Patent Description:
This disclosure relates to a method and system for automatically managing email communication between a group of users and a group of target prospects. Email is ubiquitous, and the application of this is relevant to a large number of fields, but-for the purposes of simplicity-specific examples in this document will be limited to the sales industry.

Managing email relationships with a large number of people (prospects) is central to the role of a sales professional. In many cases, an individual may be reaching out to hundreds of prospects simultaneously. In order to be effective, each individual thread of communication must be maintained and followed up on. Moreover, the response (or lack of response) from a prospect requires action by the sales professional. This could include, but is not limited to, updating data within a Customer Relationship Management system or setting up future follow-up activities. Traditionally, these actions are done manually and require considerable effort on the part of the sales person. In the event of a lack of response from a prospect, the future action of following up can be forgotten or missed-leading to decreased effectiveness and excess labor costs.

In the context of a sales organization involving a large number of sales personnel, coordinating communication across the entirety of the team becomes increasingly important. If a sales professional within an organization is reaching out to an individual, it is desirable to know if anyone else from that organization has reached out to the same individual in order to drive strategy in the sales process. If multiple sales personnel are reaching out the same individual simultaneously, it is important to ensure that both efforts are mutually known and coordinated.

Standard email servers and clients do not provide functionality for multiple inboxes to be synchronized simultaneously nor do they provide the ability to automate actions or consume information based on the data provided by all inboxes within an organization.

Accordingly, what is needed is a system to automate the initial correspondences, bring down emails from all email mailboxes within an organization, and to store and process the data in a manner that enables the automation and efficient display of the data.

<CIT> discusses a method for the elimination of duplicate or multiple electronic mail (email) to one or more recipients, the method includes: generating table entries in a mail server that identify users of the mail server; receiving an email at the mail server; determining whether this is the first time the email is received at the mail server; wherein in the event this is the first time the email has been received: recording information about the email in the table; storing a copy of the email in a repository; forwarding the email to the intended recipients; and wherein in the event the email has been received previously: determining which of the intended recipients has not received the email; sending a copy of the email from the repository to the recipients who have not already received the email; and recording which of the recipients have now received the email in the table.

<CIT> discusses a system and method for processing messages stored in multiple message stores. Metadata identifying a range of topically identical messages extracted from a plurality of message stores storing a multiplicity of messages to be processed is iteratively copied. The metadata for the extracted range of topically identical messages is categorized. Those messages containing substantially duplicative content within the extracted range are identified as duplicate messages. Those non-duplicate messages within the extracted range are tallied into an ordering of conversation thread length. Those messages whose content is recursively-included content within another of the tallied non-duplicate messages are classified as near-duplicate messages. The remaining messages are designated as unique messages containing substantially non-duplicative content.

Methods and systems are enclosed herein for automatically managing email communication between a group of users and a group of target prospects. The system provides a user interface for managing the complexity of dealing with multiple inboxes and recipients simultaneously as well as customizable automation based upon the email content, recipients, and other metadata.

In one embodiment, an automated system is put in place to enable the user to send a series (or "sequence") of automated or manual emails to specific recipients. These sequences are constructed as a number of "steps" consisting of templated email content. A template contains variables that are automatically populated from an underlying database containing additional information about intended recipients.

Underlying this is a system which maintains connections to email mailboxes on behalf of many users. These mailboxes are periodically queried for new email messages on a continual basis. In the event of a new message, the message is checked for relation to a particular sequence. The system may contain logic to stop the delivery of a sequence conditioned on certain recipient behavior, such as replying to a message.

Systems and methods that implement the embodiments of the various features of the present invention will now be described with reference to the drawings. The drawings and the associated descriptions are provided to illustrate some embodiments of the present invention and not to limit the scope of the present invention. Throughout the drawings, reference numbers are reused to indicate correspondence between referenced elements.

Referring to <FIG>, an email synchronization and workflow system <NUM> is provided. A plurality of users 104a, 104b, 104c, and 104d are shown in <FIG>. In accordance with the present invention, any number of users 104a, 104b, 104c, and 104d may be provided; and only four users are shown in the illustrated example for the sake of clarity. In the illustrated example, the users 104a, 104b, 104c, and 104d may be sales personnel who need to contact potential customers via email to sell a product or service. The email synchronization and workflow system <NUM> is operative to establish communications with prospects 101a, 101b, 101c, and 101d. In accordance with the present invention, any number of prospects 101a, 101b, 101c, and 101d may be provided; and only four prospects are shown in the illustrated example for the sake of clarity. As explained herein, the system <NUM> will automatically manage the delivery of outbound emails 103a, 103b, 103c, and 103d, while simultaneously managing inbound emails 102a, 102b, 102c, and 102d. The number of inbound emails 103a and outbound emails 102a that can be handled by a system in accordance with the present invention is not limited. For the sake of clarity, only four of each are shown in the illustrated example.

Referring to <FIG>, an email synchronization subsystem <NUM> is provided. A plurality of email inboxes 111a, 111b, 111c, and 111d are shown in <FIG>. In the illustrated example, the inboxes 111a, 111b, 111c, and 111d may correspond to a user, for example 104a or user 104b shown in <FIG>, on a many-to-one basis; (one user may have one or more configured inboxes). These inboxes 111a, 111b, 111c, and 111d may correspond to the sales personnel's corporate email account. The email synchronization and processing system <NUM> is operative to providing the necessary capability to process inbound messages 112a, 112b, 112c, and 112d from prospects 101a, 101b, 101c, and 101d.

In the illustrated example, communication with inboxes 111a, 111b, 111c, and 111d is established programmatically and happens on a continual basis to achieve real-time access to new emails. An independent connection is made to each separate inbox, for example inbox 111a, and new emails 112a, 112b, 112c, 112d, and 112e are received by the system <NUM> as they are delivered to a corresponding mailbox 111a. The communication can take place over a variety of protocols depending on the underlying email server on which the inbox 111a is located.

In practice, many customers have email servers provided by Google Apps. In the case of an email server provided by Google Apps, the communication protocol with the inbox 111a is configurable and can be done via the Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) on a polling basis or via the Google-specific GMail API on a push basis. Other customers have on-premise or cloud-hosted Microsoft Exchange email servers. In that case, inbox synchronization is done via Exchange Web Services (EWS).

A key distinction between the email synchronization subsystem <NUM> and typical applications of the IMAP, EWS, or the GMail API lies in the treatment of multiple inboxes 111a, 111b, 111c, and 111d simultaneously. In general, neither IMAP, EWS, nor the GMail API provides functionality to sync multiple inboxes, requiring each mailbox to be synchronized independently.

In a typical application, a user 104a may provide a list of prospects 101a, 101b, 101c, 101d, and 101e to the synchronization and workflow system <NUM> in the form of a Comma Separated Value (CSV) spreadsheet. Referring to <FIG>, prospects 101a, 101b, 101c, 101d, and 101e may also be automatically generated based upon queries to a database <NUM> or based upon queries to a separate customer relationship management system, such as salesforce.

<FIG> illustrates a flow chart of one method of processing and storing emails received from the email synchronization subsystem <NUM>. The method shown in <FIG> includes the steps involved in both determining which prospects 101a, 101b, 101c, 101d, and 101e (if any) are associated with a given email 112a as well as the storage of said emails in the database <NUM>. More generally, the drawing shown in <FIG> relates to the email processing subsystem <NUM> shown in <FIG>.

Referring to <FIG>, in step <NUM> the emails 112a, 112b, 112c, 112d and 112e received from the synchronization subsystem <NUM> are continually received and processed. The first procedural step <NUM> is to extract metadata about an email 112a from the RFC <NUM> email headers associated with the email 112a. The TO, FROM, CC, and BCC headers are used to determine which users 104a, 104b, 104c and 104d and which prospects 101a, 101b, 101c and 101d are associated with the email 112a based on an email address match. In step <NUM>, the system checks for the existence of a related prospect 101a, 101b, 101c or 101d. If a prospect 101a, 101b, 101c or 101d is not related to an email 112a, then step <NUM> checks to see if an email 112a is part of a larger email thread. In this method, the IN-REPLY-TO RFC <NUM> email header is recursively checked to see if this email 112a is part of a larger email thread. If any previous email contains a reference to a prospect 101a, 101b, 101c or 101d, then this email 112a is considered to be indirectly related to that prospect 101a, 101b, 101c or 101d, respectively.

In this particular method, if none of the aforementioned steps <NUM> and <NUM> result in a related prospect 101a, 101b, 101c or 101d, this email is then stored in a database <NUM> and no further processing is done, as indicated in step <NUM>.

In practice, email data is of the most sensitive kind with respect to customer privacy. It is thus desirable that emails 112a, 112b, 112c, 112d and 112e that are not directly related to the sales process (as determined by being related to a prospect 101a, 101b, 101c or 101d) are not stored in a way that preserves their contents. One method would be to simply not store the email 112a, 112b, 112c, 112d or 112e at all, but this loss of information can be undesirable for other parts of the system. Instead, to achieve this, in step <NUM>, only the metadata about such emails 112a, 112b, 112c, 112d or 112e is stored. This metadata includes the RFC <NUM> Message-ID as well as the MD5 hash of the subject and recipients. Although in this particular embodiment an MD5 hash is used, any other cryptographic hash function could be employed.

If a prospect 101a, 101b, 101c or 101d is related to an email 112a, 112b, 112c, 112d or 112e (as determined by steps <NUM> or <NUM>), then the system attempts to derive additional information about the email 112a, 112b, 112c, 112d or 112e, respectively, in the form of a classification. One such embodiment of a classification system is to use a rule-based system wherein an order set of conditions maps directly to a classification. Such an embodiment is represented in <FIG>.

As shown in <FIG>, if an email 112a contains a subject that is prefixed with "Ooto", "Auto:", "Ooo", then the classification of the email will be Out of the Office (OOTO). If the email subject contains in any part of its contents "automatic reply", "auto response", "out of office", "out of the office", "away from my mail", "on leave", or "sick leave", then the email 112a will be classified as OOTO. If the first <NUM> characters of the body contains "out of office", "out of office", "away from mail", "on leave", "sick leave", or "maternity leave", then the email 112a will be classified as OOTO.

Also as shown in <FIG>, if an email 112a has an RFC <NUM> header named "Auto-submitted" with a value of "no" or any header named "x-autoreply", "x-autorespond", "x-mdautoresponse" exists, then the email will also be classified as Out of the Office. If the sender email address begins with "Mailer-daemon", "Mailerdaemon", or "postmaster", then the email 112a will be classified as Bounce. If the subject is prefix with "Undeliverable", "failed mail", "failed delivery", "mail delivery fail", "mail system error", "failure notice", "Nondeliverable", or "delivery status notification (failure)", then the email 112a will be classified as Bounce.

In <FIG>, it is also shown that in this particular method, if the RFC <NUM> IN-REPLY-TO or REFERENCES header of a particular email 112a contains a Message-ID stored in the database <NUM>, then the email 112a is classified as Reply. When the email delivery subsystem <NUM> sends messages, it includes textual metadata in the body. If this metadata is present, then the email 112a is classified as Reply. If the email 112a contains an identical subject and recipient as a previous message delivery, then this email 112a is classified as Reply.

In the above embodiment as represented by <FIG>, all rules are specific to the English language, but would be equally applicable in other languages. In a preferred method, the rules would be extended to include other language equivalents. For instance, "out of the office" would also include a rule to match "ausserhaus" in the German language.

Although reference is made herein to a heuristic rule-based system for email classification in this particular embodiment, other systems, such as statistical methods based on machine learning techniques, would also be applicable. For instance, a logistic regression model or neural network could be trained on a large number of sample email classifications in order to create a model that could be used to classify future emails.

Referring to <FIG>, email messages 112a which are related to prospects 101a, 101b, 101c, 101d, or 101e in the system are stored in database <NUM>, as represented by step <NUM>. Email messages 112a are multi-threaded and may contain multiple recipients. As such, each inbound message 112a, 112b, 112c, 112d and 112e may exist in multiple inboxes 111a, 111b, 111c and 111d, and be related to multiple prospects 101a, 101b, 101c, 101d, and 101e. In this example, such messages 112a, 112b, 112c, 112d and 112e will all share the same RFC <NUM> Message-ID. In this particular embodiment of the system, the storage <NUM> uses a simple deduplication method that ensures that each Message-ID only exists once in the database <NUM>.

Prior to this invention, most third party systems acting on behalf of inboxes which attempt to receive replies to messages utilize the RFC <NUM> REPLY-TO and SENDER headers. In practice, it has been found that this method provides very low accuracy. In the industry this can be as low as <NUM>%. This is due to those headers being of particular interest to spam catching engines such as SpamAssassin. Moreover, these methods can have significant impacts on the sender's email reputation. This invention provides a significant advantage over such conventional methods and provides reply detection accuracies as high as if the user sent the email 112a manually; and the present invention has a marginal impact on email reputation.

In practice, when sending email communications, it is not uncommon for a recipient to respond to an email 112a with a different email address than that which was specified as the "to" recipient. This may apply to an outbound email 112b sent to a prospect 101b as well, where the prospect 101b responds with a different email address than that which was specified as the "to" recipient in the email 112b sent to the prospect 101b. In this case, it is desirable for the system to correctly establish this new email address as corresponding to the original prospect 101b. <FIG> is a chart that represents an embodiment providing such functionality.

The chart represented by <FIG> shows steps necessary to determine indirect relationships between an inbound email 102a and a prospect 101c when there is not an exact email address match to existing prospects 101a, 101b, 101c, or 101d. As shown in step <NUM>, this logic is not necessary if the prospect 101a replies with the original "to" email 102a and we have a direct match, in which case the system proceeds to step <NUM>. However, if there is no match to the prospect 101c, the system proceeds to step <NUM>. Steps <NUM> and <NUM> illustrate the core logic of this embodiment: if the inbound email 112a has a FROM address containing a character match with the first or last name of the original prospect 101c, then the system associates this new email address with the pre-existing prospect 101c. If neither first nor last name match with a preexisting prospect 101a, 101b, 101c, or 101d, the system proceeds to step <NUM>, at which point the system creates an entirely new prospect 101e and associates the new prospect 101e with the inbound email 112a.

While the present description of an embodiment of the invention uses the example of a business that sells to potential customers over email, the usefulness of the present invention is not limited to an email sales environment. In most business environments, having conversations with existing customers, potential partners, and general communication is vital to the success of the business. The present invention may be useful in any environment in which communication by email is employed for any purpose.

<FIG> illustrates a shared inbox view of a particular known prospect 101a, displaying email data from multiple mailboxes 111a, 111b, and 111c. It is common for multiple users 104a, 104b, 104c, and 104d to communicate to the same prospect 101c, and it is beneficial for users 104a, 104b, 104c, and 104d to be aware of this. For example, sender 401a can see that sender 401b has also been communicating with the prospect 101c, and for that reason, might choose not to engage in a particular email communication with that prospect 101c under certain circumstances. For example, sender 401a might not send a particular introductory offer to prospect 101c if the prospect 101c has already received the same offer from sender 401b. In practice, it has been found that more visibility allows a user 104a to make smarter decisions when it comes to engaging with a particular prospect 101c.

<FIG> includes a histogram <NUM> showing inbound and outbound communication history over a twelve month period with the prospect 101c, across all users' mailboxes 111a, 111b, 111c, and 111d. In the histogram <NUM>, each empty bar represents a month, with the furthest right bar 402e being the current month. In the histogram <NUM>, the bars 402b and 402d shown in black, in whole or in part, depict a graphical representation of outbound communication. In the histogram <NUM>, the bars 402a and 402c shown as having dashed portions depict a graphical representation of inbound communication. If there was no communication in a given month, that fact will be graphically depicted in the histogram <NUM> as an empty bar 402e. This allows a user 104a at a glance to see the last time a prospect 101c was communicated with, and also the frequency of communication in the past. A responsive prospect would show a relatively balanced collection of black bars 402b and 402d with dashed bars 402a and 402c, where as an unresponsive prospect would show very little (if at all) dashed bars 402a and 402c.

Users often need the ability to execute specific actions based on events triggered from the Workflow System <NUM>. Users can create Triggers to achieve this, which are a significant component to system <NUM>. <FIG> is an example of a Trigger <NUM> created to update prospect information when an outbound email 103a is marked as replied <NUM> and specific prospect conditions <NUM> and <NUM> are met. In this example, these prospect conditions <NUM> and <NUM> must be met before the system will run the actions <NUM> shown in <FIG>. Logical operators may be used to combine multiple conditions. In the illustrated example, the first two listed conditions <NUM> are: Prospect Title contains "Recruit" OR Prospect Stage equals "Cold". The first two conditions <NUM> are logically OR'ed together, meaning that if either condition occurs a logical "true" condition exists for those two. Then, those two conditions <NUM> are combined in the illustrated example with a third condition <NUM>, which is Prospect Persona is unset. In this example, the third condition <NUM> is logically AND'ed with the first two conditions <NUM>. Thus, the conditions <NUM>, <NUM> for generating the action <NUM> are met in this example if either of the first two conditions <NUM> is true, and the third condition <NUM> is also true. The fields labeled "Title", "Stage", and "Persona" in <FIG> are examples of fields provided in the database <NUM> for data associated with a known prospect 101a, 101b, 101c and 101d.

Assuming these conditions are met as required by the specified logical operators, the following actions <NUM> shown in the example illustrated in <FIG> are executed in order: Set Prospect Persona to "Engaged" 504a. Add a tag of "Replied" to Prospect 504b. Then, Add the Prospect to the "Tier <NUM> - East Region" Sequence 504c.

Users 104a, 104b, 104c, and 104d are able to set any combination of conditions and actions, allowing for a very powerful automation layer. The Workflow System <NUM> creates a variety of events Triggers can listen to, including: Email Delivered; Email Replied <NUM>; Email Bounced; Email marked as Out of the Office; Prospect Created; and Prospect Updated.

Sequences are an important feature of the workflow and automation system <NUM>. <FIG> illustrates a sequence, which is a series of outbound emails 103a, 103b, 103c, and 103d designed to be sent to a prospect 101d, spaced out by predetermined time intervals 705a and 705b. Each sequence step can configure its own time interval 705a or 705b. When a prospect 101d is added to a sequence, the system starts at step 701a shown in <FIG>. Step 701a delivers an email 103a to the prospect 101d and waits a set interval 705a for a reply. If no reply has been synced from system <NUM>, the prospect 101d advances to step 701b and another email 103b is delivered to the prospect 101d. Again, the sequence waits another set interval 705b for a reply. If no reply is received, the prospect 101d advances to step 701c, and so on, until the prospect 101d has been through every step of the predetermined sequence.

If the prospect 101d replies in response to the email 103a sent in step 701a, the system <NUM> associates the reply with the prospect 101d in step 704a. If the prospect 101d replies in response to the email 103b sent in step 701b, the system <NUM> associates the reply with the prospect 101d in step 704b. If system <NUM> does sync a reply from the prospect 101d associated with any email 103a, 103b, etc., the prospect 101d is marked as finished in the sequence at step <NUM>. When a prospect 101d is marked as finished, the prospect 101d will no longer receive any more emails from the sequence.

Expanding on sequence step intervals, users 104a, 104b, 104c, and 104d can also set their own delivery schedule blocks, as illustrated in <FIG>. Sequence schedule blocks allow a user 104a, 104b, 104c, or 104d to deliver emails 103a, 103b, 103c, and 103d on specific days and times. This prevents emails 103a, 103b, 103c, and 103d from being delivered during unrealistic hours, such as <NUM>:<NUM> AM on a Saturday.

For example, users 104a, 104b, 104c, and 104d can specify a delivery window of <NUM>:<NUM> AM -<NUM>:<NUM> PM PST on Mondays, using delivery schedule blocks 902a and 901a shown in <FIG>, and choose not to deliver on Saturdays, excluding delivery schedule blocks 901c and 902b shown in <FIG>. If a sequence step schedules an email 103b to be delivered in an invalid schedule block 901b, the email 103b will be scheduled to deliver at the next valid time 901a and 902a. For example, if a sequence step schedules an email 103b to be delivered on Saturday, but delivery schedule block 901c shown in <FIG> is excluded as a valid delivery window, the email delivery will be pushed up to the next valid time, which in this example, would be Monday at <NUM>:<NUM> AM, corresponding to delivery schedule block 902a shown in <FIG>.

Referring to <FIG>, every sequence step maps to an email template <NUM> or <NUM>, which contains a template type 801a and 802a, respectively, email subject 801b or 802b, respectively, and an email body 801c or 802c, respectively. A template type can either be a New Thread 801a or a Reply 802a. A New Thread template creates a brand new email thread, where as a Reply template replies to the previous email delivered. Because template <NUM> is marked as a Reply Template 802a, when an email 103b in accordance with template <NUM> is delivered, it will typically be a reply to an email 103a in accordance with template <NUM>.

Both the template subject 801b and the template body 801c may contain template variables, shown in <FIG> with reference numerals 801d, 801e, and 801f. Template variables 801d, 801e, and 801f point to fields associated with a prospect 101b. For example, the "{{first_name} }" template variable 801d points to the "First Name" field on the corresponding prospect 101b. If the first name of prospect 101b is "Joe", the variable "{{first_name} }" will be replaced with "Joe" when the template is compiled, shortly before delivery time via system <NUM>. The fields labeled "first_name" and "industry" in <FIG> are examples of fields provided in the database <NUM> for data associated with a known prospect 101a, 101b, 101c and 101d, and the field labeled "sender. name" in <FIG> is an example of fields provided in the database <NUM> for data associated with a known user 104a, 104b, 104c, and 104d.

If a template variable does not exist on a particular prospect 101c, or there is a template compilation error, the associated email 103d will not be delivered. This is a safety setting in place to prevent delivering robotic looking emails, with uncompiled template variables. Users 104a, 104b, 104c, and 104d will need to manually fix these email drafts to continue a prospect 101a through a sequence.

The benefit of a sequence to the user 104a, 104b, 104c, and 104d is automated email follow-ups. Many times, it can take seven or more follow-up emails 103a, 103b, 103c, and 103d sent to a prospect 101a before the prospect 101a replies. Automating these follow-ups allows the user 104a, 104b, 104c, and 104d to communicate with more prospects 101a, 101b, 101c, and 101d and advantageously saves time.

Claim 1:
A system for automatically managing email communication between a plurality of first users (104a-d) and a plurality of second users (101a-e), comprising:
a database (<NUM>) containing information concerning a plurality of known second users (101a-e), and the database containing information concerning a plurality of first users (104a-d);
an email synchronization module (<NUM>) having a plurality of email inboxes (111a-d) associated with respective first users (104a-d), the email inboxes (111a-d) being capable of receiving a plurality of email messages (112a-e), including email messages from a plurality of second users (101a-e), the email synchronization module (<NUM>) being configured to extract metadata from an email message (112a-e) when it is received;
the email synchronization module (<NUM>) being configured to determine whether one or more first users (104a-d) are associated with an email message (112a-e), and if so, which first users (104a-d) are associated with an email message (112a-e), based upon a comparison of said metadata with information stored in the database (<NUM>) concerning the first users (104a-d);
the email synchronization module (<NUM>) being configured to determine whether one or more second users (101a-e) are associated with an email message (112a-e), and to identify which second users (101a-e) are associated with an email message (112a-e),
wherein identifying which second users are associated with an email message comprises:
examining said metadata for an email address that matches an email address stored in said database (<NUM>) corresponding to a known second user (101a-e), and if no match is found:
determine whether the name of the sender of the email message (112a-e) matches the name of a known second user (101a-e), or
determine whether said email message is part of a larger email thread containing a reference corresponding to information stored in the database (<NUM>) associated with a known second user (101a-e);
in the event that an email message (112a-e) is determined to be associated with a second user (101a-e), using a classification module to determine the classification for the email message (112a-e); and
in the event that an email message (112a-e) is determined to not be associated with a second user (101a-e), storing metadata concerning the email message (112a-e) without storing the contents of the email message (112a-e).