US 10,482,511 B1Granted

Employee profile for customer assignment, analytics and payments

AssigneeGroupon, Inc.

InventorsTuomas Artman, Jyri Engestrom, Ulf Schwekendiek

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Abstract

Systems and related methods facilitating interactions between a merchant device, a central system and a consumer device are discussed herein. Wallet identifying data may be used to secure messages between the consumer device and the merchant device over a wireless link. For example, the merchant device may include circuitry configured to wirelessly receive the wallet identifying data from a consumer device and to transmit the wallet identifying data to the central system. In response, consumer identifying data associated with the wallet identifying data may be received by the merchant device from the central system. In some embodiments, employee identifying data that identifies an employee may be associated with the consumer identifying data to facilitate consumer assistance and employee payment.

Claims18

Dependent claims

A merchant device for securely identifying consumer devices for programmatic matching with an employee payment account, comprising processing circuitry configured to:

wirelessly receive wallet identifying data from a consumer device via a direct wireless connection when the consumer device is within a direct wireless communicable range with the merchant device;
transmit the wallet identifying data to a central system via a secure connection separate from the direct wireless connection;
in response to transmitting the wallet identifying data:
receive, from the central system and via the secure connection, consumer identifying data that identifies a consumer associated with the wallet identifying data;
and
receive, from the central system and via the secure connection, consumer preference data indicative of a preference for a particular employee skill and service level, particular employee identifying data, or an employee type;
track employee service availability, employee service availability being indicative of an availability of an employee to assist a consumer;
determine a ranking of employees for the consumer based at least in part on the employee service availability and the consumer preference data;
match the employee payment account associated with a selected employee with the consumer based on the ranking of employees by identifying the employee payment account configured to receive payments that is associated with the selected employee;
and
subsequent to matching the employee payment account associated with the selected employee with the consumer, associate employee identifying data that identifies the employee payment account associated with the selected employee with the received consumer identifying data.

8 more elements

A method for securely identifying consumer devices for programmatic matching with an employee payment account, comprising:

wirelessly receiving wallet identifying data from a consumer device via a direct wireless connection when the consumer device is within a direct wireless communicable range with the merchant device;
transmitting the wallet identifying data to a central system via a secure connection separate from the direct wireless connection;
in response to transmitting the wallet identifying data:
receiving, from the central system and via the secure connection, consumer identifying data that identifies a consumer associated with the wallet identifying data;
and
receiving, from the central system and via the secure connection, consumer preference data indicative of a preference for a particular employee skill and service level, particular employee identifying data or an employee type;
tracking employee service availability, employee service availability being indicative of an availability of an employee to assist a consumer;
determining a ranking of employees for the consumer based at least in part on the employee service availability and the consumer preference data;
matching the employee payment account associated with a selected employee with the consumer based on the ranking of employees;
and
subsequent to matching the selected employee with the consumer, associating employee identifying data that identifies the employee payment account associated with the selected employee with the received consumer identifying data.

8 more elements

A system for securely identifying consumer devices for programmatic matching with an employee payment account, comprising:

a merchant device comprising processing circuitry configured to:
wirelessly receive wallet identifying data from a consumer device via a direct wireless connection when the consumer device is within a direct wireless communicable range with the merchant device;
transmit the wallet identifying data to a central system via a secure connection separate from the direct wireless connection;
in response to transmitting the wallet identifying data:
receive, from the central system and via the secure connection, consumer identifying data that identifies a consumer associated with the wallet identifying data;
and
receive, from the central system and via the secure connection, consumer preference data indicative of a preference for a particular employee skill and service level, particular employee identifying data or an employee type;
track employee service availability, employee service availability being indicative of an availability of an employee to assist a consumer;
determine a ranking of employees for the consumer based at least in part on the employee service availability and the consumer preference data;
match the employee payment account associated with a selected employee with the consumer based on the ranking of employees;
and
subsequent to matching the employee payment account associated with the selected employee with the consumer, associate employee identifying data that identifies the employee payment account associated with the selected employee with the received consumer identifying data;
a consumer device including processing circuitry configured to:
prior to sending the wallet identifying data to the merchant device, receive the wallet identifying data from the central system;
wirelessly send the wallet identifying data to a merchant device via the direct wireless connection when the consumer device is within the direct wireless communicable range with the merchant device;
and
wirelessly receive, via the direct wireless connection, employee profile information of the employee payment account associated with the selected employee associated with the consumer identifying data from the merchant device;
and
the central system including a networked device including processing circuitry configured to:
prior to receiving the wallet identifying data from the merchant device, send wallet identifying data to the consumer device;
receive the wallet identifying token sent to the consumer device from the merchant device via the secure connection;
and
in response to receiving the wallet identifying token:
send the consumer identifying data associated with the wallet identifying data to the merchant device via the secure connection;
and
send the consumer preference data for the particular employee identifying data or employee type to the merchant device via the secure connection.

23 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.