An apparatus, system and method for automatically making operation selling
decisions are provided. The apparatus, system and method make use of
selling policy rules established by human operators associated with a
firm to guide the making of decisions to sell products and/or services.
The actual decisions to sell are made automatically by the system without
requiring human intervention. The decisions to sell are made by
negotiating terms of sale with a customer using history information,
exogenous preference information, information obtained from third
parties, and the like. An initial offer of sale is provided to a customer
who may then elect to modify the terms of sale of the product or service.
If the customer elects to modify the terms of sale of the product or
service, a negotiation engine of the present invention may automatically
provide counteroffers to offers made by the customer until acceptable
terms of sale are agreed upon. The negotiation with the customer occurs
within the framework established by the selling policy rules established
by the human operators. Because the actual decisions are performed
automatically without human intervention, the decisions may be made much
more quickly than would have been done by a human being.