Batched Outage Notification for eCommerce Systems
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current eCommerce systems fail to effectively notify customers when an outage is resolved, leading to customer frustration and increased load on degraded systems, which can result in long wait times and a poor customer experience.
Innovation Solution
An eCommerce online platform detects functional outages and requests contact information from customers, who are then notified via email, phone, or other devices when the service is restored, using a batched notification system to manage traffic and reduce system load.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If customers are directed to try again later or call customer service during an outage, then customers can be informed of the outage, but customer frustration increases and call center volume increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary action by proactively notifying customers when the outage is resolved, before customers would otherwise need to call customer service or repeatedly attempt to access the service. This advance notification prevents customer frustration and reduces call center volume by eliminating the need for customers to actively seek outage resolution information.
2Reliability
If customers are directed to try again later during an outage, then customers can be informed of the outage, but system load increases due to repeated access attempts
Solution Approach 1:
The system implements feedback by establishing a two-way communication channel with customers during outages. Instead of passive redirection, the system actively monitors outage resolution and provides feedback notifications to customers, enabling them to stop repeated access attempts once notified of service restoration, thereby reducing system load.
3Loss of time
If notification requests are sent immediately when outage is resolved, then customers receive timely notification, but traffic spike occurs on the transaction entity
Solution Approach 1:
The system applies periodic action by sending notification requests in controlled batches rather than all at once. The notification system divides the contact list into multiple batches and sends notifications at intervals, which maintains timely customer notification while preventing traffic spikes that could overwhelm the transaction entity.
4Loss of time
If all customers are notified simultaneously when outage is resolved, then all customers receive notification quickly, but system crash may occur due to sudden traffic surge
Solution Approach 1:
The system implements segmentation by dividing the customer contact list into multiple batches and sending notifications sequentially rather than simultaneously. This segmentation approach distributes the traffic load over time, preventing system crashes while still providing timely notification to all customers through the batched delivery mechanism.
Data Source
AI summary
Techniques for notifying customers when an outage of an eCommerce system has been resolved are disclosed. An e-commerce on-line platform detects the functional outage of a transaction entity when customers are trying to access an associated service from the transaction entity. Consequently, customers are routed to an outage web page, where customers are requested to provide contact information. When the functional outage is resolved, customers are notified using the contact information. Contact information may be the e-mail address or the phone number of the customer. A contact list is formed and a batch of notification requests is sent by an eCommerce on-line platform through an alerting vendor for notifying customers when a functional outage has been resolved. Notification requests may be partitioned into a plurality of batches so that customers are alerted in waves for controlling traffic on the associated transaction entity.