Patent ID: 7657465

Claim:
A method of registering sales associates to assist customers in online sales transactions, the method comprising: receiving, by a computer in a network of computers, sales associate information from a plurality of sales associates; receiving, by the computer, session information from a website about a customer's session on the website, the session information comprising the products the customer is viewing on the website; analyzing, by the computer, the session information received; identifying, by the computer, the customer as a potential target for permissive assistance, based at least in part on the analysis of the session information received; matching, by the computer, the customer with at least one of the plurality of sales associates based on weighted parameters comprising the session information and information about the plurality of sales associates, wherein matching comprises: determining a rule set to apply in order to match the customer with at least one of the plurality of sales associates, said rule set comprising two or more rules, respective rules having a relative weight associated therewith; and generating a matching score for each of the plurality of sales associates based at least in part on a relative ranking of the sales associate with respect to each rule of the determined rule set multiplied by the relative weight associated with the corresponding rule; dynamically changing the determined rule set based at least in part on a combination of sales successes and market conditions; and notifying, by the computer, at least the sales associate with the highest matching score that the sales associate is an acceptable candidate.