Patent application number | Description | Published |
20100185503 | Product Warranties Having a Residual Value - The present disclosure is directed to product warranties having a residual value and a potential rebate based on the residual value. The residual value can thus be inversely related to the number of claims filed against the warranty. | 07-22-2010 |
20100191557 | Usage-Limited Product Warranties - The present disclosure is directed to methods for pricing limited use product warranties to increase profit. Such a method can include selecting a plurality of potential warranty options, where each warranty option has an associated product usage limit and an associated warranty purchase cost; calculating a customer's expected support cost; determining a customer demand for each of the plurality of warranty options; calculating a provider's expected option profit for each of the plurality of warranty options; and calculating a provider's expected total profit for the plurality of warranty options. | 07-29-2010 |
20110093312 | MODELING WHOLESALE PRICE SCHEDULES TO REDUCE DOUBLE MARGINALIZATION - One embodiment is a method that determines, for a sale of a product and a post-sale service for the product from a supplier to a retailer, an expected supply chain profit for the sale as a function of an effort cost function of the retailer, a quantity of the product ordered, and an expected revenue of the retailer. A wholesale price schedule is determined that is a function of the quantity of the product ordered by the retailer. The wholesale price schedule reduces effects of double marginalization on the sale of the product and the post-sale service. | 04-21-2011 |
20110295755 | FLEXIBLE EXTENDED PRODUCT WARRANTIES - A system and method for determining the optimum price that a service provider should charge to customers of a periodic extended-product warranty to optimize profits generated from providing such warranties. In one aspect of the present invention the customer is allowed to elect or to cancel warranty coverage on a monthly basis which election is based in part on the customer's expected net utility from his coverage decisions. In one embodiment, the customer can be afforded complete warranty coverage flexibility in terms of his ability to turn coverage on and off whenever desired. In another aspect of the present invention the customer can be allowed to make dynamic repair or replacement decisions in each period based on the product's failure status or on other criteria. By properly modeling optimal extended-product warranty strategies from the perspective of both the customer and from the perspective of the service provider, one can compute the customers' maximum expected discounted net utility and the service provider's expected discounted profit from strategic customers. | 12-01-2011 |
20110295756 | FLEXIBLE EXTENDED PRODUCT WARRANTIES HAVING PARTIALLY REFUNDABLE PREMIUMS - A system and method for determining the optimum price that a service provider should charge to customers of at least a partially refundable extended-product warranty to optimize profits generated from providing such warranties. In one aspect of the present invention the customer may elect to purchase warranty coverage when the product is new and cancel warranty coverage at any time thereafter, which election is based in part on the customer's expected discounted net utility from his coverage decisions. In another aspect of the present invention, the customer is allowed to make dynamic repair or replacement decisions in each period based on the product's failure status or on other criteria. In one embodiment, the customer can be afforded warranty coverage flexibility in terms of his ability to turn coverage off whenever desired and to obtain a partial refund of the warranty premium. By properly modeling extended-product warranty strategies from the perspective of the customer and from the perspective of the service provider, one can compute the customers' expected discounted net utility and the provider's expected discounted profit from strategic customers. In another aspect of the present invention a computer-based service is provided to the customer of the extended-product warranty for determining the customer's optimal dynamic decisions to maximize the customer's expected discounted net utility when making product replacement decisions, maintenance decisions, and warranty coverage decisions. | 12-01-2011 |
20120022920 | ELICITING CUSTOMER PREFERENCE FROM PURCHASING BEHAVIOR SURVEYS | 01-26-2012 |
20120078645 | NET UTILITY DETERMINATION BASED ON PRODUCT REPLACEMENT AND SERVICE PLAN COVERAGE DECISIONS - Example embodiments relate to net utility determinations based on product replacement and coverage decisions of a customer. In example embodiments, a number of net utility values corresponding to each possible product replacement decision and each possible coverage decision in each of a plurality of time periods is determined. An expected net utility attributable to the customer over the plurality of time periods is then determined based on the determined utility values. | 03-29-2012 |
20120150584 | DESIGN OF WARRANTY BONUSES FOR PRODUCTS - Systems, methods, and computer-readable and executable instructions are provided for designing warranty bonuses. Designing warranty bonuses can include determining, for a customer base of a product, a first probability that a customer will replace the product with a different product. Designing warranty bonuses may also include determining, for the customer base, a marginal contribution to the first probability for a plurality of warranty bonus sizes and a plurality of warranty bonus types. Designing warranty bonus can include determining, for the customer base, a second probability that the customer will purchase a warranty for the plurality of warranty bonus sizes and the plurality of warranty bonus types. Designing warranty bonuses may also include bundling the product and the warranty, and assigning a number of the plurality of warranty bonus sizes and a number of the plurality of warranty bonus types to the product-warranty bundle based on the first and second probabilities and the marginal contribution. | 06-14-2012 |
20120198093 | Interconnection Fabric Connection - Link used variables are defined for links related to an interconnection fabric. The links used variables are representative of whether or not a link is used for handling flows between a plurality of hosts and devices. Constraints for links, and hop counts or port counts are also defined. An objective function is used by an integer programming solver to determine connections as a function of the definitions. | 08-02-2012 |
20120209643 | PROFIT COMPARISON - Systems, methods, and machine-readable and executable instructions are provided for profit comparison. Profit comparison can include determining a first profitability function of a flexible duration extended warranty offering with respect to a first plurality of warranty parameters and determining a second profitability function of a fixed duration extended warranty offering with respect to a second plurality of warranty parameters. Profit comparison can also include comparing the first function and the second function for at least one level of at least one of profit lift and flexible duration warranty offering coverage duration. Presenting results of the comparison for a range of values of the first and second plurality of warranty parameters can also be included in profit comparison. | 08-16-2012 |
20130013517 | MAKING AN EXTENDED WARRANTY COVERAGE DECISION - Systems, methods, and machine-readable and executable instructions are provided for making an extended warranty coverage. Making an extended warranty decision can include determining by a computer, a customer's expected cost of terminating the extended warranty coverage, determining, by the computer, the customer's expected cost of continuing the extended warranty coverage, and comparing, by the computer, the expected cost of terminating the extended warranty coverage and the expected cost of continuing the extended warranty coverage. Making an extended warranty decision can also include determining, by the computer, the extended warranty coverage decision based on the comparison. | 01-10-2013 |
20130060649 | Selecting Products for Retailer to Offer for Sale to Consumers - Each product of a number of products is assigned to one of a number of popularity tiers. The popularity tiers are ordered from a most popular tier to a least popular tier. The popularity tiers indicate how popular the products are expected to be among consumers. Each product is assigned to one of a number of margin tiers. The margin tiers are ordered from a highest margin tier to a lowest margin tier. The margin tiers indicate how much money a retailer makes in selling the products to the consumers. Which of the products to offer for sale by the retailer to the consumers are selected by applying decision rules to the products as have been assigned to the popularity tiers and to the margin tiers. | 03-07-2013 |
20130066790 | Residual Value Warranty - A maximum expected value of a residual value warranty for a product to a customer is determined. An expected cost to a provider to support the residual value warranty for the customer is determined, based on the maximum expected value of the candidate residual value warranty to the customer. The expected profitability of the candidate residual value warranty is determined based on the expected cost. | 03-14-2013 |
20130091064 | PRICING OPEN-LIST WARRANTIES - Systems, methods, and computer-readable and executable instructions are provided for pricing open-list warranties. Pricing open-list warranties can include determining an expected product support cost of a provider of an open-list warranty to a customer over a time period, determining an expected product repair cost of the customer over the time period, and pricing the open-list warranty for the time period based on the expected product support cost and the expected product repair cost. | 04-11-2013 |
20130191181 | DETERMINING WHETHER TO LAUNCH A PARTICULAR OFFERING - Survey responses are received regarding user interest in offerings of plural different types based on proposed incentives for the offerings of the plural different types. An analysis of the survey responses is performed. The analysis includes deriving measures based on the survey responses regarding user interest in the offerings of the plural different types, and computing, based on the measures, an indication of profitability regarding a particular one of the plural different types of offerings. The indication of profitability to allow for a determination of whether to launch the particular type of offering. | 07-25-2013 |
20130245998 | SELECTING ENTITIES IN A SAMPLING PROCESS - As part of a sampling process, entities of a population are selected, where the population includes plural types of entities. Selecting the entities includes iteratively indicating in each of successive steps of the sampling process a corresponding type of the plural types of entities to select. | 09-19-2013 |
20130262202 | TRADE-IN OPTION LEVEL - A method performed by at least one processing system includes detecting that a purchaser of an item with a trade-in option has performed an action corresponding to the trade-in option using the processing system and modifying a trade-in option level of the purchaser using the processing system based on the action. | 10-03-2013 |