Data processing: financial – business practice – management – or co – Automated electrical financial or business practice or... – Electronic shopping
Reexamination Certificate
1996-11-25
2002-09-17
Poinvil, Frantzy (Department: 2164)
Data processing: financial, business practice, management, or co
Automated electrical financial or business practice or...
Electronic shopping
Reexamination Certificate
active
06453302
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is directed to a sales presentation generation system and, more particularly, to a system which integrates customer specific information with a selling entity element to generate a presentation customized for a particular customer in a manner which reinforces the identity of the selling entity.
The following description and related drawings include reference to a number of trademarks. The inclusion of these trademarks is for purposes of clarity and illustration only and does not express or imply any connection between the owners of the trademarks and the invention or between the owners of the trademarks and the assignee of the invention.
Sales representatives currently use a number of techniques and methods to present a product to a customer. These techniques may include sales proposals or presentations, such as PowerPoint (TM) slide presentations, videos, and the like. Typically, sales proposals generally fall into two distinct categories. On one hand,,sellers often use “brochures” to generally market their products. These brochures provide information about the seller generic to any type of customer, and in doing so convey a strong sense of the seller's “look” or identity. On the other hand, seller's may create customized proposals to target a specific customer or group of customers. As the degree of customization increases however, the “look” or identity of the seller tends to be lost. Other presentations, such as slide shows, suffer from the same tension between customization for a particular customer and the desire to maintain the “image” or “look” of the selling entity.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention provides a system for creating sales presentations. The system integrates customer specific information with a selling entity element to generate a presentation customized for a particular customer in a manner which reinforces the identity of the selling entity. Accordingly, the present system significantly enhances the impact of sales presentations and the likelihood of consummating a sale.
In one particular embodiment, there is provided a computer system implemented method and apparatus for generating a customized presentation for a customer of a selling entity to facilitate a sale of a product offered for sale by the selling entity to the customer. The computer system includes a memory arrangement and at least one processing unit. The computer system stores, in the memory arrangement, selling entity elements having a corresponding impression characteristic which the customer of the selling entity identifies with the selling entity.
The computer system develops a customer solution for the customer based on customer information, received in the computer system, representing the customer's interest in the product.
A selling entity element is retrieved from the stored selling entity elements and a presentation item is generated by integrating customer solution information with the retrieved selling entity element to reflect a portion of the customer solution in a manner which maintains the corresponding impression characteristic of the retrieved selling entity element. Finally, the presentation item may be output for presentation of the customer solution to the customer in a manner which reinforces the identity of the selling entity.
In another embodiment, a computer is provided which generates customized proposals to facilitate a sale of a product offered for sale by the selling entity to different types of customers. The computer system includes a memory arrangement and at least one processing unit. One or more selling entity elements and one or more customer type elements are stored in the memory arrangement. The selling entity elements are identifiable with the selling entity by customers of the selling entity, and the customer type elements correspond to the different types of customers for the product offered for sale by the selling entity.
The computer system receives customer profile information of a particular customer and also receives information indicative of the particular customer's interests in the product. Based on the customer's interest in the product, a customer solution is generated for the particular customer. A customer type of the particular customer is determined from the customer profile information. The computer system retrieves, from the customer type elements, a customer type element corresponding to the customer type of the particular customer, and retrieves a selling entity element from the plurality of selling entity images. The retrieved customer type element and the retrieved selling entity element are then integrated into an integrated presentation customized for the particular customer based on the customer solution.
These and various other features as well as advantages of the invention are pointed out with particularity in the claims annexed hereto and form a part hereof. However, for a better understanding of the invention and its advantages reference should be made to the drawings which form a further part hereof, and to the accompanying descriptive matter, in which there is illustrated and described various embodiments of a system in accordance with the invention.
REFERENCES:
patent: 4982346 (1991-01-01), Girouard et al.
patent: 5272623 (1993-12-01), Grubb et al.
patent: 5615342 (1997-03-01), Johnson
patent: 5754938 (1998-05-01), Herz et al.
patent: WO 00/67092 (2000-11-01), None
Egol, Len, “Let's get personal . . . Special Focus on Printing/Production . . . ”, Direct, v3, n11, p42(4), Nov. 1991, (dialog file 148, Accession No. 05495197).
Johnson Jerome D.
Mehr Dale A.
Clear With Computers, Inc.
Merchant & Gould P.C.
Poinvil Frantzy
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