Intermediary Telephony Service for Driver-Customer Call Placement
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Solution Overview
Problem
In the private hire car industry, existing systems require drivers to have customers' phone numbers to initiate calls, compromising customer privacy and lacking efficiency in communication between drivers and customers, especially when drivers need to contact customers who are not present or running late.
Innovation Solution
A system that allows drivers to request a call setup through a central management system without revealing the customer's number, using an external telephony service as a conference bridge to establish the call between the driver and customer, ensuring customer privacy and facilitating communication.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If the call centre operator provides the customer's telephone number to the vehicle driver, then the driver can contact the customer directly, but customer privacy is compromised
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a call placement service as an intermediary between the driver and customer. The service receives a request from the driver, retrieves the customer's telephone number from the database using the booking reference, and places the call on behalf of the driver. This mediator approach allows the driver to contact the customer without directly accessing or storing the customer's personal information, thus resolving the contradiction between ease of operation and customer privacy protection.
2Loss of time
If the driver stores the customer's telephone number locally, then call initiation is faster, but customer privacy is compromised and data security risks increase
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of storing customer data locally on the driver's device, the system uses a centralized database as an intermediary. When the driver needs to contact a customer, the driver's device sends a request with the booking reference to the call placement service, which retrieves the telephone number from the centralized database and initiates the call. This eliminates the need for local storage of sensitive customer data while maintaining efficient call setup through automated retrieval.
3Reliability
If the system requires manual intervention by call centre operators to provide customer numbers, then customer service quality is maintained, but operational efficiency decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a self-service system where the driver's device automatically initiates the call placement process by sending a request with the booking reference. The call placement service automatically retrieves the customer's telephone number from the database and places the call without requiring manual intervention from call centre operators. This automation maintains service quality through standardized procedures while significantly improving operational efficiency by eliminating manual steps.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary actions by pre-storing customer telephone numbers in the centralized database during the booking process. When a driver needs to contact a customer, the information is already prepared and accessible, eliminating the need for real-time manual lookup and information transfer. This preliminary preparation of data enables automated, efficient call placement while maintaining accurate and up-to-date customer information.
Data Source
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AI summary
A method or apparatus for connecting a telephone call between a vehicle driver and a customer, the method comprising receiving a driver request message from a device associated with the vehicle driver to place a telephone call between the vehicle driver and a customer; using the driver request message to match the vehicle driver with a job allocation record in at least one database and identifying from the record the identity of the customer; retrieving a telephone number relating to the device associated with the vehicle driver and retrieving a customer telephone number from the at least one database; and causing a telephony service to use the telephone numbers to place the telephone call between the vehicle driver and the customer.