Method and system for enhancing customer loyalty

Abstract

A method of and system for providing customer-specific information involving a) obtaining customer identification information for identifying a customer to be served at the weigh station; b) storing a plurality of customer profiles for a plurality of customers wherein each customer in the plurality of customers has an associated customer profile; and, c) when the customer is in the plurality of customers, retrieving the associated customer profile for the customer using the customer identification information and providing associated customer-specific information based on the associated customer profile to a weigh station display.

Description

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION[0001]This application is a continuation of prior U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10 / 412,666, filed on Apr. 14, 2003, the entirety of which is hereby incorporated by reference.FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0002]The present invention relates generally to a method and system for enhancing customer loyalty, and more particularly relates to a method and system of enhancing customer loyalty by providing customer-specific information to a weigh station at which the customer is being served.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0003]Methods and systems have been devised to enhance customer loyalty to a particular provider / brand of a product or service. Such methods include issuing coupons and providing information to customers aimed at encouraging them to make purchases. These systems and methods for encouraging customer loyalty suffer from a number of disadvantages. First, with respect to coupons, the redemption rate is typically low. That is, only a very low percent...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0006]In accordance with an aspect of an embodiment of the invention, there is provided a system for enhancing customer loyalty. The system comprises: a customer identification module operable to obtain a customer identifier for uniquely identifying a customer; a storage module operable to store a plurality of customer profiles, each customer profile in the plurality of customer profiles being associated with one of a plurality of customers; an information retrieval module operable to select a customer profile from the plurality of customer profiles stored in the storage module, the selection being based on the customer identifier; an information processing module operable to generate incentive information for the customer based on the customer profile selected by the information retrieval module, the incentive information comprising marketing information for the customer, the marketing information identifying at least one of a plurality of products available for purchase; and a weigh station operable to receive the incentive information from the information processing module, the weigh station comprising: a scale operable to determine a weight of one of the plurality of products; and a display operable to display the marketing information to the customer.

Problems solved by technology

First, with respect to coupons, the redemption rate is typically low.

This is due, in part at least, to the inconvenience that must be borne by customers, if they are to redeem coupons.

In practice, a customer having a coupon will often not have that coupon available when actually making the purchase, which may discourage the customer from making the purchase at all.

In addition, prior art systems and methods for encouraging customer loyalty by providing information to customers suffer from a number of shortcomings.

Otherwise, the information set out may no longer be correct.

Often, the customer will be unsure of the information, or forget it completely, and will thus be unable to benefit from the information when actually shopping.

If, on the other hand, the customer is provided with the information at the point of sale, the customer is less likely to return and do additional shopping as this will require a second wait in the queue at the point of sale, which is inconvenient.

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