Abstract:
The present disclosure is a gatekeeper method and/or system that automatically creates and distributes a survey that initially has filtering applied to possible questions based on information about the user to create the appropriate question set. The system uses the information including comments and answers in the response to questions in the survey, and other information available about the user, and through the application of an algorithm determines whether to allow the user to publish content concerning the survey.

Description:
BACKGROUND OF THE DISCLOSURE 
       [0001]    1. Field of the Disclosure 
         [0002]    The present disclosure relates to an application and/or system that is a gatekeeper to content publication on the Internet and other electronic networks. In particular, the present disclosure relates to a gatekeeper method and/or system that automatically creates and distributes a survey that initially has filtering applied to possible questions based on information about the user to create the appropriate question set, and using information including comments and answers in the response to questions in the survey, and other information available about the user, and through the application of an algorithm determines whether to allow the user to publish content concerning the survey. 
         [0003]    2. Description of the Related Art 
         [0004]    There are various steps consumers often must follow to publish content currently online. These steps range from the simplest version of the process that includes typing or loading content (such as an image, video or other rich media) to be published and clicking a submit button, or using some other command, to indicate approval to post the material to more complex processes. Such complex processes often include site or account registration, sharing of personally identifiable information, answering of simple yes/no questions, multiple choice questions or open ended response questions, requiring reading and confirmation of terms and conditions on individual websites, and various other more complex information requests. There are various examples of systems designed to determine when, if, and how a customer receives a survey from a business, based upon purchase behavior, payment behavior, or other criteria learned and stored about the customer or the individual transaction. 
         [0005]    There are also processes that require submission of answers to questions in which the answers to the question may determine some dependent action, such as applications for employment, or applications for entry to a university, and where the qualifications and answers provided are used to make a decision about an action or event that is dependent upon the answers provided to the asked questions. 
         [0006]    There are other services that use surveys and survey-like interfaces, such as Yelp!, Tripadvisor, Amazon, and others, to allow a user to evaluate a product, service, or location through the answers to various questions about the subject product, service, event, location of other object of the survey. 
         [0007]    Currently available processes use provided information to create unbiased sources of reviews and opinions. However, these processes are not optimal and are flawed in several substantial ways. For example, reviews of movies, restaurants or other reviews often have subjective criteria associated with them. Further, the personal preferences of the individual mean that what might be a good experience for one group of consumers will not be a good experience for another group of consumers. One consumer might give a rating of 0 and another might give a rating of 10 for the exact same object of the rating simply based upon their own subjective evaluation. Others who have not yet experienced the object of this rating (A restaurant, movie, product, and the like) may see an average rating of 5 (an averaging of the 0 and the 10) and/or the individual component ratings, and not have a good understanding of whether they individually would be likely to rate the same object of the rating a 0 or a 10. Another similar example would be that of a political poll, where personal beliefs can make different candidates and positions preferable to different audiences, and ratings or reviews from everyone are less valuable to the consumer of that information. 
         [0008]    Currently available processes are designed for the needs of the consumers of the ratings, and not for the owner or operator of the object of the rating. The producer of the movie, the owner of the restaurant or business, or the manufacturer of the product, are not considered the beneficiaries or the prime purpose of these ratings, except tangentially if the ratings are positive. It is believed that ratings and reviews are currently generally viewed as only of value to a consumer when all ratings, both positive and negative, are included. Further, often the internal survey results of businesses of their own customers do not match the results that are available through various sources of review results. 
         [0009]    Online content, such as reviews, may be skewed by people who were never customers or users of the product or service, but who have other motives for providing negative commentary or feedback, such as competitors of various forms. Such online content may also be skewed because of selection bias. For example, where those who decide to publish comments are disproportionately dissatisfied, because those who were satisfied do not feel the need to take action, whereas those who were dis-satisfied either want some form of apology or compensatory response, and utilize complaints as a tool to achieve their objectives, thereby skewing the overall impression of the object of the rating to others seeking information about the object of the rating. 
         [0010]    The present systems also provides benefit to the object of the survey when responses are negative. There is often no easy mechanism to learn from the consumer what went wrong in the experience or what the business or other user might do to improve the survey for future customers quickly enough to address and rectify the negative experience before that consumer has shared their poor experience and before the poor experience is irrecoverable. Current approaches do not provide the ability to quickly identify which customers are having negative experiences and, do not appreciate that it is most important to reach these customers quickly to rectify their complaints. 
       SUMMARY OF THE DISCLOSURE 
       [0011]    The present disclosure provides a method and/or a system that is a gatekeeper to content publication on the Internet and other electronic networks. 
         [0012]    The present disclosure further provides such a gatekeeper method and/or system that automatically creates and distributes a survey that initially has filtering applied to possible questions based on information about the user to create the appropriate question set, and using information including comments and answers in the response to questions in the survey, and other information available about the user, and through the application of an algorithm, determines whether to allow the user to publish content concerning the survey. 
         [0013]    The present disclosure still further provides such a gatekeeper method and/or system that presents, in a timely manner, an end user with an appropriately selected set of questions regarding the object of a survey if the end user qualifies based on the rules defined by the requestor, and allows a user to input answers to specific questions and add additional comments, prior to publishing. 
         [0014]    The present disclosure yet further provides such a gatekeeper method that permits data and details about the questions answered, the user, and the initial experience that the user is answering questions about, to be stored for subsequent use. 
         [0015]    The present disclosure also provides such a gatekeeper method that incorporates selected information from external databases of information to allow the system to determine which questions to select, which questions in what question set, and what priority in each question set to include in the possible questions to use in the creation of question sets to send to the user as a survey. 
         [0016]    The present disclosure further provides such a gatekeeper system that connects to the destination source where the content will be published, and allows the user to input access credentials to connect and authorize the system to publish the content on their behalf. Thus, the present disclosure provides such a gatekeeper method and system for a requestor to request that a survey about a product, service, event, or other experience be sent to a user (their customer), and that the system can utilize information available from the requestor about the user and their interaction history in addition to information available about the user from external sources, for example in the case of a retail requestor purchase history, satisfaction history, income, age, sex, education level, purchase intent, and other proprietary requestor data or commercially available data points to select appropriate questions to be included in the survey to he sent to the user. Upon receipt of answers from the user to the survey, the system has a rule set for each requestor to identify the relative importance of individual questions, and the acceptable answer thresholds to individual questions or sets or groups of questions as a filter applied to user answers in the survey, as well as other information available, such as, but not limited to, location, time, previous history of responses, and in addition to information available from the requestor about the user and all available external data previously mentioned, to determine whether to permit the user to publish content, such as their review or comments, to a destination, such as social network, blog, and other content repository, as well as to deter mine the relative importance of addressing negative feedback of the user (i.e., a customer with frequent large past purchases from the requestor, a high credit rating, and high income, or one with a large online social network who is active in communicating positively and negatively about product and service experiences, can cause the requestor to prioritize the immediate handling of negative feedback from such a customer over a customer who has never purchased before, has a low income and a low credit rating, made a small single purchase, or one with a small inactive online social network. 
         [0017]    These and other objects and advantages of the present disclosure are achieved by a method and/or system that includes creating an account for a requestor; using information about a prior experience, product or other object of a survey to select possible questions that most accurately determine possible satisfaction or dis-satisfaction of a user or customer with specific elements or components of the experience; providing the requestor with tools to distribute the survey/questions to one or more of their users (recipients); displaying the questions to the users (recipients); providing each user with tools to answer the questions; storing the answers to those questions; using the answers or information derived from the answers of a user to calculate, using an algorithm, whether to allow that user to publish his/her comments and any additional commentary and content (text, images, video and the like) to a content repository (such as a social network); using a computer to format the content to publish so that the value to others of the product, service, experience, or other object of the survey are highlighted; providing an immediate access and authorization to post the content on behalf of the user to various destinations including, but not limited to, social networks such as Facebook; and providing access to other consumers (i.e., other people whom the users are connected with on Facebook can see that this posted information and what the review was) of that content, and to details and other marketing material about the product, service, business or other object of the survey. 
         [0018]    The method and system of the present disclosure provides functionality to request, automatically create and distribute surveys to one or more end users or customers by wireless communication protocol through receipt by SMS (text messages on cell phones), email, and/or through applications installed on recipient mobile devices. 
         [0019]    While the present disclosure will be discussed primarily in the context of providing a method and/or system for assisting a business or other type requestor to create, send, analyze and post content to one or more social media networks by their users who are satisfied with their experience, the present disclosure can be adapted to a number of other applications. The other applications can include, but are not limited to, the choice and promotion of a particular idea or political candidate (i.e., political polling and political marketing, where a citizen may agree with specific political views on individual issues—via a poll/survey—with an individual candidate, and those areas of agreement might be used as an automated filtering mechanism to posting of politically promotionally oriented content by a candidate—with approval by the citizen—to the citizen&#39;s social network), the marketing and promotion of individual products and brands (i.e. where the proximate experience can be with a retailer, but the consumer experience with the brand, such as a car brand or a consumer packaged goods brand, can be identified through answers provided by consumers, and where promotionally oriented content could be published to a consumer&#39;s social media account by a brand upon approval by the consumer), consumer research and automated streamlining of content into streams of like-minded content. 
     
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         [0020]      FIG. 1  is a schematic of the system of the present disclosure. 
           [0021]      FIG. 2  is a schematic of the centralized management system of the system of  FIG. 1 . 
           [0022]      FIG. 3  is a flow diagram of an aspect within the centralized management system of the system of  FIG. 1 . 
           [0023]      FIG. 4  is a flow diagram of the present disclosure that shows the steps taken between initiating a survey and either resulting in published content or feedback received. 
           [0024]      FIG. 5  is a detailed example showing the application of an example rule of the present system. 
           [0025]      FIG. 6  is also a second detailed example showing the application of an example rule of the present system. 
       
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS 
       [0026]    Referring to the drawings and, in particular, to  FIG. 1 , there is shown an embodiment of a system of the present disclosure generally represented by reference numeral  100 . System  100  operates in conjunction with a communication network  1000 , that may or may not be part of system  100 , and includes a centralized management system  500 . System  100  can also have, or have operative connections to, one or more user devices  200 , one or more content/survey requestors  300 , one or more third party content destinations  400  and one or more external data sources  600 , all operatively connected via communications network  1000  to centralized management system  500 . Communications network  1000  provides or includes bi-directional connections and communications therethrough between or amongst management system  500  and user device  200 , requestor  300 , one or more third party content destinations  400 , and one or more external data sources  600 . Communications network  1000  can include wired or wireless networks, a computer network, such as the Internet or a LAN, and/or phone networks, including the public telephone network, cell phone network and SMS (cell phone text network). Furthermore, the communications protocol used by communications network  1000  can vary, depending upon, for example, the particular application. Communications network  1000  is, in a preferred embodiment, the public internet. 
         [0027]    For the present system  100 , requestor  300  obtains an account in centralized management system  500  using communication network  1000 . Specifically, the requestor  300  enters data such as their business name, address, city, state, zip code, phone number, email address, website address, Facebook business page address, hours of operation, industry, and billing information. Once requestor  300  creates an account with centralized management system  500 , based on the industry of requestor  300 , a generalized pool of questions will be shown to the requestor as possible questions appropriate for their surveys. Requestor  300  then can select weights for the relative importance of those questions to their business and customer base. Requestor  300  can thereafter also request that the survey be sent to one or more of their users (their consumers/customers) via the system  100  by inputting an email address, SMS phone number, or via an application connection between a user&#39;s device and centralized management system  500 . Communications network  1000  sends a user survey electronically via at least one user device  200  via email, SMS or direct connection with an installed application on the USER device. 
         [0028]    The specific survey is created by centralized management system  500  based on several inputs of data to generate the overall pool of questions. Such data inputs include the industry of requestor  300 , historical data stored by requestor  300  about the user, 3 rd  party data available about the user based on personally identifiable information captured by centralized management system  500  or stored by requestor  300 . For example in the case of a retail requestor  300 , such data includes purchase history, satisfaction history, income, age, sex, education level, purchase intent, and other proprietary requestor data or commercially available data points, and identification of any questions previously answered by the same user or consumer in response to surveys sent by the requestor  300  or by another requestor who is using system  100 . This, in turn, means that different users can receive different questions in their surveys, and the same user can receive different questions in subsequent surveys that they take with the same requestor. In this particular embodiment, a mobile smart phone device will allow the user to respond to the survey by clicking on responses to each question, and upon the user submitting the response, system  100  will store the responses from the user in centralized management system  500  in table  515  along with any relevant and appropriate data from available external data sources  600  such as, but not including, the date, time and location that the survey was completed, whether the user or customer has completed other surveys from requestor  300  or from other systems or clients, and the values of any 3 rd  party data used in the calculation of whether to allow publishing or not of the user&#39;s survey result and associated comments, and the like. Examples of additional data about individual users can be available from 3 rd  party data sources, include but are not limited to, purchase intent of different product categories, creditworthiness from credit bureaus, income, age, and other demographics. These pieces of information, which can be associated with a phone number, a name, an email or some combination of those pieces of information or associated with other personally identifiable information stored by requestor  300  can be used to access or purchase other data from 3 rd  party data sources and store such data in conjunction with the survey results to allow requestor  300  to learn more about the user who is responding and who is satisfied with the service, experience, or other object of the survey. System  100  uses rules, (for example utilizing the combination of the value of the answer of the final question of the survey, which may always be kept the same for that requestor  300 , and the value of the weighted average answer of the other questions in that individual survey, utilizing individual pre-defined or calculated weights from requestor  300 ) built into centralized management system  500  and stored specifically for each requestor  300  in  517  and the account database for that requestor  300  to determine whether centralized management system  500  will allow the user to publish content to a third (3 rd ) party content destination  400 . As more data is collected, it is anticipated that more complex algorithms will be created for specific industries and or specific requestors to maximize publishing, sharing, and results for that requestor. One example of this more complex algorithm can include automated regression modeling on individual key user demographic or purchase attributes to score importance of an individual user to achieve wide social sharing, and propensity to write positive commentary as scored by automated natural language processing on previous comments written by the same user across all prior requestors and/or other surveys processed by the system  100  for this user. These sets of questions are created and ordered for different business types from individual questions input into centralized management system  500 . Such input can be by a system operator or electronically by known way of electronically inputting data or information. Questions include for example information on price, service, wait times, cleanliness, availability, knowledge, support, and the like. Each specific business type and interaction type is measured by different criteria, and the set of possible initial questions selected as the pool of potential questions to be asked will be selected based on the typical criteria that a user or consumer would use to rate or evaluate that specific business, destination or other object of the survey. 
         [0029]    Requests to distribute links to surveys are made by requestor  300  via centralized management system  500  can be sent to one or more user devices  200 . Receipt of the link to the survey in this particular embodiment of central management system  500  is anticipated either via email, text message (SMS), or direct application connection to user device  200  that can be a smart phone device, computer or tablet. The user can then call up his/her survey by clicking on the link on their user device  200 . 
         [0030]      FIG. 2  is an exemplary embodiment of centralized management system  500 . Communications network  1000  is connected to centralized management system  500  via a network interface  501  that is in centralized management system  500 . 
         [0031]    Centralized management system  500  also has computer hardware  502  that connects to network interface  501  and provides a platform upon which the local application environment  503  operates. Local application environment  503  is the aggregation of programming that operates the interconnection of elements, such as user device  200  and requestor  300  to central management system  500 , of system  100  of the present disclosure. Centralized management system  500  also has a logic, rules and calculation layer  504 . Layer  504  uses the rules set defined for each requestor  300  in  517 , in conjunction with data captured and available from requestor  300  and external sources  600 , to calculate what to do immediately upon submission by the user of their completed survey (i.e. to allow publishing to the destination location or not). Layer  504  can manage and control the flow of data between the system  500  and user device  200  and the data management layer  510 , storing the question set sent to the user and the user&#39;s responses to the same and upon calculating the stored algorithm(s) against the user supplied responses and the data available about the user, layer  504  determines whether the user can publish their comments and responses to the destination system (i.e. for example to Facebook or other social network). An example of an individual rule set  517  managed by the data management layer  504 , is as follows:
   1) Do not allow sending of the request for a survey under the following circumstances:   a. If the user currently has a credit account balance outstanding with requestor  300  of more than $1000 with a past due balance, has made less than $5000 in total purchases, does not own a home, and does not have children living in the house;   b. If the user has a credit score below 580;   c. If the user has received previous surveys in the past 60 days from requestor  300 ; and   d. If the user has responded to more than 10 surveys in the past 18 months from any requestor in system  500  and less than 6 of those surveys have allowed the user to publish content previously.   2) Upon sending a survey to user and receipt of response, do not allow publishing of results or associated comments under the following circumstances:   a. If the average of the answers to the first 4 questions of the survey are less than 7 or the answer to the last question is less than 8; and   b. Identify all previous submissions to requestor surveys, and if more than 75% of them did not pass the rule set to become publishable, do not allow this submission to publish if the average of the answers of the first 4 questions are less than 8 or the answer to the last question is less than 9.   
 
         [0040]    These limited examples of individual rules for each requestor, utilizing both responses to questions as well as rules to determine who is eligible to receive surveys are designed to provide a tangible example of the use of responses, information available from requestor  300 , information available to the operator of system  100 , and information available from external data sources. The specific rules appropriate for each requestor is determined uniquely based on their needs. 
         [0041]    The data management layer  510  connects with and manages various databases  511  to  518 .  512  through  518  are individual data tables that store information of client database  511 . The requestor business information, such as name, address, city, state, zip, phone, website address, Facebook address, and the like, along with the individually set weights to the questions selected for requestor are in question database  512 . A question database  512  has all possible questions that might be asked any user for any requester. A customer (or user) database  514  has information stored about specific users. For example, such information includes name, address with city, state and zip code, email address, phone number, age of the user and the like type information. Question set database  513  contains pre-defined sets of questions out of questions stored in question database  512 . These pre-defined sets of questions are applicable to specific requestor types. A customer result database  515  has users or customer responses (for example customers of requestors  300  defined in client database  511 ). A database of the survey questions sent to users and results of those survey questions are stored in customer comment database  516  (A subset from question set database  513  sent to a customer database  514  are based on the client or requestor rules stored in client rules database  517 ). Any additional comments that a user has added to the survey results in additions to the answers to the survey questions, and the additional comments are also stored in customer comment database  516 . A database  517  also has the rules to apply to a specific requestor in terms of publishing comments and survey results from their users. Client billing database  518  has requestor  300 &#39;s billing information and billing history. 
         [0042]    Referring to  FIG. 3 , the steps of centralized management system  500  are shown. First, at  801 , centralized management system  500  creates a database of all individual questions that are anticipated to be needed for all requestors. At  802 , these questions are grouped into all appropriate questions for each requestor type. This grouping can be done electronically or, if minimal in number, by an operator. Questions are then, at  803 , associated with specific industries based on appropriateness of individual questions to specific industries. At step  804 , requestor evaluates each question in their assigned question set. The requestor can provide or assign their own unique weighting factors to each question in the question set to determine the importance of individual questions on the question pool for their industry and business. The weighing factors to each question are then stored in data management layer  510 . Upon centralized management system  500  receipt of a request for a survey to be sent to a particular customer or user, centralized management system  500 , operating on a computer, checks client rules database  517  for the rules of the requestor, and gathers data from system  500 , the requestor, and external data sources  600  as necessitated by the specific rules in client rules database  517  for the requestor, to calculate the associated algorithms for the rules in client rules database  517  and then applies the results as a filter on the request for a survey to be sent. If the survey is to be sent, in step  806 , questions are automatically selected by first starting with all questions in the associated question set, then sorting questions based on the weighting factors provided by requestor in step  804 , and further by applying any rules from client rules database  517  as to frequency of questions to be asked repeatedly vs. only one instance. 
         [0043]      FIG. 4 , shows an example of the process flow that requestor  300  goes through to operate the system  100 . The process commences when requestor  300 , that has contact information of its user (customer), such as an email address and/or cell phone number, sends this information to centralized management system  500  via the communication network  1000 . Centralized management system  500  uses the question set associated with the industry of requestor  300  at step  703  and sends the user  200  a link via the communications network  1000  at step  704  if the user is eligible to receive it (based on step  805 ). The user device  200  then, at step  705 , receives the link. Once the user clicks on the link on its user device  200 , the survey will be seen and the user has the opportunity to respond to the survey questions at step  706 . Depending upon the answers to the questions in the survey, the logic rules and calculation layer  504  uses the responses from the user and any associated data from requestor  300  and/or external databases  600  as inputs to the algorithms stored as rules in client rules database  517  to calculate results to each of the rules and determine, at step  707 , what happens after the survey is complete. If it is determined at step  707  that the answers have “passed” the rules in client rules database  517  of requestor  300 , the answers are stored, and the user is offered the option to publish the questions and content of their survey answers along with additional comments and content of the user at step  708 , and that, in turn, leads to step  710  where the content is enabled for publication if the user so chooses. However, if the system at step  707  determines that the answers have not “passed” the rules stored in client rules database  517  and calculated in step  707  of the requestor  300  the answers are stored, and the user is offered the opportunity to add additional information that is sent to requestor  300 . To allow the business to find out what they are doing wrong and to improve it, and no option is provided to publish the user content. 
         [0044]      FIG. 5  is a generic example of step  707  in which a rule is passed, and  FIG. 6  is a generic example of step  707  in which a rule is not passed. In steps  707   a  through  707   e  in  FIG. 5 , the process of sending a user a survey  707   a,  receiving the user&#39;s answers  707   b,  applying a rule created for this embodiment of the system that applies a set of numerical calculations that are stored as rules in  517  for each requestor to the data collected in the answers to the surveys to determine if the specific survey “passes” the rule. In this example, the results do pass the rule in step  707   d.  This “passing” leads to the outcome in step  707   e  where the user can publish their content. The example  707   f  through  707   j  in  FIG. 6  shows the same process of sending the user a survey  707   f,  receiving the user&#39;s answers  707   g,  applying a rule created for this embodiment that applies a set of numerical calculations to the data collected in the answers to the surveys to determine if the specific survey does not pass the rule. In this example, the results do not pass the rule, see step  707   i,  leading to the outcome in step  707   j  where the user&#39;s results and comments are provided to requestor  300 .