Customer feedback system

A customer feedback system comprising a paper form having a plurality of regions, at least one of which is for entry of customer feedback responses, a scanner for converting data on paper into graphical format, and an electronic data reader for converting graphical format into electronic data, wherein data from said at least one region on the paper form is converted into a format suitable for electronic analysis. In order to provide an incentive to customers to provide their feedback, data from at least one other region is retained in said graphical format for sending as an electronic message to an address specified by a customer. Thus the customer is able to send an electronic postcard.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The e-MailCard Feedback System according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention provides an interface between the “old way of doing things”, that is to say pen and paper, and the new Internet technology. Furthermore it satisfies the needs of the customers on the one hand, by providing him with the means to send a handwritten postcard electronically, and on the other hand it allows the hotel to obtain the required feedback or any other information, again in such a way that it is provided by the customer using pen and paper but made available to the hotel or other business in electronic form so that it can be sent and analyzed rapidly and easily. Advantages that may be gained by the system following an improved response rate from customers include: Providing customers with better correspondence facilities. 1. Providing the business with better and nearer real time information. 2. Improving quality control within multi-unit corporations. 3. Improving handling of customer dissatisfaction, and enables rapid assessment and response even from remotely located management. 5. Providing better rating and benchmarking information. Reference is now made to FIG. 1 , which is a generalized diagram showing a simplified form for use in accordance with a first embodiment of the present invention. The form 10 comprises a first side 12 and a second side 14 . On the first side 12 a customer is given space to write a postcard and to enter an e-mail address. On the second side 14 a customer feedback survey appears. The survey form preferably comprises question fields in which the customer is asked various pertinent questions. Against each question the customer is given the opportunity to enter an answer. Preferably, for ease of reading by character reading equipment answers are in the form of ticks or crosses against a “yes” or a “no” or ticks or crosses against numbers. In addition to such structured parts of the form there may also be provided a section asking the customer for comments or more generally for giving the customer an opportunity to give a less structured answer. The customer is preferably offered free and near instantaneous delivery of his postcard as a graphical e-mail in return for filling in the feedback survey. Preferably the form is more elaborate than that shown in the figure and the user may be given the space to write several postcards to several different e-mail addresses. Alternatively, the user may be able to enter several e-mail addresses to which to send a single message. Reference is now made to FIG. 2 , which is a generalized block diagram showing an embodiment of a customer feedback system operable in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. Parts that are identical to those shown above are given the same reference numerals and are not referred to again except as necessary for an understanding of the present embodiment. Form 10 is inserted into scanner 20 for scanning. The scanner may be a standard scanner. In the case of a hotel it may conveniently be placed at or near reception, perhaps on a special stand. The user is simply required to place the form 10 on the scanner and press a button. The scanner 20 preferably generates image data, that is data in graphical format, which is sent to an associated PC 22 . At the associated PC 22 according to a particularly preferred embodiment, software is provided for supporting operation of the scanner is provided and no intelligent processing of the data is carried out. Rather, the data is sent as it is to a central management PC 24 . At the central management PC 24 , optical recognition software is used to identify fields on the form and read the customer's responses. Any one of a number of optical recognition systems may be used and examples include OMR (optical mark recognition) for example as incorporated in such packages as Acuform™. Recognition errors may be corrected by human staff. The recognition system is required to carry out two different types of tasks. The e-mail address has to be identified character-by-character. The structured part of the survey referred to above preferably requires the different question fields on the form to be located and for corresponding answers to be identified. The non-structured part of the survey, if provided, may use character-by-character recognition or alternatively may simply be stored as a graphic. A known system for identifying survey data and converting it into electronic format is known from U.S. Pat. No. 5,936,225, the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference. In this document, a system for processing a plurality of response forms containing subsets of questions from an entire set of question is disclosed. This system includes an optical scanner for creating an optical image of the response form. The optical image is stored in an image file within a storage means by a processor. The form contained in the optical image is identified by comparing vertical and horizontal histograms of the image within the image file to vertical and horizontal histograms of prototype form images in a prototype library using the processor and a form recognition engine. Data is extracted from the form based on a comparison of response zones on the image to a library of sets of response prototypes describing completed and uncompleted responses. The closest response zone match using the histogram technique to describe the response zone and the samples becomes the data, yes or no; that is reported. It is pointed out that the structured part of the form does not need a scanner to read it. A number of structured form readers are well-known to the skilled man and may be used in place of scanning. The central management PC 24 may be remotely located from the scanner PC 22 , particularly where the business concerned is a multiple location business such as a chain of hotels. Particularly, however, if the business is a single location business, then the two PCs 22 and 24 may in fact comprise a single machine. As a further alternative, the central management PC may be connected to the individual scanner PCs via the Internet 26 , and this is the situation illustrated in FIG. 4 . Furthermore, although the e-mail postcards are here shown as being sent from the scanner PC, 22 , it may in some cases be preferable to send the e-mail postcards from the central management PC 24 , and this again is the situation shown in FIG. 4 below. The post-card message is preferably not processed for character recognition at all but rather is formatted as a graphic and sent, via the Internet 26 , to the e-mail address that the customer has specified in the associated address field. In a preferred embodiment particularly for use in hotels, the scanner is associated with a key card reader 28 adapted for reading data from electronic hotel keys 30 . The customer is encouraged to enter his card into the reader so that data associated with the customer, such as his room number, may be associated with the survey data or used to validate his receiving a free e-mail. Reference is now made to FIG. 3 , which is simplified flow diagram showing in greater detail the steps involved in scanning and processing the data. In a first step the card 10 is entered into the scanner and scanned. Then the data is split into two parts, the e-mail part and the survey part. The e-mail part requires optical character recognition to identify the individual characters of the address, as discussed above. The postcard itself is sent as a graphic. In addition, advertising material such as banners may be added above or below the graphic as desired. The banners may include the logo of the hotel from which the card is being sent. Other banners intended to appear on the recipient's screen may be inserted above or below the graphic according to predefined rules. Preferably the system includes simple software to determine whether the e-mail address is a valid e-mail address. In addition, should the card be sent back from the Internet in the event of the e-mail address being non-existent, then a facility is preferably provided for informing the user and permitting him to correct the address. Effective operation of the facility may depend on how quickly the notification is received from the Internet. The other part of the form, the survey part, is preferably analyzed as described above using standard feedback form recognition systems. Resulting data is accumulated in database software as desired and reports are produced for sending to head office or to the branches of the chain for analysis. The data may be arranged and reported daily or at any other preferred intervals. Any non-structured part of the survey response may be sent to head office as an e-mail, in the same way as the electronic postcard, except that instead of being associated with an e-mail address entered by the user on the form, it is automatically associated with an e-mail address of an appropriate recipient within the organization. Reference is now made to FIG. 4 , which is a simplified diagram of an embodiment of the present invention in which the e-mail postcards are sent from the central management PC 24 . In FIG. 4 , the data is received from the individual scanners at the central management PC 24 and is processed to provide reports etc. as described above. The data may be further processed by management if desired. Feedback and analysis are then sent back to the individual branches 32 . 1 . . . 32 .n in the chain. It is noted that the system may be used to send e-mails without wishing to use the customer feedback aspect. In this case, the customer simply writes out his postcard message in the appropriate region and fills in an e-mail address. The form is scanned as before. Reference is now made to FIG. 5 , which is a simplified block diagram of a further embodiment of the present invention. Parts that are identical to those shown above are given the same reference numerals and are not referred to again except as necessary for an understanding of the present embodiment. In the embodiment of FIG. 5 the scanner 20 is accompanied by a video camera 40 . The video camera is preferably operable to obtain multimedia data such as motion video and sound for adding to the postcard. In one embodiment the video camera 40 is operable to obtain still images as well as motion video. In another embodiment a still camera 42 is provided alternatively or additionally to the video camera. Thus the user is able to send still or motion pictures and sound as desired as part of his postcard. An audio input 44 , such as a microphone, is provided to allow the user to record an audio message for attaching to the card if desired. Preferably the audio input is able to operate together with the video camera 40 to produce a combined recording. In a preferred embodiment the audio input 44 is part of the video camera 40 . Reference is now made to FIG. 6 , which is an variation of the device of FIG. 5 . In the embodiment of FIG. 6 , Parts that are identical to those shown above are given the same reference numerals and are not referred to again except as necessary for an understanding of the present embodiment. The key card reader 30 is replaced with a touch screen 46 which preferably shows animated instructions for the preparation of an e-mail postcard and allows the user to input data by pressing on “soft” (i.e. software defined) buttons. For example the user may use the buttons to enter his room details and perhaps also the destination e-mail address. Typically the user is given a choice of writing the e-mail address for interpreting by the character recognition feature or entering it via the touch screen 46 . Reference is now made to FIG. 7 , which is an illustration of the embodiment of FIG. 6 being used for sending an electronic post-card. An input device 50 comprises a touch-screen 52 , a scanning slot 54 , and a video camera port 56 . A user fills in a form with the text he wishes to use, and provides answers to a survey. The form is scanned in the slot 54 . A destination e-mail address may be entered on the form or may be entered via the touch-screen 52 . Room details are preferably entered via the touch-screen 52 . Any feedback to the user, for example to say that the e-mail address cannot be interpreted, is provided via the touch-screen 52 , and operation of the video camera is also preferably via the touchscreen. There is thus preferably provided a system in which customers are able to utilize a pen and paper interface and are given an incentive to fill in a customer feedback form. At the same time the data is made available in electronic form with all of the associated advantages. It is appreciated that features described only in respect of one or some of the embodiments are applicable to other embodiments and that for reasons of space it is not possible to detail all possible combinations. Nevertheless, the scope of the above description extends to all reasonable combinations of the above described features. The present invention is not limited by the above-described embodiments, which are given by way of example only. Rather the invention is defined by the appended claims.