Patent ID: 8775608

Claim:
A method of supplementing a pre-existing reference number on a legacy website provided by a legacy website provider with an enhanced reference number capable of identifying an internet user engaged in a web session on said legacy website to facilitate interaction between said internet user and said website provider, comprising the steps of: making a check to establish whether the internet user's computing device has a state object for the website provider stored thereon, the state object comprising a web user ID (wUID) which is unique to the internet user's computing device to identify the internet user; receiving a request to provide an enhanced reference number for identifying the internet user's web session, said request containing the pre-existing reference number; creating, via a processor, the enhanced reference number based on the pre-existing reference number upon receipt of said request, the enhanced reference number independent from the wUID; storing an association between the wUID and the enhanced reference number in a database accessible by the website provider; and making the enhanced reference number available to the user by displaying it in place of the pre-existing reference number on the legacy website via the web session such that the user can provide the enhanced reference number to an agent of the website provider.