System and method for providing a social customer care system

Abstract

The present invention relates to customer relationship management systems integrated with social media and social networks. More particularly, the invention provides a social customer care platform system to allow customer care functions, and in particular to allow customer service agents to identify, prioritize, match and triage customer support requests that may arise through a social network and may be serviced using a social network. It manages and tracks a high-volume of customer interactions and provides for monitoring of Internet social network posts relevant to a business's products or services along with the ability to capture, monitor, filter, make sense of and respond to, in real-time, tens of thousands of social interactions. It comprises role specific user-interface and functionality to match customer service environments, automated prioritization and matching for increased agent productivity, and an automated enterprise workflow to align social media support with existing business processes.

1 . A computer-implemented system and method for automatically locating, identifying, consolidating and managing public comments across Internet based social network, the method implemented by computer-executable instructions being executed by a computer processor comprising the steps of:
 inputting into memory a post created by a third party at an Internet social network site, the post having a third party's web name;   determining if the third party's web name exists in a database accessible to the system; and   if there is an ongoing customer support conversation for the third party in the current system, attaching the post to the ongoing conversation.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1  further comprising:
 If there is not an ongoing customer support conversation for the third party in the current system, performing an identification unification process across other Internet social network sites to find other posts from the third party; and 
 attaching the other posts from the third party that are found on the other Internet social network sites to the ongoing customer support conversation. 
 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1  further comprising adding the ongoing customer support conversation to an available queue for action by a customer support management representative. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1  further comprising creating a third party unique identifier key that represents a third party's web name and the Internet social network on which the third party uses the third party's web name. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 4  further comprising saving the third party unique key in the database. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 5  further comprising:
 accessing at least one third party unique key from the database; and 
 if ongoing customer support conversation exists for this handle, identifying the ongoing customer support conversation as being associated with the third party identified in the third party unique key. 
 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 2  wherein the performing an identification unification process across other Internet social network sites to find other posts from the third party step comprises:
 inputting a user profile and designating the user profile as a search subject; 
 extracting user-identifying data attributes from the user profile; 
 searching at least one Internet-based social network website for users with profiles containing data attributes similar to the search subject user-identifying data attributes; 
 identifying a social network site profile for a third party from the social network website based on a closeness of a match of social network site profile attributes for the third party to the search subject user-attributes; 
 using the social network site profile attributes for the third party and the user-identifying attributes, running a scoring algorithm to produce a likelihood score that the third party and the search subject from the user profile is the same person; and 
 if the likelihood score meets a certainty threshold criteria, using the social network site profile attributes for the third party and the user-identifying attributes in the user profile for the search subject to search additional Internet-based social network websites for data for the search subject based on the social network site profile attributes user profiles and the user-identifying data attributes running a scoring algorithm to produce a likelihood score that the third party and the search subject from the user profile is the same person. 
 
     
     
         8 . A computer system comprising:
 a processor;   a memory coupled to the processor;   a display device;   wherein the memory stores a program that automatically locates, identifies, consolidates and manages public comments across Internet based social networks, when executed by the processor causes the processor to:   inputting into memory a post created by a third party at an Internet social network site, the post having a third party's web name;   determining if the third party's web name exists in a database accessible to the system; and   if there is an ongoing customer support conversation for the third party in the current system, attaching the post to the ongoing conversation.   
     
     
         9 . The computer system of  claim 8  further comprising:
 If there is not an ongoing customer support conversation for the third party in the current system, perform an identification unification process across other Internet social network sites to find other posts from the third party; and 
 attach the other posts from the third party that are found on the other Internet social network sites to the ongoing customer support conversation. 
 
     
     
         10 . The computer system of  claim 8  further comprising add the ongoing customer support conversation to an available queue for action by a customer support management representative. 
     
     
         11 . The computer system of  claim 8  further comprising create a third party unique identifier key that represents a third party's web name and the Internet social network on which the third party uses the third party's web name. 
     
     
         12 . The computer system of  claim 11  further comprising save the third party unique key in the database. 
     
     
         13 . The computer system of  claim 12  further comprising:
 access at least one third party unique key from the database; and 
 if ongoing customer support conversation exists for this handle, identify the ongoing customer support conversation as being associated with the third party identified in the third party unique key. 
 
     
     
         14 . The computer system of  claim 9  wherein the perform an identification unification process across other Internet social network sites to find other posts from the third party step comprises:
 input a user profile and designating the user profile as a search subject; 
 extract user-identifying data attributes from the user profile; 
 search at least one Internet-based social network website for users with profiles containing data attributes similar to the search subject user-identifying data attributes; 
 identify a social network site profile for a third party from the social network website based on a closeness of a match of social network site profile attributes for the third party to the search subject user-attributes; 
 use the social network site profile attributes for the third party and the user-identifying attributes and run a scoring algorithm to produce a likelihood score that the third party and the search subject from the user profile is the same person; and 
 if the likelihood score meets a certainty threshold criteria, use the social network site profile attributes for the third party and the user-identifying attributes in the user profile for the search subject to search additional Internet-based social network websites for data for the search subject based on the social network site profile attributes user profiles and the user-identifying data attributes running a scoring algorithm to produce a likelihood score that the third party and the search subject from the user profile is the same person.