JP2004038492A - Method and system for providing pay information - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a method and a system for providing paid information which removes a sense of unfairness of customers in charges for a variety of inquiries from them through a network. <P>SOLUTION: Past inquiry cases are accumulated in a database 12, a new inquiry content is analyzed in a center server 10, and the past inquiry cases are retrieved from the inquiry case DB 12 from this analyzed result. An answer is prepared with reference to the retrieved result, and is transmitted. In response to the answer, a charge processing 106 is performed to an inquirer, and a refunding processing 105 is performed to the past inquirers who inquired the past cases which the retrieved results are referred to in preparing the answer. The refunding processing is performed to the inquiries which are effectively used in a new inquiry at a future point in time. Thus, the problem is resolved that the customer has a sense of unfairness because there are numbers of procedures for the first inquiry and a high charge cannot help being set. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2004,JPO

Description

[0001]
TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a method and a system for providing paid information. More specifically, the present invention relates to paid information provision for various inquiries from customers, and more particularly, to a paid information provision method and system for charging and refunding according to the degree of difficulty and utilization of answers to inquiries. .
[0002]
[Prior art]
2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a pay information providing method and a pay system are applied to, for example, a pay information providing method and a pay system in which pay information is provided and billed for various inquiries from customers.
[0003]
Conventionally, this type of billing method for providing paid information is often implemented by a method in which a customer pays an annual or monthly fee and an inquiry to the customer is accepted. Therefore, this is a flat-rate method.
[0004]
In the case of this fixed-rate system, the fee is constant no matter how much inquiries are made as long as the membership fee is paid. For this reason, it is unfair to the customer, and even if the content is simple, there is a feeling that it is better to make an inquiry, and there is a concern that the content of the question will be at a low level as a whole, which is not necessarily a good idea.
[0005]
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-195497 discloses a "charging system for a help desk system" as an example 1 of a prior application similar to the present invention in the technical field. In the prior invention invention example 1, there is disclosed a proposal to try to charge the actual time required for responding to the inquiry as much as possible. However, in the case of this method, when the first type of inquiry is made without any inquiry case in the past, it takes an extremely long time to investigate and an extremely high charge is made. Then, if a similar inquiry is made thereafter, a scheme is devised to charge the same amount.
[0006]
[Problems to be solved by the invention]
However, in the above-described conventional charging method for providing paid information, as described above, charging is performed at a fixed amount regardless of the amount of receiving the inquiry service, or charging is performed at an inquiry response time. Therefore, there is a problem that the customer is unfair in the following points.
[0007]
First, there may be customers who have a large amount of inquiries to make inquiries about anything when they do not understand, and customers who have a small amount of inquiries to make inquiries when they are able to investigate as much as possible and get really stuck.
Second, even in the same level of inquiry, there may be a plurality of cases of customers whose response time differs depending on the skill level of the inquiry responder.
Third, the content of a meaningful inquiry that many customers are likely to inquire about, but since the inquiry did not happen in the past, the response time to the first customer inevitably increases.
[0008]
Even with the method of Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-195497 of the above-mentioned prior invention example 1, unfairness for customers cannot be wiped out. In particular, for customers who have made inquiries that have no inquiries in the past, even if it is a customer who inquires about difficult contents because of the fact that it did not have a case on the information provider side, Unfairness may occur, such as the fact that the information provider accidentally prepares the contents of the answer, thereby lowering the charge. In addition, since the response time varies depending on the skill of the responder of the inquiry, there is still a problem of lack of fairness.
[0009]
The present invention solves the various problems of the occurrence of unfairness in the charging method for providing paid information as described above, and provides a paid information providing method and a system that is simple and clear and eliminates unfairness of customers. Aim.
[0010]
[Means for Solving the Problems]
In order to achieve such an object, the pay information providing method of the present invention is a pay information providing method of answering and providing pay information with reference to past inquiry cases for various inquiries, and stores past inquiry cases in a database. An accumulating step for accumulating, an analyzing step for analyzing new inquiry contents, a searching step for searching past inquiry cases from the analysis result, creating an answer with reference to the searched result, and transmitting the created answer A sending step, a billing process step of performing a billing process for collecting a fee to the inquirer in response to the answer, and a past inquirer who inquired about a case in which the search result was helpful in creating the answer. And a refund processing step of performing a refund process on the inquirer, in which various inquiries have been effectively utilized in a new inquiry at a future time. And performing a physical.
[0011]
In addition, the accumulation step includes, in addition to past inquiry cases, at least a standard inquiry content that is assumed in advance and a content of an answer corresponding to the standard inquiry, and a standard inquiry handling step. The method includes a response creating step of creating an answer and an outline thereof with reference to a search result, a confirmation step of transmitting an outline in advance and confirming the inquiry, and an answer step of transmitting an answer.
[0012]
According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, there is provided a pay information providing system, comprising: a case database in which past inquiry contents, answer contents thereof, and at least the first customer who first made the inquiry are stored in association with each other; Input means for analyzing the content of the query inquired from the user terminal and inputting the result, search means for searching for similar query content from the case database based on the content of the input means, and similar query obtained as a result of the search Related answer storage means for collecting and storing answers associated with the group, and answer means for transmitting an answer created with reference to at least the data stored by the related answer storage means to the user terminal of the second customer, Example of payback means to refund the first customer associated with a similar inquiry group and the contents of the second customer's inquiry via the user terminal A survey with reference to the database, which comprises carrying out the billing for the customer as well as answer the survey result to the user terminal.
[0013]
In addition, the above case database also includes standard inquiry contents assumed in advance and the answer contents thereof, and the answer means refers to at least data stored by the related answer storage means and creates an answer and an outline thereof. Means, confirmation means for transmitting and confirming the summary to the second customer, and response transmission means for transmitting a response after waiting for the result of the confirmation means.
[0014]
BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION
Next, with reference to the accompanying drawings, embodiments of a method for providing paid information and the system according to the present invention will be described in detail. FIG. 1 to FIG. 6 show an embodiment of a pay information providing method and a pay information providing system according to the present invention.
[0015]
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an overall configuration of a pay information providing system according to an embodiment of the present invention. The pay information providing system of the present embodiment shown in FIG. 1 includes a user terminal 15, a center terminal 11, an inquiry case DB 12, an answer case DB 13, and a billing file 14, which are connected to the center server 10.
[0016]
In the center server 10 described above, the processing function unit is subdivided, and each processing of the answer processing 102, the inquiry search processing 103, the case registration processing 104, the payback processing 105, the billing processing 106, the search data area 107, and the answer data area 108 It has a part.
[0017]
The pay information providing system having the above configuration basically receives the above inquiry via the user terminal 15 for transmitting and receiving the inquiry information and the answer from the customer, and the Internet or a network having an equivalent function, and A center server 10 that performs creation / transmission and accounting processing, a center terminal 11 that provides a service by realizing a dialog between the respondent and the center server 10, and various past inquiries and replies are stored. It comprises an inquiry case DB (DB: meaning a database, the same applies hereinafter) 12, an answer case DB 13, and an accounting file 14 for storing accounting information for each customer.
[0018]
The inquiry case DB 12 and the answer case DB 13 not only accumulate past cases but also store in advance various inquiries and their responses in a database, thereby improving service by speeding up responses to customer inquiries. Can be easily performed. Further, the center server 10 performs a response process 102 for controlling the entire system in cooperation with the center terminal 11 and a query case DB 12 which stores the query keyword created in the response process 102 via a search data area 107 which is a data transmission / reception area. And a query keyword 103 created by the answer process 102 via the answer data area 108 which is a second data transmission / reception area. A case registration process 104 for registering in the case DB 12 and the answer case DB 13, a payback process 105 for enabling payback to a customer (corresponding to the first customer) who has made an inquiry in the past that was effective for answer creation, and an inquiry Processing 10 for charging the customer (corresponding to the second customer) who has performed Composed of a.
[0019]
(Operation example)
Next, the operation of the pay information providing system according to the embodiment of the present invention will be described using a flowchart. FIG. 2 shows a processing flow of the answer processing 102 for controlling the entire processing, and an operation of the pay information providing system according to the embodiment of the present invention will be described mainly with reference to FIG.
[0020]
The answer process in FIG. 2 includes a user confirmation (step 201), a query content analysis keyword creation (step 202), a query search process (step 203), and an answer? (Step 204), primary answer summary and details creation (Step 205), payback processing (Step 206), answer handling (Step 208), billing processing (Step 209), case registration processing (Step 210), secondary answer summary, It is composed of steps of detail creation (step 211).
[0021]
In the above processing, each processing procedure of the inquiry search processing (Step 203), the payback processing (Step 205), the billing processing (Step 209), and the case registration processing (Step 210) is further subdivided, and FIG. FIG. 4 shows a case registration process, FIG. 5 shows a billing / payback process, and FIG. 6 shows an example of creating an analysis keyword.
[0022]
In the answer process of FIG. 2, when a customer makes an inquiry via the user terminal 15, the answer process 102 of the center server 10 (hereinafter, the center server 10 is omitted and simply indicated by each process name) receives the inquiry. First, in step 201 of FIG. 2, it is checked whether the user is registered and can be charged (that is, inquiry is permitted). Here, the user is authenticated by means of a password, a terminal ID or the like.
[0023]
When the user is confirmed, in step 202, the response responder uses the center terminal 11 to analyze the content of the inquiry from the customer, prepares the data into a form that can be searched, and creates a keyword sentence. Store. Data that can be searched is, for example, divided into keyword sentences as shown in FIG. In step 202, the keywords are standardized so that the same meaning is not separately expressed. Then, in step 203, the process is entrusted to the inquiry search process 103. The query search process 103 searches the query case DB 12 using the keyword stored in the search data area 107 in step 301.
[0024]
If there is a matching inquiry case (judgment in step 302), an answer case corresponding to the inquiry is read out from the answer case DB 13, and the keyword sentence and the customer name who first made the inquiry (first of claims) (Corresponding to the customer) and stored in the search data area 107. When it is divided into a plurality of keyword sentences from the answer process 102, the above search is performed a predetermined number of times.
When it is determined in step 204 that the responder can answer based on the information in the search data area 107, the answer processing 102 creates an answer summary and answer details in step 205 and stores the answer in the answer data area 108.
[0025]
Then, in step 206, the processing is entrusted to the payback processing 105 in order to pay back to the customer who first made the inquiry from which the answer example based on this answer was derived. Note that this “payback” means that a part of the charge is refunded because the content of the inquiry was a high charge for the first time.
[0026]
In the payback processing 105, as shown in FIG. 5, the customer who first made the inquiry is written in the accounting file 14 in order to pay back. Even if a high fee is charged for the first type of inquiry, this payback can be recovered by a refund if there is an inquiry of the same type from another customer thereafter, so hesitation to the inquiry will not be hesitated, It leads to conversion.
If the respondent determines in step 204 that the answer cannot be made only by the information in the search data area 107, a secondary answer is created in step 211.
[0027]
For the secondary response, make a survey using other manuals or a completely different search system, etc. to create a summary and details of the secondary response, and submit the created response to the name of the customer who made the inquiry (to the second customer in the claims). (Correspondence) and the query keyword in the answer data area 108.
[0028]
After step 206 or step 211, in response to response 208, the amount of billing to the inquired customer is confirmed, and then the following procedure for giving a detailed response is performed. First, an answer summary (a level at which the customer can be satisfied with the answer) and estimated billing amount information are transmitted to the inquired customer, and a detailed response is transmitted after receiving an acceptance reply from the customer. Needless to say, the charge amount differs between the case where a reply was made in the past answer case and the case where the secondary reply was created.
[0029]
In step 209, the processing is entrusted to the charging processing 106. Here, the processing is only on the charging file 14, and the processing of actually collecting or paying (bank account debit or bank account transfer) is performed at the end of every month. In another accounting process.
Then, in step 210, if this inquiry is not found in the past inquiry cases, the process is entrusted to the case registration process 104 for registering the contents of the answer data area 108 in the inquiry case DB 12 and the answer case DB 13.
[0030]
According to the above embodiment, as can be seen from the above description, the following effects are produced.
The first effect is that it is possible to efficiently respond to inquiring customers by effectively utilizing past answer cases. Therefore, it is possible to quickly and inexpensively obtain an answer to an inquiry customer on average.
[0031]
The second effect is that a fair charge according to the service level can be implemented to some extent by charging the inquiry customer according to the time required for the response of the responder.
[0032]
A third effect is that even if a new type of inquiry is troublesome for the respondent, if the inquiry is a useful inquiry that can be generated relatively frequently, the fair amount can be reduced by reducing the billing amount by payback. Charging can be implemented. Therefore, new types of inquiries can be made without hesitation, and inquiries can be activated as a whole, better cases can be registered, and faster and cheaper services can be realized for customers.
[0033]
The above embodiment is an example of a preferred embodiment of the present invention. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and various modifications can be made without departing from the scope of the present invention.
[0034]
【The invention's effect】
As is clear from the above description, the pay information providing method and the system of the present invention accumulate past inquiry cases in a database, analyze new inquiry contents, and retrieve past inquiry cases from the analysis result. An answer is created with reference to the search result, and the created answer is transmitted. In response to this answer, when performing billing processing to collect a fee from the inquirer, refund processing for past inquirers who made inquiries about cases where the search results were helpful in creating answers I do. A refund process is performed for an inquiry in which various inquiries are effectively used in a new inquiry at a future time. This solves the problem that the man-hours required to respond to the contents of the first inquiry require a high billing rate, which causes the customer to feel unfair.
[Brief description of the drawings]
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an example of the overall configuration of a pay information providing system according to an embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating an example of a response process in the embodiment of the pay information providing system according to the present invention.
FIG. 3 is a flowchart illustrating an example of a query search process;
FIG. 4 is a flowchart illustrating an example of a case registration process;
FIG. 5 is a flowchart illustrating a processing example of billing / payback processing.
FIG. 6 is a diagram showing an example of creating a keyword from an inquiry sentence.
[Explanation of symbols]
10 center server 11 center terminal 12 inquiry case DB
13 Answer case DB
14 accounting file 15 user terminal 102 answer process 103 inquiry search process 104 case registration process 105 payback process 106 accounting process 107 search data area 108 answer data areas 201 to 503 Processing steps of each block

Claims (6)

This is a paid information provision method that answers and provides paid information to various inquiries by referring to past inquiries.
An accumulation step of accumulating the past inquiry cases in a database,
An analysis step for analyzing the new query content;
A search step of searching for past query cases from the analysis result,
A transmission step of creating an answer with reference to the search result and transmitting the created answer,
A billing process step of performing a billing process for collecting a fee for the inquirer in response to the answer;
A refund processing step of performing a refund process on the past inquirer who made an inquiry of a case in which the result of the search was referred to in the creation of the answer,
A pay information providing method, wherein the refund process is performed on the inquirer whose various inquiries are effectively used in a new inquiry at a future time. The method according to claim 1, wherein the storing step includes a standard query handling step of storing at least standard query contents assumed in advance and contents of answers corresponding to the standard queries, in addition to past query cases. 1. The paid information provision method described in 1. The transmitting step is a response creating step of creating an answer and a summary thereof with reference to the search result, a confirmation step of transmitting the summary in advance and confirming the inquiry, and an answer step of transmitting the answer. The method for providing paid information according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the method comprises: A case database in which the contents of the past inquiry and the contents of the answer and at least the first customer who first made the inquiry are stored in association with each other,
Input means for analyzing the content of the inquiry that the second customer inquired from the user terminal and inputting the result;
Search means for searching the case database for a similar query content based on the content of the input means,
Related answer storage means that collects and stores answers associated with the similar query group obtained as a result of the search,
Answer means for transmitting an answer created with reference to at least the data stored by the related answer storage means to the user terminal of the second customer,
Payback means for refund to the first customer associated with the similar inquiry group,
The second customer conducts a survey by referring to the case database for the content inquired via the user terminal, and responds to the user terminal with the survey result and charges the customer. A paid information providing system. 5. The pay information providing system according to claim 4, wherein the case database also includes contents of a standard inquiry assumed in advance and contents of an answer. The answering means is an answer creating means for creating an answer and a summary thereof by referring to at least the data stored by the related answer storing means, a confirmation means for transmitting and confirming the summary to the second customer, The pay information providing system according to claim 4, further comprising: a reply transmitting unit that transmits the reply after waiting for a result of the checking unit.

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