Patent ID: 7739149

Claim:
A method of gathering sales information, comprising: generating a matching score associated with each of a plurality of sales associates and a customer, wherein the matching score is generated based at least in part on a relative ranking of the associated sales associate with respect to each of two or more rules of a rule set, wherein the rule set is dynamically modified based at least in part on a plurality of online sales transactions; linking a selected sales associate, of the plurality of sales associates, having the highest matching score to the customer for assisting in an online sales transaction; providing the selected sales associate with best practices information, wherein providing the selected sales associate with best practices information comprises: monitoring, by a computer, one or more online sales transactions between one or more of the plurality of sales associates and one or more customers; indexing, by a best practices engine executing on the computer, information and sales techniques used by the one or more sales associates during the online sales transactions by one or more of an enterprise, vertical or product associated with the corresponding online sales transaction; ranking, by the best practices engine executing on the computer, the information and sales techniques based at least in part on an outcome of the corresponding online sales transaction in order to create best practices information; storing, by the best practices engine executing on the computer, the best practices information in a database; dynamically re-ranking the best practices information based on further online sales transactions; and providing a computer associated with the selected sales associate access to at least some of the best practices information stored in the database during the online sales transaction based on the online sales transaction.