IVR Deconstructed

From pre-school to PhD programs, back-to-school time is quickly creeping up on everyone.  The beginning of the school year is always an exciting time for all involved, but can quickly become burdensome and frustrating when necessary information is not made readily available to students and their parents.  From classroom supply lists to registration information, students nationwide are required to submit, retrieve, and process information prior to the beginning of each school year.  An Interactive Voice Response system powered by Plum Voice could help streamline this process for everyone from toddlers and their parents, to graduate students.  Learning institutions across the nation could utilize an IVR system to streamline everything from the enrollment process, to registration, and even be of use when releasing information about grading.

An IVR system could be put in place so that students, or their parents, could track their enrollment and ensure that every aspect of the enrollment process has been accounted for and every piece of information has been submitted.  After admittance, the IVR system could make registration possible.  Students could gather course descriptions and instructor information telephonically, and even submit their desired course schedule.  The system could interface with the database to make sure that everyone was properly registered and that all the student’s records were in order.  Students and their parents could call in and get information on required back to school items, or even purchase books and other supplies through the system.  As the school year progressed, instructors could submit updates and assignments through the IVR system, and even store grades so that participants could keep abreast of their progress.  Students could even utilize the system to schedule outbound calls to remind them of various assignments that are due, or even procure outlines of required readings or texts that have been submitted to the system.  There is truly a plethora of ways that an IVR system could be utilized by educational institutions to streamline their processes and ease the oh so difficult transition for students between summer and fall!

Another week is upon us.  As I was in my car undertaking my daily commute to work, I couldn’t help but wish that I could get a jump on morning with a little help from IVR.  Even for those smart phone users, there is little to be done with the your cell phone in the midst of bumper to bumper morning traffic.  This got me to thinking of how an IVR system could come in handy, allowing commuters to prepare for the upcoming week.  For me personally, there is nothing more invaluable than the ability to check my email prior to my arrival at the office.  This is nearly to impossible to achieve when trying to navigate my car through sticky traffic situations, which is where an adept IVR system comes in to play.

An Interactive Voice Response System equipped with ASR and TTS could be engineered to access caller’s in and out boxes on their email accounts, read existing messages via phone, and allow users to compose emails through the use of TTS engines.  In this way, subscribers could hear their pre-selected message read out loud to them prior to the beginning of work via the use of blue tooth or speaker phone.  They could either hear previews, or hear full messages, and skip over and categorize messages as they saw fit.  Remote mailbox organization would be made possible in a situation such as this, and subscribers wouldn’t have to use up valuable work hours establishing mail rules, and categorizing and organizing their mailbox.  In addition, if an urgent message came across their desk, users could also utilize this system to draft and send outgoing messages telephonically.  ASR and TTS engines would be put in place allowing the system to recognize the user’s voice and enable them to respond to messages as necessary.  An IVR system would serve the dual function of making commute time valuable and allowing for remote organization of the workplace!

Outbound IVR is used by businesses and pollsters to proactively communicate with customers and populations through the phone via an automated call script.  Once a call is connected, an interactive dialog delivers and collects information to the callee by integrating with a database system.

Administrators of outbound IVR campaigns need to know if callees received their calls or if they were not delivered due to busy signals, operator intercept, or answering machines.  In addition, some businesses and organizations play different messages based on the callee type.   In order to report the callee type and provide a mechanism for the IVR call script to play different messages to humans and answering machines, the Plum platform supports a feature called Callee type detection.

Callee type detection will distinguish whether or not a human picks up the phone before the call script is invoked, thus allowing for greater dynamism and control over the message played to the callee.

For more information, please see Plum’s Outbound Developer’s Guide at http://www.plumvoice.com/docs/hosting/

VoiceXML (VXML) is a programming language used to script call flows that interact with database systems to automate phone calls.  VXML is used in conjunction with speech recognition and text-to-speech technology to create a dialog with a caller without the need for human intervention.  VXML is used in modern IVR systems and is an open standard supported by the W3C.  It was created to leverage web programming skill sets and web architecture as well as to move IVR application development away from proprietary and obscure programming languages.

VoiceXML IVR systems are gateways that process phone calls and parse or interpret VXML scripts.  These scripts typically live on a separate application server that interconnects with a database system through server-side scripting.  VoiceXML gateways can live in the “cloud” or can be deployed onsite via server hardware that connects to Telco or VoIP networks.

Developers can sign up for free access to Plum’s VoiceXML platform at http://www.plumvoice.com/developers

Another summer weekend is upon us, and one of my favorite ways to will away the long, hot summer days is attending farmers markets and procuring fresh, ripe produce.  For me, nothing is more exciting than cooking an al dente pasta dish full of fresh veggies, and following it up with a fruit laden dessert.  Lucky for me, we are in the height of the fresh produce season, and I have access to all the tomatoes, squash, and watermelon I desire.  A great way to free up some of my time, so that I can hit a multitude of farmers markets, is to set up an IVR system that details farmer’s market locations, hours, and product offerings for the week.  With this system, vendors could call in to a working IVR application and update their offerings, booth location, and special deal information throughout the week preceding.  Visitors to the farmers market could then call in, procure information on their desired goods, coordinate hours and times, and select which farmers markets are most closely offering their sought-after products for the week.  In this way, avid farmers market goers like myself can coordinate their schedules so that they hit every venue possible, and come home prepared for the week with a load of fresh produce.

Another great option for those hunting down the freshest of greens, are farms that allow consumers to pick their vegetation themselves.  Even for those in the largest of metro suburbs, these so-called pick & pay farms are typically a one to two hour drive away.  Farm goers can show up and have their selection of vine-ripened tomatoes, fresh cantaloupes, and exquisite peppers.  In the same manner as the farmers market, an IVR system could be incorporated to make these farms user accessible and inviting.  Users could call in, enter their location, get directions to the farm from their current locale, hear about the produce options that are ready for picking, and learn about activities and deals at each farm.  I myself am looking quite forward to kicking off a produce hunting weekend, and am only wishing that such an IVR existed to make my search that much easier, and my time that much more valuable!