JP3377771B2 - Customer analysis system, customer analysis method, and recording medium recording customer analysis program - Google Patents

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a technique for analyzing a customer using a computer.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A technique for storing information about customers in a computer, analyzing the information, and utilizing it for customer service is widely known. For example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 8-50617 discloses a technique that uses customer information collected by a questionnaire or the like to make the work of creating a quotation efficient.

Further, a method of analyzing a purchase history of a customer and making it an effective sales promotion material is also widely known. For example, in a method called ABC analysis of cumulative purchase price, customers are classified by purchase price and other criteria, and an important customer segment is extracted. In addition, the method called RMF analysis attempts to stratify the customer's purchasing behavior by the last purchase date, the cumulative number of purchases, and the cumulative purchase price, and implement an approach that suits each stratum.

[0004]

On the other hand, the ability of a seller or a service provider to absorb a customer is relative to that of a competitor, and even if he / she carries out an assortment of products and services that meet the needs of the customer. Customers will choose competitors if they offer more products and attractive services. Also, implementing excessive customer management without strong competitors will only incur unnecessary costs. Therefore, the level of customer management or sales promotion using customer management that should be carried out by oneself should be determined by the power relationship with competitors.

However, the conventional customer analysis system uses the customer information in its own database and cannot know the power relationship with the competitor. On the other hand, it was difficult to accurately compare the attractiveness of competitors and their customers. For example, using the example of a retail store, what attracts customers is the quality and quantity of assortment, the price of goods, the ease of access for customers (close, there is a parking lot), the luxury of the store, Superiority of product display, superiority of customer service,
There were various factors such as length of business hours, and it was difficult to compare these factors accurately.

In view of the above problems, it is an object of the present invention to provide a customer analysis system, method, or recording medium having a customer analysis program recorded therein, which gives an effective suggestion regarding the customer absorption capacity.

[0007]

In order to solve the above problems, the customer analysis system of the present invention is a system for analyzing the movement of customers between commercial units in a desired period by a computer. , History information holding means for holding history information in which each customer purchases a product or receives a service in each commercial unit, and purchases a predetermined product or receives a predetermined service using the history information in a detecting means for detecting in time series the change in commercial units to select the customer in the desired period, the detection hand
And an output unit for outputting the detection result of the stage . According to this customer analysis system,
Analyze to detect changes in the commercial unit selected by the customer over time.
Output and output the result. In addition, the detection of the above detection means
“Change in the commercial unit selected by the customer” above means
It includes the source and destination of customers.

Further , in the customer analysis method of the present invention,
This is a computer-based customer analysis method, in which, in each commercial unit, a customer purchases a predetermined product by using the history information and the procedure for holding the history information of the purchase of the product or the provision of services in a recording medium. Or, when receiving the provision of prescribed services, the customer 's selection above within a desired period
A step of detecting in time series the change in commercial units, the test
And outputting the detection result in the output procedure . According to this customer analysis method, history information
Analyze to detect changes in the commercial unit selected by the customer over time.
Output and output the result.

Further , the recording medium in which the customer analysis program of the present invention is recorded is a computer-readable recording medium, and in each commercial unit, history information in which a customer purchases a product or receives a service is recorded. Using the procedure of holding in the medium and the above history information, when purchasing a predetermined product or receiving a predetermined service, a desired
Changes in the commercial unit selected by the above customer over time
The column detection procedure and the detection results of the above detection procedure
It is characterized in that a customer analysis program for causing a computer to execute the output procedure is recorded. This customer analysis
According to the recording medium that records the program,
Changes in commercial units selected by customers by analyzing historical information
Are detected in time series and the result is output.

[0010] It should be noted here, a commercial unit, refers to the others and distinct functional unit that the provision of sales and services of products, specifically, one shop, one of the shopping district, one sale It includes, but is not limited to, a trader, one service trader, one mail-order trader, one chain store network, one trade area, and the like. Further, the meaning of commerce is not necessarily for the purpose of profit, but includes the distribution of goods and the provision of services in general.

[0011]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. The present embodiment is an example in which the present invention is applied to an information system for sales processing constructed between a card company and a contract store.

FIG. 1 is a diagram for explaining the network configuration of this embodiment. The computer system 1 of the card company is connected to the network 3 via the communication line 2. In addition, the terminal system 5 of each contract store also has a communication line 4
Is connected to the network 3 via.

When a customer purchases a product at a contract store and pays the price with a card, the customer purchases from the terminal system 5 the card number, purchase product code, purchase quantity, purchase amount, purchase store code of the customer. Data is transmitted to the computer system 1 via the network 3. The computer system 1 processes this data,
After checking the credit status of the customer, the purchase data is officially accepted, and a code indicating that the data has been accepted is transmitted to the terminal system 5. The computer system 1 further saves customer purchase data as a purchase history and uses this purchase history to perform customer analysis. In this embodiment, this customer analysis will be described in detail.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram of the terminal system 5. In the present embodiment, various types of terminal systems are used according to the scale of each store, but the figure is an example of a large store, and a plurality of POS registers 13 are connected by LAN to manage. The terminal device 11 controls the data and sends / receives the data to / from the network 3.

Although only one POS register 13 is shown in FIG. 2, a plurality of POS registers 13 actually exist. The POS register 13 to which the bar code reader 14 and the card reader 15 are connected is connected to the local area LAN 16, and the management terminal device 11 to which the keyboard 12 and the display 10 are connected is also connected to the local area LAN 16. A communication line 4 for communicating with the computer system 1 of the card company is connected to the management terminal device 11 via a network.

When a customer purchases a product, the bar code printed on the tag of the product is read by the bar code reader 14,
The manufacturer code and the purchased product code fixed to the bar code are read into the POS register 13. The quantity of the purchased product is input by the key of the POS register 13, and the purchase price is calculated using the unit price information of the product included in the product master stored in the storage unit of the POS register 13. When the customer pays with a card, the customer card is sent to the card reader 15
And the card number information is read into the POS register 13. The information such as the customer's card number, maker code, purchase product code, purchase quantity, and purchase amount obtained in this way is sent to the management terminal device 11 via the local area LAN 16 and the management end device 11 After the purchase store code is further added, it is transmitted to the computer system 1 of the card company via the communication line 4.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing the configuration of the computer system 1 of the card company. A communication control device 20, a central processing unit 21, an external recording device 22, which are connected to the communication line 2.
A terminal control device 24 is installed in a computer room, and a channel transmission path 23 that connects the devices is provided under a free access floor (not shown). A terminal 25 is connected to the terminal control device 24 by a coaxial cable 26.

The purchase data transmitted via the communication line 2 is converted in format by the communication control device 20, synchronized in timing, and sent to the central processing unit 23 via the channel transmission line 23. A predetermined online program is operating in the central processing unit 23, and the purchase data is used for credit confirmation and the like, and date and time information is added to the purchase data and recorded in the external recording device 22 as purchase history information.

On the recording medium in the external recording device 22, in addition to the above-mentioned purchase history information, various databases, application programs including an OS of a computer system and a customer analysis program are recorded.

Further, various programs can be executed on the computer system 1 by operating the terminal 25, and the customer analysis program is also read from the external recording device 22 and executed by the central processing unit 23.

An example of the contents of the purchase history information is shown in FIG. As shown in the figure, the purchase history information includes items such as "date and time of purchase", "card number", "maker code", and "product code".
It has "quantity", "amount" and "store code". The customer is uniquely identified by the "card number". When the customer purchases a plurality of types of products at the same time, the data rows are created by that number.

FIG. 5 is a view for explaining a database related to the present embodiment among the databases recorded in the external recording device 22. As shown in the figure, the product database (D
B) 30, a customer database (DB) 31 in which data about customers is stored, and a store database (DB) 32 in which data about commercial units are stored exist as related databases. The store database includes store data as well as store data, and holds functional unit data that can be distinguished from others who sell products or provide services. In the following description, the term store is used with this expanded meaning.

FIG. 6 is a diagram for explaining an example of the contents of the product database 30. Here, as an example of a product, a portion in which suit data is held is taken up. The product database 30 has “product code”, “brand”, “major classification”, and “medium classification” as items. The "commodity code" is the manufacturer code whose first 3 digits specify the manufacturer, and the latter 7
The digit is a product code unique to the maker and is composed of a total of 10 digits. If the manufacturer's product code has a number of digits smaller than 7 digits, 0 is filled in from the left after the last 7 digits. As a result, the product handled by this system can be uniquely specified. The "brand" stores the brand name of this product. The “major classification” stores a rough product shape of the product to which this product belongs, and the “medium classification” stores a product shape obtained by further subdividing the “major classification”.

In the example of FIG. 6, the data on the first line is the product code A31 manufactured by the manufacturer of the manufacturer code 030.
There are 9 products, "Brand" is Yubus, "Major Classification"
Are suits, and "middle classification" is business, and it can be seen that the data is business suits.

FIG. 7 is a diagram for explaining an example of the contents of the customer database 31. The customer database 31 has items such as “card number”, “name”, “gender”, “age”,
Has “occupation”, “annual income”, and “registration date”. The "card number" is the number of the card held by the customer. As a result, the customer's name and attributes can be obtained from the card number. In the example of FIG. 7, the data on the first line contains data for a 30-year-old man called Satoshi Karasawa.

Of course, various other items may be adopted as the items of the customer database. For example, as basic personal information, Kana name, telephone number, telephone number division (company, home, etc.), date of birth. Date, wear frequency, postal code, prefecture, city, town name, height, weight, etc. are taken in, and customer trend information is used as initial purchase store, initial purchase date,
Customer Analysis Start Date, Customer Analysis End Date, Total Cumulative Start Date, Total Cumulative Purchase Price, Total Cumulative Purchase Number, Total Cumulative Average Unit Price, Period Cumulative Purchase Count, Period Cumulative Purchase Price, Period Cumulative Purchase Number, Period Cumulative Average purchase price, last purchase season, last purchase date, last purchase sales type (propa, bargain, etc.), rank of RMF analysis, rank of ABC analysis, etc. are taken in.
Each purchase store, each purchase brand, each purchase color / pattern may be entered.

FIG. 8 is a diagram for explaining an example of the contents of the store database 32. The store database 32 has items such as “store code”, “name”, “business category”, “chain”, and “commercial area”. “Chain” is an item in which the chain name is entered if there is a chain to which the store belongs. Thereby, the name and attribute of the store can be obtained from the “store code”. In the example of FIG. 8, the data in the first row is data of a retail store belonging to the UV chain called UV Hachioji store.

FIG. 9 is a flow chart showing the flow of customer management processing. This customer management processing is executed by using the purchase history information stored in the computer system 1 and referring to the above three databases. Upon receiving a request from the card member store, the operator at the card company side activates this process at a desired timing to analyze the change situation of the customer's purchase store.

When the customer management process is started, first, a screen for designating a product to be analyzed is displayed. On this screen, it is possible to specify one or a plurality of specific products, or it is also possible to specify by a combination of conditions of brand, large classification, and middle classification. In addition, it is possible to specify all products as targets (step S1).

Next, a screen for designating a customer to be analyzed is displayed. On this screen, it is possible to specify one or more specific customers, or it is possible to specify a combination of item conditions of the customer database such as gender, occupation, annual income, registration date, and the like. Further, it is possible to specify all the customers (step S2).

Next, a screen for designating a store to be analyzed is displayed. On this screen, it is possible to specify a plurality of specific stores, and it is also possible to specify a combination of conditions of business category, chain, and commercial area. In addition, it is possible to specify all stores (step S3).

Next, a screen for designating the period to be analyzed is displayed. On this screen, the period to be analyzed can be specified, such as the last one year or the last three years (step S4).

Next, the purchase history information is read (step S5), and the product designated in steps S1 to S4 is
Purchase history data that satisfies all the conditions of customer, store, and period is extracted (step S6).

Next, using the extracted purchase history data, data is created by combining data having the same customer and the same product. FIG. 10 shows the format of the created data, followed by the items of "card number" uniquely representing the customer and "product code" uniquely representing the product, followed by the date when the customer purchased the product. A plurality of items of “purchase date” and “store code” indicating the purchase store are arranged in the oldest order. "Purchase date" and "Store code"
As for the item, a sufficient number of columns are prepared so that the total number of purchases can be entered. In this way, the date and time when the specific customer purchased the specific product and the store are converted into data in the form of a list (step S7).

The above list data is used when the examination is focused on a specific customer and a specific product. However, depending on the analysis period and the nature of the product, the list created above often has a small number of purchases and cannot be accurately analyzed. For this reason, in a study that grasps a general tendency rather than a study that narrows down customers and products in particular, in the data in the above list, a plurality of data that have common product attributes or customer attributes are combined into one data. Then, the number of data is reduced and the number of purchases in one data is increased. For example, the product code is replaced with the "brand" of the product attribute and the data of the same "brand" are combined into one data by the operator's designation, or the card number is set to 10 for the "age" item of the customer attribute. Divide by year and combine data with the same division.

Regarding the store code, the store code is replaced with the store attribute to facilitate the analysis. For example, the store code is replaced with "commercial area". (Step S
8).

Next, in each data of the above list, it is analyzed whether the tendency of the store selected by the customer has changed. This is determined by halving the period to be analyzed into the first half and the second half, and determining whether the store with the most purchases in the first half and the store with the most purchases in the second half are different. When the first half and the latter half of the stores differ in the number of purchases most, it is determined that the customer has moved between the stores, and in other cases, it is determined that the customer has not moved the store. In this way, it is detected that the customer has selected a different store (step S9).

Next, the results are collectively output in the form of a list as shown in FIG. 11 (step S10). Figure 11
Is analyzed for customers 20 to 60 years old, products are suits,
This is an analysis of the K-chain and UV-chain stores, narrowing the period from 1990 to 1999, and analyzing customer movements of K-chain and UV-chain by sales of suits. For data combination, the customer's "age" for the card number is 10
They are grouped by year-end division, product codes are grouped by "major category", and store codes are grouped by "chain". According to these results, in 1990, the K chain was superior to the customers in the first half of the middle age of 20 to 39 years old, and the UV chain was superior to the customers in the latter half of the middle years of 40 to 60 years old, It can be seen that there was a segregation based on age. In 1999, the UV chain became dominant over the age group of 20 to 60 years, and it can be seen that the UV chain has won the competition between companies.

In the present embodiment, only the most frequently used stores in the first half and the second half of the analysis period are focused, but each store may be evaluated by the ratio of the number of uses of each store. For example, if you purchase 5 times at store A, 3 times at store B, and 2 times at point C, 50 points for A point, 30 points for B point, and 2 points for C point.
Like a point, a score is assigned in the frequency ratio to evaluate a plurality of stores. At this time, if the ratio of the number of purchases is evaluated using the sum of the number of purchases included in all data of the extraction history information as the denominator, the whole can be evaluated by a unified standard. By doing so, it is possible to carry out a quantitative evaluation based on a unified standard that accurately reflects the difference between customers who have a fixed number of customers and those who do not have a fixed number of customers, and the difference between customers who have made a large number of purchases and those who have a small number of purchases.

The analysis period is not limited to the first half and the second half,
The customer movement may be evaluated in chronological order by dividing into a desired number. Furthermore, the output is not limited to the tabular format shown in FIG. 11, and it is more preferable if the result is displayed in a pictorial diagram in an intuitive and easy-to-understand manner.

The present embodiment is an example of an information system constructed between a card company and a store, but the present invention is
It can be widely applied to the information system between the headquarters of chain stores and each branch.

If the service information is entered in the product database in the present embodiment, it is easy to analyze the movement of the customer who receives the service between the stores. FIG. 12 shows an example of the contents of the database in this case. In FIG. 12, a code uniquely indicating a service is entered in the item of “product code”, the brand is left blank, a general category of service is entered in “major category”, and a more detailed category is entered in “middle category”. ing. It is obvious that if the service data is put in the product database in this way, not only the products but also the services can be analyzed.

In the present embodiment, if data is not combined according to customer attributes in step S8, it can be detected that a different commercial unit is selected for each customer. Further, by combining data according to customer attributes, it can be detected that customer groups having specific attributes have selected different commercial units.

As described above, it is possible to detect a change in the commercial unit selected by the customer when purchasing a predetermined product or receiving a predetermined service, and it is possible to know the change in the customer absorption power between the commercial units. . As a result, the rise of strong competitors and the relative power of one's own can be known, and effective information can be obtained in the management of one's own customer.

[0045]

INDUSTRIAL APPLICABILITY The present invention enables a customer analysis that can give an indication as to the customer absorption capacity of a commercial unit.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating a network configuration according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating a configuration of a terminal system according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating a configuration of a computer system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of contents of purchase history information in the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating a main database according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing an example of contents of a product database in the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing an example of contents of a customer database in the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 8 is a diagram showing an example of contents of a store database in the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart showing a flow of customer management processing in the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 10 is a diagram showing an example of data in which data of the same customer and merchandise are combined, which is created during the customer management process, according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 11 is a list showing the results of customer management processing.

FIG. 12 is a diagram of an example in which service information is entered in a product database.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 computer system Two or four communication lines 3 network 5 terminal system 10 display 11 terminal management device 12 keyboard 13 POS register 14 Bar code reader 15 card reader 16 premises LAN 20 Communication control device 21 Central processing unit 22 External recording device 23 channel transmission line 24 Terminal control device 25 terminals

─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (72) Inventor Satoshi Karasawa 2-43-2 Hatagaya, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo Olympus Optical Co., Ltd. (56) Reference JP-A-9-120420 (JP, A) ( 58) Fields investigated (Int.Cl. ⁷ , DB name) G07G 1/12 G06F 17/60 G07G 1/14

Claims (4)

(57) [Claims] 1. A computer for a desired period of time
A system for analyzing the movement of customers between commercial units, which uses history information holding means for holding history information in which each customer purchases a product or receives services in each commercial unit Of the above-mentioned desired period in order to purchase the product of
Customer analysis system, characterized by comprising detection means for detecting in time series the change in commercial units to select the customers have, and output means for outputting a detection result of said detecting means. 2. The "selection of the customer" detected by the detection means.
“Change in selected commercial unit” means the source and transfer of the customer
The customer management system according to claim 1, characterized in that
Stem. 3. A procedure for holding history information in a recording medium in which a customer purchases a product or receives a service in each commercial unit, and a purchase of a predetermined product or a predetermined service by using the history information. In the desired period of receiving
Procedures and, customer analysis method by a computer, characterized by having, a step of outputting the result of detection by the procedure of the detection for detecting in time series the change in commercial units to select the customer. 4. A procedure for holding history information on a recording medium in which a customer purchases a product or is provided with services in each commercial unit, and a purchase of a predetermined product or a predetermined service by using the history information. In the desired period of receiving
It said a step of detecting in time series the change in commercial units to select customers, the detection is computer-readable recording medium in which the procedure was recorded customer analysis program to be executed by a computer for outputting the detection result in step.