Patent Issued for Client identification and management across multiple social platforms (USPTO 11637801): United Services Automobile Association

2023 MAY 12 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- A patent by the inventors Jeffords, Natalya Lohinova (San Antonio, TX, US), Limas, Shanna Ruth (San Antonio, TX, US), filed on June 30, 2020, was published online on April 25, 2023, according to news reporting originating from Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx correspondents.

Patent number 11637801 is assigned to United Services Automobile Association (San Antonio, Texas, United States).

The following quote was obtained by the news editors from the background information supplied by the inventors: “Social media platforms are gaining popularity as a technique for interaction between individuals. An individual can create an account on a social media platform and interact with others and post content for others to engage with. Further, an individual may create accounts across various social media platforms to access varying features across the social media platforms. In generation of each account, the individual may provide information (e.g., a social media handle, an email address, a phone number) that differs across each social media platform.

“Entities may maintain social accounts on various social media platforms to interact with individuals and post content relating to the entity and products/services provided by the entity. One action that individuals can take on social media platforms is to interact with the entity. For instance, an individual can post an inquiry to the entity on a social account associated with the entity. In response, the entity can respond to the individual on the social media platform to provide the requested information.

“The techniques introduced here may be better understood by referring to the following Detailed Description in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which like reference numerals indicate identical or functionally similar elements. Moreover, while the technology is amenable to various modifications and alternative forms, specific embodiments have been shown by way of example in the drawings and are described in detail below. The intention, however, is not to limit the technology to the particular embodiments described. On the contrary, the technology is intended to cover all modifications, equivalents, and alternatives falling within the scope of the technology as defined by the appended claims.”

In addition to the background information obtained for this patent, NewsRx journalists also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “Users may interact with one or more social media platforms for various reasons, such as interact with other users on the social media platforms or post content to be viewed by other users, for example. Further, a user may have an account across multiple disparate social media platforms.

“In many cases, entities (e.g., service providers) also have accounts on various social media platforms. The entities can present content and interact with users on the social media platforms. For example, an entity can respond to questions provided by a user via a messaging interface on the social media platform.

“The entity may determine whether a user interacting with the entity on a social media platform is a client of the entity. Determining whether a user is a client of the entity can allow for retrieval of client information to increase accuracy in responses provided by the entity.

“However, identifying an identity of a user engaging with the entity on a social media platform can be difficult. For instance, a username (or simply “handle”) of a user may not be indicative of a legal name of the user or a provided name (e.g., “John Smith”) of the user may be common to multiple clients of the entity. In such instances, the entity may be unable to determine whether the user is a client of the entity.

“One method to verify an identity of a user is to request the user to provide entity-specific credentials on the social media platform. This can include providing a user identifier (e.g., government-provided identifier, client number, account number, financial information, passwords) on a messaging application of the social media platform. However, messaging application security procedures across social media platforms may vary and may leave private user information vulnerable to unauthorized access.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A computer-implemented method comprising: obtaining an input from a user device associated with a user via a first external platform; parsing the input to identify user-specific external platform data and input information relating to the input; comparing the user-specific external platform data with information included in a client information database and information included in an external platform information database to identify a first client that includes information of a threshold similarity to the user-specific external platform data; transmitting a verification message to the user device via a first messaging application of the first external platform, the verification message including a request for client-specific information; receiving a verification response message from the user device via the first messaging application of the first external platform that includes the client-specific information; comparing the client-specific information with data relating to the first client included in the client information database and the external platform information database to determine whether the client-specific information corresponds with the data relating to the first client to verify that an identity of the user matches that of the first client; in response to determining that the identity of the user matches that of the first client, generating a response to the input provided by the user using the data relating to the first client; determining that any of the input information and the generated response to the input includes or requests information indicative of the identity of the first client; in response to determining that any of the input information and the generated response to the input includes or requests information indicative of the identity of the first client, transmitting a link to the user device to redirect the user device to a secure messaging application; and transmitting the generated response to the user device via the secure messaging application.

“2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising: aggregating a series of inputs provided by multiple users on multiple external platforms using an external platform aggregation portal.

“3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising: inspecting the user-specific external platform data to identify a username of the user that is specific to the first external platform; detecting an indicator associated with the identified username of the user that is specific to the first external platform as corresponding to the first client; and mapping the indicator to the data relating to the first client included in the client information database and the external platform information database, wherein the identity of the user is verified as the identity of the first client based on mapping the indicator to the data relating to the first client.

“4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising: identifying a number of potential clients that include information within the threshold similarity to the user-specific external platform data, the first client included in the number of potential clients; detecting a client-specific information data type that is common among each of the number of potential clients, wherein the verification message to the user device includes the request for the client-specific information of the client-specific information data type; and in response to receiving the verification response message from the user device, identifying the first client of the number of potential clients by matching the client-specific information to information relating to the first client.

“5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the client information database includes information specific to each of multiple clients, and wherein the external platform information database includes client-specific social media data relating to multiple clients obtained from user-specific external platform data included in inputs from multiple external platforms.

“6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising: in response to determining that the client-specific information corresponds with the data relating to the first client to verify that the identity of the user matches that of the first client, updating the external platform information database to correlate the user-specific external platform data and client-specific information with the first client.

“7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising: monitoring a plurality of content on multiple external platforms to retrieve a number of instances of a plurality of keywords associated with an entity; determining that a number of instances of a first keyword exceeds a threshold number; and in response to determining that the number of instances of the first keyword exceeds the threshold number, generating an alert relating to the first keyword.

“8. A system to identify a user of an external platform as a client of an entity, the system comprising: a user device associated with the user, the user device configured to: present a user-specific display of a first external platform on the user device; and provide an input directed to the entity on the first external platform, the input including user-specific external platform data and input information relating to an inquiry provided in the input; and a network-accessible server system associated with the entity, the network-accessible server system configured to: parse the input to identify the user-specific external platform data and the input information in the input; compare the user-specific external platform data with information included in a client information database and information included in an external platform information database to identify a first client that includes information of a threshold similarity to the user-specific external platform data; transmit a verification message to the user device via a first messaging application of the first external platform, the verification message including a request for client-specific information; receive a verification response message from the user device via the first messaging application of the first external platform that includes the client-specific information; verify an identity of the user as the first client by matching the client-specific information with data relating to the first client included in the client information database and the external platform information database; update the external platform information database to correlate the user-specific external platform data and client-specific information with the first client generate a response to the input provided by the user using the data relating to the first client; determine that any of the input information and the generated response to the input includes or requests information indicative of the identity of the first client; in response to determining that any of the input information and the generated response to the input includes or requests information indicative of the identity of the first client, transmit a link to the user device to redirect the user device to a secure messaging application; and transmit the generated response to the user device via the secure messaging application.

“9. The system of claim 8, wherein the network-accessible server system is further configured to: aggregate a series of inputs provided by multiple users on multiple external platforms using an external platform aggregation portal.

“10. The system of claim 8, wherein the network-accessible server system is further configured to: inspect the user-specific external platform data to identify a username of the user that is specific to the first external platform; detect an indicator associated with the identified username of the user that is specific to the first external platform as corresponding to the first client; and map the indicator to the data relating to the first client included in the client information database and the external platform information database, wherein the identity of the user is verified as the identity of the first client based on mapping the indicator to the data relating to the first client.

“11. The system of claim 8, wherein the network-accessible server system is further configured to: identify a number of potential clients that include information within the threshold similarity to the user-specific external platform data, the first client included in the number of potential clients; detect a client-specific information data type that is common among each of the number of potential clients, wherein the verification message to the user device includes the request for the client-specific information of the client-specific information data type; and in response to receiving the verification response message from the user device, identify the first client of the number of potential clients by matching the client-specific information to information relating to the first client.

“12. The system of claim 8, wherein the client-specific information includes any of a telephone number and an email address associated with the client.

“13. The system of claim 8, wherein the input provided by the user device is provided to an entity-specific account on the first external platform either directly to the entity-specific account or via the first messaging application of the first external platform, the first external platform including a social media application.”

There are additional claims. Please visit full patent to read further.

URL and more information on this patent, see: Jeffords, Natalya Lohinova. Client identification and management across multiple social platforms. U.S. Patent Number 11637801, filed June 30, 2020, and published online on April 25, 2023. Patent URL (for desktop use only): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/external.html?q=(11637801)&db=USPAT&type=ids

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