Dynamic Loyalty Tier Updates with Client-Side Latency Reduction
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing customer loyalty systems lack a generalized framework for defining loyalty categories and suffer from latency issues in tracking and updating loyalty tiers, which can frustrate customers by delaying the recognition of upgraded loyalty categories.
Innovation Solution
The system allows merchants to set custom loyalty tiers with dynamic boundaries based on loyalty points and percentiles, enabling immediate tier updates on a user's device without server transactions, thereby reducing latency and providing real-time access to upgraded loyalty features.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If traditional server-based tier update processing is used, then data consistency is maintained, but latency increases and customer satisfaction decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The system pre-calculates and stores tier boundary values and pending tier information on the client device before the actual tier update is needed. When a loyalty action occurs, the client can immediately compare the new point total against pre-stored boundaries and determine the new tier locally, eliminating the need for real-time server processing while maintaining data consistency through periodic synchronization.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a pending tier mechanism as an intermediary state that bridges the gap between current and future tiers. The client device stores pending tier information and uses it to determine tier status locally, acting as an intermediary that resolves the conflict between immediate tier recognition and server-based data consistency validation.
2Productivity
If real-time tier updates are implemented on client device, then latency is reduced and customer experience improves, but server transaction overhead increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the tier determination logic from the server and places it on the client device. The client device stores tier boundary values, pending tier information, and loyalty point totals locally, enabling it to independently determine tier status without requiring server transactions for each loyalty action. This extraction of computation from communication significantly reduces server overhead while enabling real-time updates.
3Adaptability or versatility
If dynamic tier boundaries are implemented, then customization flexibility increases, but computational requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system pre-calculates tier boundary values for both absolute point thresholds and percentile-based rankings, storing them on the client device before they are needed. This preliminary computation transforms complex dynamic boundary calculations into simple lookups and comparisons that can be performed efficiently on the client device with minimal processing power.
Data Source
AI summary
Systems and methods are described herein for supporting loyalty tiers. According to certain aspects, a custom number of loyalty tiers may be specified. Dynamic tier boundaries may be defined for each tier based upon a specified number of loyalty points, a percentile of total loyalty points, or a combination thereof. Periodic recomputing of tier boundary values can support dynamic loyalty tiers. According to certain other aspects, a user loyalty status may include a current tier and a pending tier. User loyalty points may be updated for a current loyalty activity. The updated user loyalty points may be compared with a point boundary for the pending tier and the user may be updated to the pending tier. Transacting the tier update with the server may be bypassed to reduce tier update latency. Also, immediate access at the client to features associated with the updated current tier may be supported.