Anything that says “Open Source” is thought to be freely available, customizable and really exciting for many software users. (Specially people from India who are very price competitive, but I am sure Open source software sounds tempting to people all over the world!) Open Source alternative for any popular application software has almost become a industry practice and specialised Software, IVR too followed the same with some CTI vendors providing open source IVR platform for developers.

Thus Asterisk has almost become synonymous with Open Source IVR as well as Telephony Systems. Many companies have developed numerous Telephony solutions based on Asterisk.

While Open Source has many backers and takers, a newbie may still be confused when to choose Open Source
IVR or Telephony Application! First let us look at what one saves by using Open Source Telephony platform :-

A typical IVR System consists of the following components:-
1. Application Software ( IVR Call Flow)
2. Operating System/ Database
3. CTI Cards
4. PC or Server

By using Open Source Telephony platform, one saves #1 and #2 above! But is it a significant saving for you in the long term ?

1. According to me, one should choose Open Source if a company has spare manpower who is proficient in Linux and good in Linux based programming Languages. Many start up companies where the founders are normally engineers with programming background may choose Open Source IVR as they would be able to maintain the IVR without any extra cost! But for a company which may have to dedicate one or two manpower to develop and maintain the IVR systems, it may not be beneficial at all, in the long run!

2. Another advantage of choosing Open Source IVR is, the CTI cards seem to be less costlier than the CTI cards which have APIs. It is majorly because of the fact that, these CTI boards use host PC’s computing resources and does not have on-board DSPs to perform all those telephony signalling, audio processing. So if one is really constrained by budget, one may choose Open Source Telephony platform.

Some people are die hard fans of Linux and Open Source. For them, it is natural to choose Open Source IVR. But they should consider few things below :-

Other than Traditional Open Source ( Linux OS + Asterisk or FreePBX), there are IVR toolkits too available which provide the Toolkit free of cost and charges just per channel licenses at deployment! For example, VBVoice IVR Toolkit is freely downloadable along with 2 channel free license!

Apart from this kind of “offline” Tool kit, now a days, almost every company provides IVR in Cloud! Here anyone can design an IVR in a visual tool online and use as per usage!

Hope this may help how and when to choose an open source IVR!

What is call back feature ?

Call Back feature is when a person call a number and then disconnect and immediately that dialed number calls back the person. Now the person can enter another phone number and get connected to that phone number! This kind of phone number which calls back a person is also known as DID ( Direct Inbound Dialing) or Direct Dial-in.

Implementing Call Back Service using IVR

Call back feature is implemented using a smart IVR ( Interactive Voice Response) System which performs three tasks :-

1. Detect caller ID and look up in a database if the caller id is a registered for call back service.

2. If the detected Caller ID is a registered user for call back service, then make an outbound call.

3. Once the Caller ID picks up the call, prompt for entering a phone number. The IVR then makes another out bound call to this entered phone number and bridge with the earlier call.

Recently, this kind of call back service is also available as web based service where a user just login to a website, enters his own registered number and then the other number with whom he wants to speak to. Call back service is used where direct dialing is costlier.

So, majorly call back feature is useful for lowering call cost or when a company does not want its subscribers for making support calls. Presently, most people use Toll Free number for this purpose. Toll free numbers are those numbers where caller does not pay, but the owner of the toll free number pays per minute charges.

But with falling outbound call rates as well as smart arrangement of outbound IVR arrangements, companies are now actively looking to use call back services instead of costlier toll free numbers.

A typical toll free number in India costs around Rs. 2.5/- per minute while an outbound call from a call center using outbound IVR and EPABX arrangement as I described in my earlier post about outbound Calling arrangement in India , per minute cost of making outbound call would be less than 45 paise per minute or completely free for small monthly subscription!

With this kind of cost advantage, many people are now receptive to the idea of using call back service instead of traditional toll free number. Apart from cost advantage, call back service offers few other advantages too :-

1. Since it is an outbound call with IVR behind it, it may call back at any time and record a message if there is no one to receive the call. In a toll free, either it will have to be received by some one or it will simply ring out without any record of it.

2. In a call center, iit is possible that Call Back will dial out the number while ensuring a customer care executive available to receive the call. It will increase customer satisfaction and can increase efficiency of customer care executives.

3. Many advanced feature could be implemented using the same IVR hardware.

So, if you are really looking to minimise your toll free numbers cost and maximise automation using IVR, most probably, it is time you look for call back service with smart Outbound IVR!

What is Bulk Voice Call ?

Bulk Voice Calling is broadcasting of pre-recorded voice message to many telephone numbers simultaneously or sequentially. It is voice or IVR version of SMS ( Short Message Service) broadcasting which is now a days widely used for various purposes. Bulk voice calling is also known as call blast, voice broadcasting, Automated Voice Campaigns, Voice SMS etc.

Bulk Voice Calling is picking up

Bulk voice broadcasting is normally a hosted IVR solution or part of any IVR system.

How does it work ?

Bulk Voice calling is essentially an outbound IVR ( Interactive Voice Response) System with one specific function, that is to dial telephone numbers from database or a list, and play a pre-defined programmed recorded audio file and play it when the called party picks the call. It also has to keep record of all success calls ( outbound calls which were picked by the called party and heard the recorded voice message) or abandoned calls which were not picked by the called party.

It is easy to develop a bulk voice calling system. One can use either modem or analog CTI cards or digital CTI boards. The CTI board must be capable of CPA ( Call Progress Analysis) to detect call pick up, detect answering machine, voice mail or human.

To provide professional bulk voice service, one needs to have lot of telecm infrastructure :-

1. In order to make simultaneous calls, many PRI/E1 lines are required. Correspondingly, one will need digital CTI boards.

2. One must have web-based control panel to allow users access the reports, trigger bulk message etc. API ( Application Programming Interface) is also desirable to give white label solutions.

3. Finally, intelligent outbound IVR software.

Few essential points one should look for in a Bulk Voice Call providers:-

1. How many simultaneous calls possible at one point of time.

2. Since audio needs to be played real time, so duration of the recorded audio file is the duration of each calls. So, one should know how one call is counted, in 30 seconds pulse of 60 seconds pulse.

3. Online and live reporting of calls and reason for any call failure.

4. Refund policy for failed outbound calls, call attended by answering machine, voice mail etc.

5. Caller ID for making outbound call whether it is dynamic or fixed caller id.

Usage of Bulk Voice Calling

Now a days, bulk voice calling or call bast is being used in many ways.

1. Alert System/Reminder system
2. Pill remainder System
3. Electioneering
4. Automatic registration welcome and verification of phone number
5. Payment remainder
6. Promotion and advertising
7. Appointment remainder

and many more!

Bulk Voice calling can be used just like SMS is being used! Using Bulk voice calling has few advantages over SMS blasting like live monitoring, delivery report and instant monitoring!

Recently, I have started getting mails about asking open source IVR as well as its availability for free, download-able from internet! Most of the people who have asked me about “‘Open Source IVR” have heard about Asterisk. Before going into the details about Asterisk, being open source IVR, I would like to clarify few things about IVR ( Interactive Voice Response)  System.

IVR system consists of  four components, one can say. They are :-

1. CTI ( Computer Telephony) board
2. Call Flow development as per requirement
3. Voice prompts, TTS ( Text To Speech) Engine  and ASR (Automatic Speech Recognition) Engine
4. Host PC or Server for #1 through #3 above.

1. CTI ( Computer Telephony) board

CTI board is a hardware and I m quite sure, nobody will make it ‘open source’ or free for anyone! The other alternative is SIP ( Session Initiated Protocol) on VoIP ( Voice Over Internet Protocol). But for connecting to PSTN ( Public Switched Network), TDM based CTI Board is a must and there is no alternative, as of now!

All CTI boards come with their own set of API ( Application Programming Interfaces) to control telecom protocols and call handling. Dialogic, the biggest CTI company provides many APIs as well as sample codes in three major operating systems, Windows, Linux and MAC OS. Likewise, other CTI vendors too provide their proprietary C++ API for at least two OS.

2. Call Flow development as per requirement

There are many online as well as offline call flow development tools. Some Call Flow development tools are completely pictorial visual tool where one can drag and drop various call flow like components to make a call flow. Some others use simple ‘English’ like/natural language like scripts to define call flow. Incidentally, all these tools are free to use for developing the call flow, but to execute these call flow, one has to pay per port licenses.

VXML is standard call flow development language adopted by W3 which uses HTML like simple syntax. Presently this requires a third party interpreter which again requires per port licenses.

3. Voice prompts, TTS ( Text To Speech) Engine and ASR (Automatic Speech Recognition) Engine

Voice prompts are normally recorded in a studio by professional artists. One can also record voice prompts using computer/laptop and MIC for development purpose. There are many open source, freely available TTS. Even MS SAPI is freely available. eSpeak, a popular TTS which has support for many languages from all around the world, is an open source TTS which works well both in Windows and Linux.
Likewise there are many open source ASR that works well after refinements.

Now, major challenge is to integrate all these components and build a reliable IVR system. Now a days, IVR is no longer simple call flow of yes and no by the caller, but complex system with data retrieving from multiple sources. It performs complex task as well compute input data by caller, make a decision and respond to caller with appropriate answer.

Most of the time, making an informed choice of IVR which is most suitable for a particular IVR application is quite difficult.

Now finally, Asterisk is a truly open source telephony system with IVR facility. It is Linux based and supports many CTI hardware and many developers contributing to it. It is a completely DIY ( Do It Yourself) IVR platform. It may not be easy to develop an IVR system quickly for a beginner using Asterisk from a scratch. At the end, it may be as difficult as building IVR using native API available with CTI board itself.

Many high density and widely deployed CTI hardware are not supported by Asterisk. This is one disadvantage which Asterisk will take some time to overcome. And at the end, while some one tries to customise Asterisk, he might end up with his own proprietary piece of codes, specific to some CTI hardware only!

Advantage of using API of CTI board is the freedom of choice of operating system as well as programming language. Programming languages like C++ offer power of ‘real programming’ language to complete complex tasks as well as integrate with any third party software.

So, one may not have much choice as Open Source IVR!

Recently, I have come across some interesting outbound IVR ( Interactive Voice Response System) implementation. While it may not be the best outbound IVR arrangement, but it sure is the cheapest and most reliable in the circumstances in India. Just to mention, majority of the outbound IVR applications dial out a number, plays a recorded message and disconnect. It does not capture any response from the called party.

OUTBOUND IVR Implementation in India

How is this outbound IVR implemented ?

It uses a EPABX ( Electronic Private Automatic Branch Exchange ) which has minimum one PRI card in it as well as few FXO/CO lines. Then it uses normal SIM ( Subscriber Identity Module) of all available GSM operators available in India ( GSM Cards available on many EPABX models in India). There are also few equipment called “E1 PRI ISDN GSM Gateway” which allows connecting multiple SIMs at one end and E1/PRI link at the other.

Apart from this, it uses normal CTI board with E1/PRI connectivity and one smart outbound IVR with database connectivity.

Now, the role of the smart outbound IVR is :

1. The outbound IVR is designed such that it is able to detect the operator once it picks the phone number from database to make an outbound call.

2. Once it detects the operator, it seizes a channel from CTI board which corresponds to the SIM of the same operator in the “E1 PRI ISDN GSM Gateway”. So, it uses the same operator SIM to make the outbound call. If it is landline number, it uses the FXO/CO line to make outbound call!

So, at the end, it is just a very smart ‘least cost routing’ feature available in many EPABX models!

How does t benefit ?

In India, operators have various tariff plans where one can make unlimited calls anywhere across the country in its same network. For example, an Airtel Mobile subscriber can make unlimited number of calls to any other Airtel number all across India. If it is not unlimited, then it is very big number for a fixed cost.

Whereas, if one uses normal PRI or E1 links from telecom operators, they do not have this kind of tariff for users. So, making he outgoing calls from SIMs than PRI lines are much cheaper than making outbound calls from PRI lines.

Big call centers or hosted IVR providers may subscribe to PRI lines from all telecom operators, but the the hardware and software cost will also be enormous, apart from maintenance problems. So, it is observed that, many people are using this kind of arrangement for making outbound Bulk voice calls.

While talking to some telecom operators, they have no idea about this practice. Some people had told me about demerits of using SIM to make calls like network congestion, signal problems etc!

This is quite interesting implementation of outbound IVR in India!

I attended VAS Asia 2010 held today in New Delhi. While writing my previous post about widely used IVR systems in India, I put IVR for Value Added Service at the top. If the overwhelming presence of CTI board manufacturers with stalls and two IVR platform provider any indication, then we are surely seeing some boom in IVR VAS in India! Incidentally, the last year too, there were many CTI board manufacturers in the same exhibition!

VAS Asia 2010 Conference

Incidentally, I could not find any stall of any big VAS companies except few like NetxCell, Spice Mobile. The big names in Indian VAS like OnMobile, IMI Mobile, Hungama Mobile etc. were not there! Content Developing companies VAS Application developer( one of fellow visitor asked me, “if I could suggest him any VAS content provider”)!
Nuance had big stall, and it is going to replace OnMobile ( which was principal sponsor for this VAS exhibition for last three years) as principal sponsor for next year.

Many CTI board manufacturer were there, I collected many visiting cards with interesting designations. One of the designation marketing manager of a CTI baard manufacturer’s business card reads designations like Sr. BDM Telecom and VAS ( Looks like, whole of CTI market in India is shifting towards IVR VAS only!).

Apart from Dialogic and Donjin, The following CTI board manufacturers were present :

1. Sangoma

Sangoma CTI Boards

Synway Stall at VAS Asia 2010

3. EastCom

EastCom - High Density Telecom Boards racks

4. Audio Codes

AudioCodes Stall

Interestingly, there were not many IVR platform providers except ExtendIVR and Telesoft Technologies! Telesoft launched its IVR platform for VAS industry. Aculab, I think whose CTI boards are most suited for voice portals, was not present!

ExtendIVR - Indian IVR Platform

Telesoft IVR platform

1. The session started with rosy picture of Indian VAS industry with a lecture from Mr. Arbind Rao of OnMobile ( which was the principal sponsor for the event) telling us that Indian VAS industry launches new services/products much faster than its European counterparts! He also informed that people whose mobile balance is Rs. 10(Approx US$0.22) at any point of time, VAS companies should sell them CRBT subscription per day basis! The present VAS market volume is Rs. 15000 crore ( more than US$3bn), likely to reach Rs. 70,000 crore by 2015 and Rs. 100,000 crore by 2020!
The next speaker Mr. Rakesh Mahajan, VP – Marketing & Business Head – VAS & Incubation, Airtel brought everyone on ground by asking, there are many products, services but how about the quality ? Answer to ‘what’ is not more important than ‘how’, he opined!

2. Lack of participants from core VAS companies ( though many were sponsors for the event) may be an indicator that not all is well in VAS industry in India and many admitted in private, VAS market is no longer booming in India! Nuance replacing OnMobile as principal sponsor for the next VAS Asia conference does not give out good signal about VAS Industry in India either!

3. Few specific issues like revenue sharing between telecom operator and VAS companies which is heavily tilted towards telecom companies ( Many claim it is now only 15% for VAS companies and for some unique and exclusive services it may be 35%) were not discussed or non raised, though Mr. Arbinda Rao raised something like, VAS companies should be given tax exemption by the government! No wonder low cost CTI manufacturers are present in big number in the conference!

4. Almost all speakers talked about using VAS in new areas ( eco-system as they called), like health, medicine, agriculture, targeting rural population in India. Also one speaker spoke about S Curve, saturation point!

Overall, it was good to be in the conference!

While outbound IVR systems are being widely used now a days for many promotional activities, but outbound IVR potential as smart predictive dialer is still to be tapped.

While many acknowledge that, outbound IVR has many advantages over predictive dialer, call centers still deploy predictive dialer for making outbound calls and then transferring the calls to human agents.

History of predictive dialer shows, it came to be used in call centers for increase efficiency of human agents, as well as effective monitoring by supervises. Predictive dialer increase productivity by automating the dialing, then detecting answering machine, FAX tone or human answering and then connecting to human agent. Any outbound IVR with small computation power using CPA ( Call Progress Analysis) can achieve these and much more!

Another major advantage of outbound IVR ( or any IVR for that matter) is its availability in both on-premise and hosted environment. Hosted environment provides many advantages like low initial cost as well as sudden spike in call volume! Predictive dialer are normally on premise and sudden spike of calls can only be served by increasing number of ports in it.

So, why call center owners are still having separate predictive dialer and not using their inbound IVR as predictive dialer in outbound IVR configuration ?

As I had interacted some call center owners as well as few vendors for call center industry, I think, in India, only two reasons for not using outbound IVR as predictive dialer :-

1. Lack of information
Not many people are aware that IVR can be used for making outbound calls and then transferring it to human agent along with call whispering or agent pop up with the connected call. Many call center owners include inbound IVR, but they are not aware or made aware that the same IVR could be used for making outbound calls as well as it can eliminate predictive dialer all together.
IVR being based on a PC, it has many options for monitoring, accessing data from various sources as well as present status of calls and activity of human agents.

2. Lack of confidence in IVR applications
While predictive dialer is a proven product, but many consider IVR applications to be just add-on and stand-by arrangement in India. Most probably, this has to do with technology adoption problem! Also, many people cite example of ‘hard coded’ IVR applications and lack of support and maintenance by IVR companies. Most of the IVR companies in India uses CTI boards APIs to develop IVR applications instead of open standards or tools. It may create problem in upgrading the application as well as maintenance.

So, it looks like outbound IVR will not be able to replace predictive dialer as preferred ‘smart dialer’ in call center in near future in India.

CCXML (Call Control eXtensible Markup Language) is telephone call flow language in line with VoiceXML which provides telephony control to the voice application written in VoiceXML.

CCXML is completely separate from VoiceXML and work independently from VoiceXML, though they can work together.

CCXML can be thought as an interface between telephony API and voice user interface ( VUI ) written is easy to write and understand markup languages like VoiceXML. Telephony API which comes with CTI ( Computer Telephony Integration) boards and are normally available in C, C++ or other low level languages. So, in order to make development of both call control and voice application easier, CCXML is being standardized which will be more understandable as well as easier to learn.

CCXML provides required various voice call controlling facility like call bridging, call conference, call transfer, handling and monitoring simultaneous calls which are required to develop highly intelligent voice application to cater to real world problems. Presently, only customised voice applications developed specifically for one type of CTI hardware using native API were able to control both telephony calls as well as user call flow.

Using CCXML would provide developers to develop voice application independent of CTI hardware. Using CCXML as well as VoiceXML could provide rapid prototyping and development.
(For complete CCXML specification one may visit : http://www.w3.org/TR/ccxml/)

CCXML seems to be the future of telephony API. With easy availability of manpower who could quickly learn XML than learning C++, CCXML seems to be at right direction for making voice application development easier.

Dialogic D/300 JCT-E1 is the entry level board for anyone who needs digital network interface with PSTN network as well as voice resources in the single board. I feel, D/300 board is most used entry

Dialogic D/300 JCT-E1 board

Features of Dialogic D/300 JCT-E1 board

1. Digital Network Interface

It has both E1(2.048MBPS) and T1(1.544 Mbps) support. It supports digital interface network protocols like ISDN PRI, R2MF. ISDN PRI is widely used protocol for connecting CTI board with PBX systems. With D/300 board, it is quite easy to configure it to work with many ISDN variants as per PBX from one country to another or manufacturer.

2. FAX support

Dialogic D/300 board supports both FAX and host based speech recognition. In certain cases, FAX and speech recognition may not work together. It also supports CSP ( Continuous Speech Processing) which offers IVR developers a powerful feature to develop many interesting IVR applications and features depending on the call progress. Speech recognition feature provides IVR developers to develop Speech-Enabled menu for any IVR application.

3. Scalability

Dialogic D/300 supports H.100 connector and it allows it to connect to other Dialogic boards. Inexpensive normal PC can be used to install this board and one PC may install upto 16 boards per machine if PCI slots are available.
With its support for GSM and G.726 bit exact voice coders ( standard for Voice Profile for Internet Messaging (VPIM) , one may develop unified messaging solutions based on D/300 board.

4. Programming

Dialogic D/300 board is supported by many RAD Tools for IVR development. It also supports widely popular GC ( Global Call Protocol) for making many high end, mission critical IVR applications.

Applications

D/300 board can be used to develop any kind of IVR applications. It offers many call related information available with digital network interface protocols. Call bridging available in ISDN PRI is one of the feature which is used to make Click To Call application can be developed.

D/300 board is also ideal choice for starting a voice portal service to start with 30 lines and then increase the lines.

DIalogic has some other models with higher capacity with same features. D/600 and DMV1200 have 60 voice and 120 resources respectively. One may move from D/300 to DMV/1200 without having to make any changes in the application.

Other CTI vendors like Donjin, Synway, Digium too have D/300 equivalent boards. For example, Digium TE122P/TE122B, Synway TEJ Series and Donjin DN300 are Dialogic D/300 equivalent boards with similar features.

IVR (Interactive Voice Response) System is solution that perform specific tasks related to presenting, sharing gathering information of a company with its customers or any one over phone. With fast development of internet, IVR systems too have moved from on-premise system to hosted service.

How it evolved
Like any other computer software, IVR has evolved from standalone application to highly networked application with many intelligence as per industry where it is being used. For example, a typical voice portal application fetches data from many different servers located at various geographical locations. The main CTI server is normally located at telecom service provider while all contents, MIS etc are contactly updated, monitored from office of the voice portal operators, all using internet as backbone.
Similarly, other IVR applications like complaint management, company information, IVR survey, hotel information etc. could be hosted at remote sites and its activities, reports could be viewed, analyzed live using internet connection or on website. So, IVR as a hosted service has evolved and is growing.

How it works

Hosted IVR service providers offers the following services to its customer:-

1. Dedicated Telephone number which will receive calls from/make calls to its customers.
2. DIY ( Do it yourself) visual tools for designing their IVR call flow
3. Third party database integration or integration with existing CRM ( Customer Resource Management) software.
4. Any customised call flow implementation
5. Maintenance, upgrade of the IVR system.

A hosted IVR service provider has infrastructure which is already connected to telecom operators for managing telephone call related activities as well as integration of CTI boards with telephone switch, call routing. It also has CDR MIS available online for any customers for their allotted telephone numbers or channel(s). It can allocate more channels to handle more calls simultaneously.

A hosted IVR customer only need to worry about their application part, their call flow, IVR prompts, script etc.

Advantages

• People who are not convinced about success of IVR implementation or its usefulness for his business process, using hosted IVR service is the best option. As hosted IVR service offers him quickest time for go live with an IVR system.
• Initial cost of CTI board, time spent on integration with telephone switch etc. are avoided while using a hosted IVR service.

Available tools
There are many tools which can be used for hosted IVR services. Invox, Apexvoice, Pronexus VBVoice, CT ADE etc. are few tools which are widely used for hosted IVR service.

Hosted IVR has started in India in the form of Bulk outbound voice messages recently which is being increasingly used for political campaign, awareness campaign, e-governance as well as voice advertising. “Click to Call” is another hosted IVR service which is growing in India recently.