TECHNICAL FIELD
Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to the field of mobile communication. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method and a system for evaluating/measuring customer experience associated with a 5 social networking application.
BACKGROUND
This section is intended to provide information relating to general state of the art 10 and thus any approach/functionality described below should not be assumed to be qualified as a prior art merely by its inclusion in this section.
In today’s world, there are multiple companies offering one or more products to customers. One of the important goals of such companies is to provide high 15 quality to the customers in order stay in the competitive market and to get hold-of the existing customers. For this, such companies attempt to measure customer’s experience using the products. One such product may include, but not limited to, a software or a mobile application, wherein the developers of the mobile application attempt to measure the customer’s experience. 20
Further, to measure the customer’s experience, the companies offers quality assurance/management of the mobile application that mandates to comply the developed mobile application with the defined and standardized quality of the application. One such quality assurance is achieved through performance testing 25 of the mobile application.
The performance of the mobile application, varies for different users depending upon customer’s device having the mobile application, an operating system of
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said device, network conditions, a geographical location in which said device is operated, etc. Moreover, for providing the quality assurance/management, it is critical to measure the performance of the mobile application on different customer’s devices and the associated customer experience of the mobile application. Accordingly, a number of customer experience evaluation systems 5 and methods have been developed to measure the performance of the mobile application on different customer’s devices and the associated customer experience of the mobile application.
The existing customer experience evaluation methods and systems gather 10 customer feedback in the form of surveys/direct interaction with the customers, and thereafter analyses said feedback to determine the customer experience. However, such process of obtaining customer feedback is blemished since very few customers actually fill in these surveys/talk to customer representatives. Further, a majority of the customers that provide feedback are those who are 15 experiencing problems with the mobile application, therefore, the feedback is always reactive. Furthermore, in such scenario, the positive feedback obtained is minimal and subsequent computation of customer experience based on this feedback does not provide the true state of the customer experience.
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In order to overcome the afore-mentioned limitations, some automated methods and systems for determining customer experience have been built; however, such methods and systems are unable to provide a comprehensive solution for measuring customer experience. Also, such existing methods and systems collect information relating to network bandwidth, workload and 25 context information of the mobile application and correlate these to performance of the mobile application to determine customer experience. However, these methods and systems consume data-bandwidth and computation resources on the customer’s device that potentially lead to altering
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the actual data-points. Further, these methods and systems are able to provide only limited amount of information.
Therefore, in view of the above drawbacks and limitations of the existing solutions, there is a need to develop a system and a method that effectively and 5 efficiently measures customer experience associated with the mobile application.
SUMMARY
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This section is provided to introduce certain embodiments and aspects of the present disclosure in a simplified form that are further described below in the detailed description. This summary is not intended to identify the key features or the scope of the claimed subject matter.
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Embodiments of the present invention may relate to a method for evaluating customer experience associated with a social networking application stored on an electronic device, the method comprising: evaluating at least one score associated with at least one pre-tracked usage parameter based on a pre-defined threshold, wherein said at least one score is computed based on at least one pre-20 configured rule and said at least one pre-tracked usage parameter, and said at least one pre-tracked usage parameter is associated with the social networking application and is retrieved from the electronic device; based on said evaluation, retrieving from said electronic device, a first-tier information pertaining to the least one pre-tracked usage parameter; analyzing said retrieved first-tier 25 information; based on said analysis of the first-tier information, retrieving a second-tier information pertaining to the least one pre-tracked usage parameter; and evaluating the customer experience associated with the social networking
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application based on at least one of the first-tier information and the second-tier information.
Embodiments of the present invention may further relate to a system for evaluating customer experience associated with a social networking application 5 stored on an electronic device, the system comprising: a customer experience unit configured to: evaluate at least one score associated with at least one pre-tracked usage parameter based on a pre-defined threshold, wherein said at least one score is computed based on at least one pre-configured rule and said at least one pre-tracked usage parameter, and said at least one pre-tracked usage 10 parameter is associated with the social networking application; and a transceiver unit configured to: based on said evaluation, retrieve from said electronic device, a first-tier information pertaining to the least one pre-tracked usage parameter, wherein the customer experience unit is further configured to analyze said retrieved first-tier information, wherein the transceiver unit is further configured 15 to retrieve a second-tier information pertaining to the least one pre-tracked usage parameter based on said analysis, and wherein the customer experience unit is further configured to evaluate the customer experience associated with the social networking application based on at least one of the first-tier information and the second-tier information. 20
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated herein, and constitute a part of this disclosure, illustrate exemplary embodiments of the disclosed 25 methods and systems in which like reference numerals refer to the same parts throughout the different drawings. Components in the drawings are not necessarily to scale, emphasis instead being placed upon clearly illustrating the principles of the present disclosure. Some drawings may indicate the
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components using block diagrams and may not represent the internal circuitry of each component. It will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that disclosure of such drawings includes disclosure of electrical components or circuitry commonly used to implement such components.
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FIG.1 illustrates an exemplary system architecture [100] for evaluating/measuring customer experience associated with a social networking application, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.
FIG.2 illustrates a method flow diagram [200] for evaluating/measuring customer 10 experience associated with a social networking application, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
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In the following description, for the purposes of explanation, various specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of embodiments of the present invention. It will be apparent, however, that embodiments of the present invention may be practiced without these specific details or with additional details that may be obvious to a person skilled in the 20 art. Several features described hereafter can each be used independently of one another or with any combination of other features. An individual feature may not address any of the problems discussed above or might address only some of the problems discussed above. Some of the problems discussed above might not be fully addressed by any of the features described herein. Example 25 embodiments of the present invention are described below, as illustrated in various drawings.
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Embodiments of the present invention relates to systems and methods for evaluating/measuring customer experience associated with a social networking application present on an electronic device, wherein said evaluation includes tracking of at least one usage parameter corresponding to the social networking application and evaluating the at least one tracked usage parameter to compute 5 at least one score associated with the tracked usage parameter. Based on an evaluation of the at least one score, a first-tier information pertaining to the least one tracked usage parameter is retrieved. Further, a second-tier information is retrieved based on an analysis of the first-tier information.
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As used herein, the social networking application may refer to a software/mobile application present on the electronic device and having a list of one or more customers connected with each other through the social networking application. As used herein, the customer experience may refer to an experience of a customer associated with the social networking application. Such customer 15 experience may be indicated in terms of good, average or bad, wherein the good customer experience may indicate that the customer is happy with the social networking application and not facing any issues/problems while using the social networking application. Further, the average customer experience may indicate that the customer is neither happy nor unsatisfied with the social networking 20 application; while the bad customer experience may indicate that the customer is not at all satisfied with the social networking application and is facing issues/problems while using the social networking application. As another alternative, the customer experience may be indicated in terms of numbers such as number 10 represents good customer experience, a range 7-5 represents 25 average customer experience and any number 4 or below represents bad customer experience. As different alternative, the customer experience may be indicated in terms of signs, wherein a positive (+) sign represents good customer experience and a negative (-) sign represents bad customer experience. The
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customer experience may be indicated in any such way which is obvious to a person skilled in the art.
As used herein, the electronic device may include, but are not limited to, a mobile phone, a tablet, a phablet, a laptop, a desktop computer, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a wearable device, a plain old telephone service device 5 and any such device obvious to a person skilled in the art. As used herein, the at least one ‘score’ may represent efficiency of the at least one usage parameter. Such score may be indicated in the form of a number, sign, colour, percentage and any such form that is obvious to a person skilled in the art.
As used herein, the at least one usage parameter may include, but are not 10 limited to, a file transfer latency, a messaging latency, a chat thread opening time, a RAM consumption, a battery consumption, an application opening time, a data consumption, one or more exceptions/ errors, a storage card data usage, etc.
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As illustrated in FIG.1, the present invention illustrates an exemplary system architecture [100] for evaluating/measuring customer experience associated with a social networking application, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. The system architecture [100] includes, but not limited to, an electronic device [102] connecting with a server [106] through a network [104]. 20 Any communication or exchange of information between the electronic device [102] and the server [106] takes place through the network [104]. Further, the electronic device [102] includes, but not limited to, an application health monitoring unit [102A] and a memory [102B]. Furthermore, the electronic device [102] also includes, but not limited to, a display unit, a hard and/or soft keypad, a 25 processor unit connected with the memory [102B], and a camera. Moreover, the server [106] includes, but not limited to, a customer experience unit [106A], a transceiver unit [106B], an analytics unit [106C] and a database [106D].
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The electronic device [102] is configured to store the social networking application in the memory [102B] of the electronic device [102].
The application health monitoring unit [102A] is configured to track at least one usage parameter associated with the social networking application, wherein such tracking is performed by monitoring the social networking application. In an 5 embodiment, the at least one usage parameter is tracked periodically after a pre-determined interval of time. In another embodiment, the at least one usage parameter is tracked in an event the social networking application is in usage including when the social networking application is executing in the background. For an instance, the social networking application is monitored for measuring a 10 time taken to transfer a file/message to measure latency, a time taken to open a chat thread in the social networking application, a percentage of a battery consumed by the social networking application, or a time taken to open the social networking application.
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The application health monitoring unit [102A] is further configured to compute at least one score associated with the tracked at least one usage parameter, based on one or more pre-configured rules. In an embodiment, the one or more pre- configured rules may comprise of an ideal value of the tracked at least one usage parameter, an acceptable value of the tracked at least one usage 20 parameter and the number of failures/ errors for the tracked at least one usage parameter. Further, the present invention encompasses different rules for calculating the at least one score for each of the tracked usage parameters.
Usage Parameter
Ideal Value
Acceptable Value
Tracked Value
Score
Time taken to transfer a file/message
10 sec (for 100KB)
30 sec (for
20 sec (for 100KB)
40 sec (for 1MB)
15 sec (for 100KB)
60 sec (for
10 (for 100KB)
1 (for
10
1MB)
1MB)
1MB)
Time taken to open a chat thread
1 sec
5 sec
2 sec
10
Battery consumption
5-10%
10-20%
20%
5
Time taken to open the social networking application
1 sec
5 sec
3 sec
10
Table 1
An exemplary Table 1 illustrates computation of the at least one score associated with the tracked at least one usage parameter. As shown in the Table 1, the score is 10 (i.e. Good) for 100KB when the tracked value (i.e. 15 seconds) for the usage parameter of “time taken to transfer the file/message” is less than or 5 below the acceptable value (i.e. 20 seconds). Similarly, the score is 1 (i.e. Bad) for 1MB when the tracked value (i.e. 60 seconds) for the usage parameter “time taken to transfer the file/message” is more or greater than the acceptable value (i.e. 40 seconds). Further, the score is 5 (i.e. average) when the tracked value (i.e. 20%) for the usage parameter “battery consumption” is equal to the acceptable 10 value (i.e. 10-20%). Such acceptable value and the ideal value may be pre-configured by the server [106] or may be iteratively changed by developers of the social networking application, based on the requirement of the social networking application.
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Once the at least one score corresponding to the at least one tracked usage parameter is computed, the customer experience unit [106A] of the server [106] is configured to retrieve the at least one score from the application health
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monitoring unit [102A] through the network [104]. The customer experience unit [106A] is also configured to evaluate the at least one score corresponding to the at least one tracked usage parameter by comparing the at least one score with a pre-defined threshold, wherein the pre-defined threshold is pre-configured by the server [106] or the developers of the social networking application. In an 5 event, the at least one score is above the pre-defined threshold, the customer experience unit [106A] evaluates that the at least one score is within the acceptable range and indicate that customer is not facing any problem/issue while using the social networking application. In an event, the at least one score is below the pre-defined threshold, the customer experience unit [106A] 10 evaluates that the at least one score is not within the acceptable range and indicate that customer is facing any problem/issue while using the social networking application. Following the instances provided in the exemplary Table 1, when the score is 1 for the usage parameter “time taken to transfer the file/message” for 1MB is compared with the pre-defined threshold (for example, 15 5), the score for the usage parameter “time taken to transfer the file/message” is less than the pre-defined threshold.
In an event, the at least one score is below the pre-defined threshold, the customer experience unit [106A] is configured to request the transceiver [106B] 20 to retrieve a first-tier information corresponding to the at least one tracked usage parameter from the memory [102B] of the electronic device [102]. The transceiver [106B] is further configured to send the retrieved first-tier information to the customer experience unit [106A] for analyzing the first-tier information corresponding to the at least one tracked usage parameter. Based 25 on said analysis, the customer experience unit [106A] is further configured to request the transceiver [106B] to retrieve a second-tier information corresponding to the at least one tracked usage parameter from the memory [102B] of the electronic device [102]. Based on the request, the transceiver
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[106B] is configured to retrieve the second-tier information corresponding to the at least one tracked usage parameter and transmit the retrieved second-tier information to the customer experience unit [106A] for analyzing the second-tier information.
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Based on analysis of at least one of the first-tier information and the second-tier information, the customer experience unit [106A] evaluates the customer experience, and if the evaluated customer experience is bad and the customer is not happy with the social networking application, the customer experience unit [106A] thereby determines problems the customer is facing while using the 10 social networking application. Following the instances provided in the exemplary Table 1, when the score is 1 for the usage parameter “time taken to transfer the file/message” which is less than the pre-defined threshold (i.e. 5). In such scenario, the customer experience unit [106A] evaluates the first-tier information such as a specific network type, like as 2G network on which the file 15 is transferred. If the analysis of the first-tier information indicates that the issue/problem is with transferring of file on 2G with file sizes of 1 MB, the customer experience unit [106A] request to retrieve second-tier information such as for network type 2G and file size buckets 1-5MB and 5MB. Such retrieval of tier-information goes on until the problem is determined that is causing the 20 bad customer experience. Although the invention has been explained with reference to retreivel of information in two tiers, however, it may be appreciated by the persons skilled in the art that the invention encompasses retrieval of information in multiple tiers (i.e. more than two) as well.
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The present invention encompasses a system and a method to evaluate a global score based on each of the at least one score corresponding to each of the at least one tracked usage parameter. Such global score may be computed individually for each customer of the social networking application. In an
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embodiment, the global score is evaluated by calculating an average of each of the at least one score corresponding to each of the at least one tracked usage parameter.
The analytics unit [106C] is configured to analyze at least one of the at least one 5 score and the global score to generate at least one report including graphs and/or charts. In an embodiment, the report is generated on a daily, a weekly, a monthly, a quarterly, and/or a yearly basis. Further, such report may be for the one customer and one or more customers of the social networking application. The database [106D] is configured to store data/information generated by the 10 customer experience unit [106A] and analytics unit [106C].
FIG.2 illustrates a method flow diagram [200] for evaluating/measuring customer experience associated with the social networking application, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, wherein the method step initiates at 15 step 202.
Step 204, includes retrieving the at least one score from the application health monitoring unit [102A] of the electronic device [102], wherein the application health monitoring unit [102A] is configured to compute at least one score 20 associated with the tracked at least one usage parameter, based on the one or more pre-configured rules.
The customer experience unit [106A] is also configured to evaluate the at least one score corresponding to the at least one tracked usage parameter by 25 comparing the at least one score with a pre-defined threshold, wherein the pre-defined threshold is pre-configured by the server [106] or the developers of the social networking application. In an event, the at least one score is above the pre-defined threshold, the customer experience unit [106A] evaluates that the at
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least one score is within the acceptable range and indicate that customer is not facing any problem/issue while using the social networking application. In an event, the at least one score is below the pre-defined threshold, the customer experience unit [106A] evaluates that the at least one score is not within the acceptable range and indicate that customer is facing any problem/issue while 5 using the social networking application.
At step 206, in an event, the at least one score is below the pre-defined threshold, the first-tier information corresponding to the at least one tracked usage parameter is retrieved from the memory [102B] of the electronic device 10 [102].
Step 208 includes sending the retrieved first-tier information to the customer experience unit [106A] for analyzing the first-tier information corresponding to the at least one tracked usage parameter.
Next, step 210 includes retrieving the second-tier information corresponding to 15 the at least one tracked usage parameter, based on said analysis, from the memory [102B] of the electronic device [102] for analyzing the second-tier information.
At step 212, based on analysis of at least one of the first-tier information and the second-tier information, the customer experience unit [106A] evaluates the 20 customer experience, and if evaluated customer experience is bad and the customer is not happy with the social networking application, the process thereby determines problems the customer is facing while using the social networking application.
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At step 214, the method flow [200] ends.
Although the present invention has been described where the application health monitoring unit [102A] resides in the electronic device [102]; however, it is
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obvious for a person skilled in the art that any such unit may reside on the server [106] as well. Similarly, it is obvious for a person skilled in the art that the customer experience unit [106A], the transceiver unit [106B], the analytics unit [106C] present in the server [106] may reside on the electronic device [102] as well. The present invention covers the above-mentioned method to be 5 performed wholly or partially at the electronic device [102] or the server [106].
The present invention has the following technical advantages over the existing customer evaluation systems and methods: (1) the present invention uses significantly less CPU resources at the electronic device [102] by using mapping customer experience to the score via simple computation logic; (2) the present 10 invention publishes some high level data for the customers on a daily basis and the detailed data are stored on the electronic device [102] and is only pulled to the server if and when required; (3) the present invention allows monitoring of customer experience by utilizing minimum data bandwidth and computation resources of the electronic device [102]; and (4) the present invention saves the 15 overhead of retrieving large amount of data/ information at all times, specifically when all of such data/ information may not be required.
The units, modules, databases and/or components discussed may be present in the form of a hardware or a software or a hardware-software combination for 20 performing functions and/or operations, as described herein. The connections and/or links between each module, databases and/or component shown in the figures are exemplary and may be connected in other possible ways. The connections and/or links between each module, databases and/or component may be physical (such as wired or wireless connections/links) or logical (such as 25 implementing in semiconductor device).
According to one embodiment of the present disclosure, the techniques described herein are implemented by one or more special-purpose computing
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devices. The special-purpose computing devices may be hard-wired to perform the techniques, or may include digital electronic devices such as one or more application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) or field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) that are persistently programmed to perform the techniques, or may include one or more general purpose hardware processors programmed to 5 perform the techniques pursuant to program instructions in firmware, memory, other storage, or a combination. Such special-purpose computing devices may also combine custom hard-wired logic, ASICs, or FPGAs with custom programming to accomplish the techniques. The special-purpose computing devices may be desktop computer systems, portable computer systems, 10 handheld devices, networking devices or any other device that incorporates hard-wired and/or program logic to implement the techniques.
The system [100] may include a bus or other communication mechanism for communicating information, and a processor coupled with the bus for processing 15 information. The hardware processor may be, for example, a general-purpose microprocessor. The system [100] may also include a main memory, such as a random-access memory (RAM) or other dynamic storage device, coupled to the bus for storing information and instructions to be executed by the processor. The main memory also may be used for storing temporary variables or other 20 intermediate information during execution of instructions to be executed by the processor. Such instructions, when stored in non-transitory storage media accessible to the processor, render the computer system into a special-purpose machine that is customized to perform the operations specified in the instructions. 25
The system [100] further includes a read only memory (ROM) or other static storage device coupled to the bus for storing static information and instructions for the processor. A storage device, such as a magnetic disk, optical disk, or
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solid-state drive is provided and coupled to the bus for storing information and instructions. According to one embodiment, the techniques herein are performed by the computing device in response to the processor executing one or more sequences of one or more instructions contained in the main memory. Such instructions may be read into the main memory from another storage 5 medium, such as the storage device. Execution of the sequences of instructions contained in the main memory cause the processor to perform the process steps described herein. In alternative embodiments, hard-wired circuitry may be used in place of or in combination with software instructions.
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The terms “database” and “memory” as used herein refers to any non-transitory media that store data and/or instructions that cause a machine to operate in a specific fashion. Such storage media may comprise non-volatile media and/or volatile media. Non-volatile media includes, for example, optical disks, magnetic disks, or solid-state drives, such as the storage device. Volatile media may 15 include dynamic memory, such as the main memory. Common forms of storage media include, for example, a floppy disk, a flexible disk, hard disk, solid-state drive, magnetic tape, or any other magnetic data storage medium, a CD-ROM, any other optical data storage medium, any physical medium with patterns of holes, a RAM, a PROM, and EPROM, a FLASH-EPROM, NVRAM, or any other 20 memory chip or cartridge.
Various forms of store may be involved in carrying one or more sequences of one or more instructions to the processor for execution. For example, the instructions may initially be carried on a magnetic disk or solid-state drive of a 25 remote computer. The remote computer can load the instructions into its dynamic memory and send the instructions over a telephone line using a modem. The system [100] also includes a communication interface coupled to the bus.
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Though a limited number of the electronic device [102], the application health monitoring unit [102A], the memory [102B], the server [106], the customer experience unit [106A], the transceiver unit [106B], the analytics unit [106C] and the database [106D], and the link/connection/requests/interfaces, have been 5 shown in the figures; however, it will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the exemplary system of Figure. 1 of the present invention encompasses any number and varied types of the entities/elements such as the electronic device [102], the application health monitoring unit [102A], the memory [102B], the server [106], the customer experience unit [106A], the transceiver unit 10 [106B], the analytics unit [106C] and the database [106D], and the link/connection/requests/interfaces, that can be configured to perform the method of the invention as described herein.
While considerable emphasis has been placed herein on the disclosed 15 embodiments, it will be appreciated that many embodiments can be made and that many changes can be made to the embodiments without departing from the principles of the present disclosure. These and other changes in the embodiments of the present disclosure will be apparent to those skilled in the art, whereby it is to be understood that the foregoing descriptive matter to be 20 implemented is illustrative and non-limiting.

We claim:
1. A computer-implemented method [200] for evaluating/measuring customer experience associated with a social networking application stored on an electronic device [102], the method comprising: 5
- evaluating at least one score associated with at least one pre-tracked usage parameter based on a pre-defined threshold, wherein
said at least one score is computed based on at least one pre-configured rule and said at least one pre-tracked usage parameter, and 10
said at least one pre-tracked usage parameter is associated with the social networking application and is retrieved from the electronic device [102];
- based on said evaluation, retrieving from said electronic device [102], a first-tier information pertaining to the least one pre-tracked usage 15 parameter;
- analyzing said retrieved first-tier information;
- based on said analysis of the first-tier information, retrieving a second-tier information pertaining to the least one pre-tracked usage parameter; and 20
- evaluating the customer experience associated with the social networking application based on at least one of the first-tier information and the second-tier information.
2. The computer-implemented method [200] as claimed in the claim 1, 25 further comprising, evaluating a global score based on each of the score corresponding to each of the at least one pre-tracked usage parameter.
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3. The computer-implemented method [200] as claimed in the claim 2, further comprising, analyzing at least one of said score and said global score to generate at least one report.
4. The computer-implemented method [200] as claimed in the claim 1, 5 wherein said evaluating includes comparing the at least one score with the pre-defined threshold.
5. A system [100] for evaluating/measuring customer experience associated with a social networking application stored on an electronic device [102], 10 the system [100] comprising:
- a customer experience unit [106A] configured to:
evaluate at least one score associated with at least one pre-tracked usage parameter based on a pre-defined threshold, wherein 15
said at least one score is computed based on at least one pre-configured rule and said at least one pre-tracked usage parameter, and
said at least one pre-tracked usage parameter is associated with the social networking application; and 20
- a transceiver unit [106B] configured to:
based on said evaluation, retrieve from said electronic device [102], a first-tier information pertaining to the least one pre-tracked usage parameter,
wherein the customer experience unit [106A] is further configured to 25 analyze said retrieved first-tier information,
wherein the transceiver unit [106B] is further configured to retrieve a second-tier information pertaining to the least one pre-tracked usage parameter based on said analysis, and
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wherein the customer experience unit [106A] is further configured to evaluate the customer experience associated with the social networking application based on at least one of the first-tier information and the second-tier information.
6. The system [100] as claimed in claim 5, further comprising, an analytics 5 unit [106C] configured to analyze at least one of said score and said global score to generate at least one report.
7. The system [100] as claimed in claim 5, wherein the customer experience unit [106A] is further configured to evaluate the at least one score based 10 on a comparison of the at least one score with the pre-defined threshold.