Service point management system for use in sales promotion services

A point management system connected with a customer terminal via a communication link, employing a computer for managing points issued to each customer who receives services according to the issued points, comprising:

• a point issuing unit to issue the points to a customer according to transactions performed by the customer;
• a point accumulation unit to calculate and accumulate the issued points;
• a customer identification unit to identify the customer according to customer identification information obtained from the customer terminal;
• a notifying unit to notify the customer of the cumulative points accumulated by the point accumulation unit by sending the cumulative points to the customer terminal when the customer is successfully identified by the customer identification unit;
• a selection unit to enable the customer to select a requiring genre of service;
• and
• a displaying unit to display the services belonging to the genre the customer selected, points required for said each service and points additionally required to receive said each service.

A point management system connected with a customer terminal via a communication link, employing a computer for managing points issued to each customer who receives services according to the issued points, comprising:

• a point issuing unit to issue the points to a customer according to transactions performed by the customer;
• a point accumulation unit to calculate and accumulate the issued points;
• a customer identification unit to identify the customer according to customer identification information obtained from the customer terminal;
• a notifying unit to notify the customer of the cumulative points accumulated by the point accumulation unit by sending the cumulative points to the customer terminal when the customer is successfully identified by the customer identification unit;
• and
• an entering unit to enable the customer to enter a requiring service, and
• wherein the displaying unit further displays shortage points for receiving a service corresponding to the service the customer entered.

A point management method managing points issued to each customer via a computer, comprising:

• extracting purchase data responsive to a first customer transaction;
• correlating the extracted purchase data of the first customer transaction with a purchase condition table stored by a provider;
• and
• calculating and issuing points in relation to a customer in accordance with the correlation of the extracted purchase data with the purchase condition table prior to a second customer transaction subsequent to the first customer transaction, and indicating target points for which the customer is eligible to receive a credit.