| CPC G06Q 20/4012 (2013.01) [G06Q 20/20 (2013.01); G06Q 20/202 (2013.01); G06Q 20/208 (2013.01); G06Q 20/4014 (2013.01); G06Q 30/0203 (2013.01); G07G 1/0009 (2013.01); G07G 1/0027 (2013.01); G06Q 20/209 (2013.01); G06Q 30/0282 (2013.01)] | 31 Claims |
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1. A system operable to collect customer ratings during a transaction, the system comprising:
an electronic point of sale system comprising:
a scanner operable to read encoded information relating to merchandise to be purchased as part of the transaction;
a computer programmed to effect operation of the electronic point of sale system and including
a POS module programmed to manage operation of the scanner,
a scanner driver operable to convey scanner signals between the POS module and the scanner wherein the scanner signals include merchandise signals providing information of merchandise just scanned,
a PIN entry device operable in association with the electronic point of sale to arrange a card payment for the transaction;
a payment application operable to manage operation of the PIN entry device, and programmed to receive a payment collection signal from the POS module, to operate the PIN entry device to collect card details including a PIN from the customer to effect payment of the transaction and to provide a payment confirmation signal to the POS module to confirm whether or not a payment was successfully made using the PIN entry device;
a POS proxy module arranged to work in parallel with the POS module;
a payment application plug-in operable in conjunction with the payment application and arranged to work in parallel with the payment application, wherein the payment application plug-in is configured to receive one or more rating questions from a remote ratings server;
a scanner pass-through driver operable to pass the scanner signals between the POS module and the scanner while collecting information from the scanner signals and sending copies of that information to the POS proxy module;
wherein the POS proxy module is programmed to process the received information from the scanner pass-through driver (a) to initiate a customer rating collection session upon the first receipt and detection, after a start and before completion of processing of the payment application; (b) to send a customer rating initiation signal to the payment application plug-in, and wherein the payment application plug-in is programmed to cause the PIN entry device to display a question on the PIN entry device prompting the customer to enter a rating, and to collect the rating entered by the customer; (c) to extract product information, including at least a description and a price, (d) to combine said product information with consumer rating entered by the consumer into a transaction payment report; and (e) to transmit the combined transaction payment report to the remote ratings server;
wherein the POS proxy module and the payment application plug-in are programmed to operate in parallel with the payment application and the POS module, the POS proxy module and the payment application plug-in completing the customer rating collection session after the start and before completion of processing of the payment application, during dwell time of the scanner processing, and wherein said system avoids a software update to the PIN entry device, the POS module and the payment application components in order to implement the customer rating collection processing and updates to the customer rating collection processing that are shared and combined with the payment application data into one or more transaction payment reports.
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