System and method for proactively establishing a third-party payment account for services rendered to a resident of a controlled-environment facility
View Patent ↗Systems and methods for proactively establishing a third-party payment account for services rendered to a resident of a controlled-environment facility (“CEF”). A campaign-triggering event is detected, which triggers contact of prospective third-party (“3 rd -party”) payers for a resident of a CEF in order to encourage such prospective 3 rd -party payers to establish 3 rd -party payment accounts for the resident. In this manner, the prospective 3 rd -party payers are proactively contacted prior to an expected future demand for service by the resident. A method thus comprises identifying at least one prospective third-party payer for a resident of a controlled-environment facility, and proactively contacting the identified at least one prospective third-party payer prior to demand for service by the resident to encourage the identified at least one prospective third-party payer to establish a third-party payment account for payment for future service expected for the resident.
1. A method comprising:
identifying at least one prospective third-party payer for a resident of a controlled-environment facility;
detecting at least one campaign-triggering event; and
in response to the at least one campaign-triggering event, initiating a campaign to proactively contact the at least one prospective third-party payer prior to demand for service by the resident to encourage the at least one prospective third-party payer to establish a third-party payment account for payment for future service expected for the resident, the at least one prospective third-party payer contacted using an interactive voice response system.
2. The method of claim 1 wherein said initiating said campaign to proactively contact the at least one prospective third-party payer comprises:
initiating an outbound calling campaign to call the at least one prospective third-party payer.
3. The method of claim 1 wherein the demand for service and the future service expected for the resident comprise at least one selected from the group consisting of:
communication service, information access service, and provision of consumer goods to the resident.
4. The method of claim 1 wherein the controlled-environment facility comprises a correctional facility.
5. The method of claim 1 wherein said initiating said campaign is performed autonomously by a campaign system.
6. The method of claim 1 wherein said identifying is performed autonomously by a third-party payer identification system.
7. The method of claim 1 further comprising:
receiving a demand for said future service expected for the resident; and
paying for the provision of said service rendered to the resident by the third-party payment account.
8. The method of claim 1 wherein said at least one campaign-triggering event comprises an event that is likely to lead to the at least one prospective third-party payer desiring to establish said third-party payment account for payment for future service expected for the resident.
9. The method of claim 1 wherein said at least one campaign-triggering event comprises any one or more of the following:
the resident being identified as potentially becoming a resident of the controlled-environment facility, the resident being checked into the controlled-environment facility, and detection of an upcoming perishable date of interest for the resident or an associate of the resident.
10. The method of claim 1 wherein the at least one prospective third-party payer is contacted during the campaign via electronic mail, text message or social media.