Patent ID: 7778885

Claim:
A consumer lead enhancement system comprising: a vendor criteria database configured to store vendor criteria for each of a plurality of vendors, wherein the vendor criteria for each vendor includes standard criteria and enhanced criteria for matching consumer leads to the vendor and wherein the enhanced criteria includes at least one criterion that is not included in the standard criteria; and computer hardware in communication with the vendor criteria database and comprising at least one computer processor configured to cause the computer hardware to perform operations comprising: requesting from a consumer a first set of consumer characteristics to which standard criteria in the vendor criteria database can be applied to match a standard consumer lead with one or more vendors; presenting an option to the consumer to provide a second set of consumer characteristics to which enhanced criteria in the vendor criteria database can be applied to match an enhanced consumer lead with one or more vendors; receiving from the consumer the first set of consumer characteristics; if the consumer selects the option to provide the second set of consumer characteristics, receiving from the consumer the second set of consumer characteristics, generating an enhanced consumer lead, applying at least some of the enhanced criteria in the vendor criteria database to at least some of the second set of consumer characteristics to match the enhanced consumer lead with one or more vendors, and transmitting the enhanced consumer lead to the matched vendors; and if the consumer does not select the option to provide the second set of consumer characteristics, generating a standard consumer lead, applying at least some of the standard criteria in the vendor criteria database to at least some of the first set of consumer characteristics to match the consumer with one or more vendors, and transmitting the standard consumer lead to the matched vendors.