. And, step 54 sees the Rating Company node 16 forwarding certain portions of the information provided by the consumer, such as the consumer's credit card number or bank account number to the FSP node and placed in the database 18a. This will allow the FSP to correlate certified service providers (by the associated merchant number(s)) from whom services have been purchased with credit cards or checks or on-line payments drawn on checking accounts that have been registered with the Rating Company node 16.
At step 58, a transaction is consummated between a consumer and one of the service providers certified by the Rating Company involving payment with the credit card whose number was previously registered with the Rating Company node 16. The credit card transaction data is transmitted, in step 60, and via the communicative network 22 (e.g., via a dedicated line), to the FSP node 18 for payment. The FSP node will search its database 18, for a credit card number that matches that used for the transaction with the particular (certified) service provider. This search will detect the credit card number previously registered by the consumer in step 52. It will also detect that the transaction occurred with a certified service provider by the merchant number associated with the information that was conveyed to the FSP.
Having detected use of a registered credit card or check or on-line payment tied to a registered bank account for a transaction with a certified company, the FSP node 18 will electronically notify the Rating Company node 16, providing the Rating Company with an identification of the registered consumer's credit card number or bank account number (step 62), the merchant number associated with the service provider involved in the transaction, the date of the transaction, and the amount of payment. This notification will in turn, prompt the Rating Company node 16 to conduct a search of its database 16, for information related to the credit card number or bank account number, and find the information previously provided by the consumer, including the consumer's e-mail address. This, at step 64, will prompt the sending of a form email by the Rating Company node 16 to the consumer node 12j. The email from the Rating Company node could include a form similar to that shown in
Preferably, however, the form would be much simpler than that illustrated in
-
- 1. On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being very dissatisfied and 10 being very satisfied, how do you feel about the value you've received most recently from the [identified service provider]?
- 2. Would you recommend this merchant to others (Y/N)?
Both questions need not be answered in the same manner to be counted. The answers to these questions are then used to develop the satisfaction rating for the service provider, using the following relation:
Rating=(0.5×Satisfaction Rating (from 0 to 10)×10)+(0.5×Recommend to a Friend [0 for no, 100 for yes]).
For example, if the response were that the service provider would be recommended to a friend with a rating of 8 out of 10, the score would be
Rating=(0.5×8×10)+(0.5*100)=40+50=90
The consumer may be asked for more detailed information, such as illustrated in
Entry field 84 provides the certain of the consumer identification information for review and correction by the consumer. Entry fields 86, 88, 90, and 92 request information concerning how satisfied the consumer was with the transaction between the consumer and the service provider being rated. The information supplied via the entry fields 86-92 will, when received by the Rating Company node 16, be assimilated into the satisfaction rating value accorded the particular service provider, adjusting that value accordingly, and posting this adjusted value to the database 16j for the service provider in question.
Thus, in Step 66, the consumer reads the e-mail, provides at least some of the information requested (a satisfaction factor) and, if he/she chooses to respond, sends a reply e-mail, with the information supplied, back to the Rating Company node 16. Upon receipt by the Rating Company, the information at least pertaining to a satisfaction factor is extracted from the reply, and the database 16b accessed for the rating information for the service provider with which the consumer dealt. The satisfaction value for that service provider is updated by the information supplied by the consumer, and the updated value returned to the database 16a for posting to the Web site maintained by the Rating Company node 16 (step 70).
An alternative to asking the consumer to take affirmative steps to registration of his or her credit card number would be for the Rating Company node 16 to negotiate agreements with certain partner financial institutions to automatically register the credit cards (and/or checking accounts—see below) of all or a group of their customers. The Rating Company could then provide the financial institution with marketing materials to be sent to the credit card holders to inform them that the credit cards have been “registered” with the Rating Company 16, and that purchases from those companies “certified” by the Rating Company node will provide certain advantages (e.g., dispute mediation, limited guarantees, etc.). The credit card holder is asked to fill out the form included in the materials, or otherwise contact the Rating Company, to supply an email address which is placed in the database 16a. Then, when a transaction is entered with such a certified company, and paid for with the “registered” credit card, it can be detected at the FSP (who will have been provided this information by the Rating Company, as described above). The FSP may then notify the Rating Company node 16 of the transaction to prompt the email delivery as also described above.
Alternatively, for those consumers desiring to pay for services by check, a checking account number can be registered with the Rating Company in the same manner as described above for registering credit card numbers. In this case, the FSP may be the service provider's bank, or a check verification service, or a payment service in the case of on-line payments (e.g., on-line banking).
A further alternative, for those consumers that do not make payment for a transaction with a credit card, and/or who do not register beforehand, may be to have the Service Provider node 14 obtain the consumer's email address at the time of the transaction (or any other time for that matter), and send (e.g., by facsimile transmission) the consumer's email address to the Rating Company node 16. Or, the consumer may register the transaction by sending information of the transaction to the Rating Company node 16 (again, by a facsimile transmission, or by calling an “800” number).
In a yet further alternative of the invention, should the consumer wish to register a transaction that is paid for using cash or unregistered credit cards or checking accounts, the consumer may register the transaction manually using the Rating Company's web site. By providing information such as the Service Provider's Merchant number and the date and size of the transaction, the Rating Company can double-check the validity of the transaction through an email or fax communication to the Service Provider. Verified transactions will result in a real-time updating of the Service Provider's satisfaction level, just as it would for automated transactions described above.
While the present invention has been described in terms of various embodiments, it will be apparent to those skilled in this art that various modifications and alterations can be made. For example, rather than having the consumer register through the on-line Web site, as described above, the consumer can register when the services are purchased by the service provider. The service provider would then forward to the Rating Company the email identification so that an email can be sent to solicit the consumer's satisfaction of the services rendered. A further alternative could be to register the consumer's bank account number so that, in the event the service obtained is paid for by check, the bank will detect that payment and notify the Rating Company accordingly. Finally, the consumers could register these services by telephone, or be automatically called by the Rating Company to register his ratings opinion, as described above.
Therefore, although the invention has been described in terms of several specific embodiments, it should be understood that the invention is not limited to the disclosed embodiments. To the contrary, the present invention is intended to cover various modifications and equivalent structures included within the spirit and scope of the appended claims
Claims
1. A method, comprising:
- determining at a rating provider node whether a service provider qualifies to be included in a subset of service providers based on a first information associated with the service provider and based on a predetermined criteria, the subset being a subset of available service providers;
- sending a second information associated with the subset of service providers from the rating provider node to a financial service node via a communication network, the second information being different than the first information;
- receiving an indication from the financial service node that a customer has transacted business with the service provider if the service provider is from the subset of service providers, the business being transacted via a customer node and via a service provider node;
- sending to the customer via the customer node a feedback request in response to the indication;
- receiving, via the customer node, feedback from the customer based on the transaction; and
- updating at the rating provider node a service provider rating of the service provider based on an analysis of the feedback using a predetermined algorithm.
2. The method of claim 1, wherein the feedback request includes a request regarding a quality of service received by the customer from the service provider.
3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:
- offering a benefit to the customer after the business has been transacted between the customer and the service provider.
4. The method of claim 1, wherein the financial service node is from a plurality of financial service nodes,
- the method further comprising:
- registering the customer as an evaluator of a service provided by at least one service provider from the subset of service providers, the registering being performed based on a financial account number associated with the customer; and
- sending the financial account number associated with the customer to the plurality of financial service nodes in response to the registering.
5. The method of claim 1, wherein the second information includes a merchant identifier associated with at least one service provider from the subset of service providers.
6. The method of claim 1, wherein the financial service node is from a plurality of financial service nodes,
- the method further comprising:
- sending the second information to the plurality of financial service nodes after the determining and before the receiving the indication.
7. The method of claim 1, wherein the financial service node is independent from the customer node and the service provider node.
8. The method of claim 1, wherein the financial service node is from a plurality of financial service nodes,
- the method further comprising:
- registering the customer as an evaluator based on a financial account number associated with the customer; and
- sending the financial account number associated with the customer to the plurality of financial service nodes after the registering,
- the indication is defined at the financial service node from the plurality of financial service nodes in response to the financial service node determining based on the financial account number that the business between the customer and the service provider has been transacted.
9. The method of claim 1, wherein the indication is defined at the financial service node in response to the transaction being identified by the financial service node based on a search conducted by the financial service node,
- the method further comprising:
- registering the customer as an evaluator before the search is conducted by the financial service node.
10. The method of claim 1, wherein the indication includes a predetermined portion of an amount of a payment from the customer to the service provider.
11. The method of claim 1, wherein the indication is defined at the financial service node when it is determined at the financial service node that the customer is registered as an evaluator based on a financial account number associated with the customer.
Type: Application
Filed: May 17, 2010
Publication Date: May 26, 2011
Inventor: JAMES STEIN (SEBASTAPOL, CA)
Application Number: 12/781,483
International Classification: G06Q 10/00 (20060101);