In the last post, I had posted about Call Back services ( both automated and manual). While both Automated Call Back as well as Manual Call back services have different usage, I would like to post how one can implement this kind of service using any CTI board. While Analog CTI boards can also be used to implement automated call back services, I recommend everyone to use a digital CTI board. Mainly because of various problems of detecting Caller ID using a Analog CTI boards!

The easiest way to implement automated Call Back service is to use both incoming IVR as well as outgoing IVR. Incoming IVR will ‘sense’ the incoming call, then retrieve the Caller ID and disconnect it. While outbound IVR will read the Caller ID and dial out!

So this is the simple procedure of operating principle of automated call back service!

Detailed Systems:-

Here are suggested hardware:-
1. 30 Port Digital CTI board ( Dialogic D300, Donjin DN300 or Synway SHD 1 E1 Digital Multimedia Board or similar board from CTI manufacturers).
2. One Server Class PC. It should normally be tower type so that it can house the CTI board.
3. One Database Server, a separate server class PC or one may decide to install Database Server in the #2 Machine itself.
4. PRI Connection from a Telecom operator like Airtel, Reliance etc. ( in India).
5. Optional internet connectivity with global IP. This is required if one intends to accept call back requests from websites!

And then the Automated Call Back Application!

Here is the theory of operation :-

1. Two processes will run concurrently, one to detect and process any incoming call and the other to make pending outgoing calls ( outbound IVR)!

2. As soon as the Automated Call Back ( ACB ) Application sense an incoming call, it will detect the Caller ID and store them in a “Spooler” Table in the database with time stamp ( or any other related information) with a reset flag. After that, it will disconnect the call.

3. Outbound IVR process will keep checking the “Spooler Table” ( periodically, say every second) for any entry with reset flag. If it gets any, it reads that entry and makes the outgoing call and set the flag.

4. In order to accept call back request from websites, web visitor will submit a form with phone number, which will be stored in the same “Spooler Table” as in #2 above so that Outbound IVR can dial out and complete the call back service!

5. Once the call is connected, outbound IVR can either transfer the call to a human agent or implement any IVR call flow!

Few enhancements:-
1. If the incoming call is disconnected just after getting the caller ID, and then if the number is dialed back within 2/3 seconds, this could be almost thought as “Toll Free Number” as the caller does not get charged! More intelligence could be implemented like first time callers will get to hear a message that his call would be disconnected and would get an incoming call!

2. SMS could be integrated with Call Back services informing the caller with expected time of call back if its a mobile number.

Many industries need call back services. Hospitality industries, Insurance, Retail Marketing are few industries which require call back services. This service can also be provided as a hosted service.

Interactive Voice Response (IVR) is being used in many fields, and it has also been used in social sectors too. One such example was surveying Mid Day meal scheme in India’s populous state Uttar Pradesh. Apart from this, there have also been usage of IVR in mass awareness campaign about various government schemes, services.

IVR in Grivance Redressal by NGOs

These services were normally alert type service where outbound IVR is used which dials out phone numbers and plays a recorded message. Centre for People’s Forestry, an NGO ( Non Government Organisation), based in Secundrabad, Andhra Pradesh in India has started an inbound IVR where tribal people in central India living in forest areas can lodge a complaint or message by calling the IVR number!

This is a simple inbound IVR which they are hosting with Niche Tech Services Private Limited, an established IVR hosting service provider in India.

Here, any one can dial the IVR number which prompts in four languages, Odiya, Telegu, Hindi and English. And this IVR is mainly aimed at Telegu and Odiya speaking tribes in central India. These tribes have been living in this forested central areas for centuries before these forests became ‘reserved forests’. Some time they face hardships and Centre for People’s Forestry has been working to address their grievances. In order to get news about their grievances, CPF has set up this inbound IVR.

Steps to use this IVR :-

1. Anyone will dial the IVR, he would be asked to choose his language.
2. Once the language is chosen, she is asked to speak her grievance and disconnect.
3. The recorded voice is then immediately emailed to concerned CPF ( Centre For Poeple’s Forestry) as well as an SMS alert is sent.
4. CPF personals can also visit website provided by Niche Tech Services (P) Ltd to listen to this message online as well as other call logs.

CPF personal then can call up the phone number who recorded the message, verify the complaint and take up the issue with state authorities for remedial actions!

Advantage of this IVR is lodging a complaint in his/her own voice by just making a call. Lodging a complaint by phone from distance is easy and less intimidating, specially for illiterate tribes.

CPF now gets any complaints instantly and serve people better with timely intervention. This may increase faith in them by poor tribal people.

This kind of simple complaint lodging inbound IVR could also be used by CVC ( Central Vigilance Commission) India, Women Police Stations, Help Centres, Trauma centres etc. to help victims.

What is Phone verification ?

Phone verification can be called verification of a phone number entered in a form ( both online form or offline paper form ) either it is a valid phone number or not. Here, validity of the phone number does not mean only about the numbers entered numeric, length of digits entered sufficient ( which can be verified by smart software though), but the phone number works! It mean, the number has to ring when dialed from another phone number. Also it has to match the owner of the phone number with the name entered in the form!

So, most of the time the only way to verify the number is to manually dial and speak to the person.

Why Phone verification is required ?

Phone verification is required for many services for obvious reasons to authenticate credential of a person. Credit card, Banking, ID proof etc. are few examples where phone verification is a must.

A verified phone may also reduce many unproductive calls by any tele-caller.

How Missed Call and IVR can be used ?

A missed call is a call when it is not picked by the caller. Now that missed call may happen when called party does not pick the call even when ringing is over, or when called party disconnects call after one or few rings. Depending on the type of missed call, few messages are exchanged between called party and the caller. In India as well as other countries too, missed call is widely used by people!

“Missed Call” are also known as ‘drop call’ in USA, ‘prank call’ in United Kingdom and Australia, beep in Africa etc.

The same “Missed Call” can also be used to verify a phone number automatically using the following method :-

1. When a person enters a phone number in any online registration form, he is given a phone number to dial from the phone number she entered in the form within a given time say next 20 mins. The pop up clearly mentions that as soon the phone rings, it will be disconnected just after capturing the Called ID and the call will not be charged!

2. The person calls the number. The IVR receiving the call will capture the Caller ID and match it with the number entered in the online form. If it matches, the phone number will be verified and the registration would be accepted.

3. The IVR can now make an outbound call to inform that the registration is accepted and now he can proceed with his registration or any other purpose of the online form submission.

Any PRI connection in India is normally given 100 numbers in continuity. So, these 100 numbers could be used in random to get missed calls from different users in order to increase secrecy as well as security.

So, missed call with an intelligent IVR system could be used as completely automated phone number verification service.

Presently, outbound IVR ( Interactive Voice response) System is widely used in India as well as around the world by candidates in any democratic election in order to reach their electorate in the form of bulk voice call or broadcasting voice messages. In India, many political parties deploy Bulk Voice service during election campaign asking people to vote for their candidates.

But instead of using IVR only to broadcast voice message, political parties can also use inbound IVR in various ways to connect with their electorate regularly, instead of reaching out only during election. Now a days, even in India, many political parties are using websites to register members online, collect donations along with informing achievements their party agenda, achievements, leaders etc.

How inbound IVR can be used ?

Political parties can use inbound IVR for few specific ways. Some of them are :-

1. Register New members with phone numbers

Inbound IVR can be used to register new members with verified phone number. The phone number detected by Caller ID can be used as a verified phone number by the new registrant which is better than online web based registration where fraudulent registration may require manual verification. For more about IVR registration process, one may click the link.

2. Providing Information about the political party

Caller to the IVR number of the political party may be provided with options to listen to election manifesto, vision documents, party constitution as well as latest news about the party. It can be IVR portal to provide any kind of party information in voice format to any one having a telephone or mobile connection.

Apart from normal news, IVR could also be used to provide clarification to any controversial news about the party so that their is no confusion on the controversial topic in the electorate. This will increase confidence in the party as well as remove any malicious rumour.

3. Listen to speeches by key party leaders

Some important speeches delivered by the party leaders, be it in the parliament/senate or in an electoral meeting, could be provided in the inbound IVR for listening by party supporters as well as any citizen. This will help connect to more and more people.

Recorded voice by party leaders could also be accessed by party workers for specific information from time to time.

4. Complaint Registration and Complaint Status.

Another important use of Inbound IVR is to record complaints, grievances by the electorate against party candidate or any other. This will make the party more and more transparent, democratic. Complaints can also be treated as feedback to the political party. Elected representatives from constituencies may have dedicated IVR number or menu for lodging any grievances. This can make party more popular among voters.

5. Conducting Polls/Surveys

Inbound IVR can also be used to conduct surveys/polls about any policy among its supporters. This kind of IVR survey or poll can also be used to allow electorate to choose their candidate for particular constituency. Mechanism like one Caller ID being allowed to vote only once could be implemented in order to prevent fraudulent voting.

This kind of anonymous voting/survey encourage grass root level party workers as well as general citizens to voice their opinions which may help party to choose right policy, right candidates!

Apart from listed above, I think inbound IVR could be used many ways by Political parties. So, most probably, it is time Political parties start using IVE beyond bulk voice messaging.

Timely information and timely action can earn a lot for any stock trading company or may lose for the lack of it! With advent of online share trading systems where anyone an buy/sell shares online using a PC with internet connection, lot of automation has taken place increasing profitability to any share trading companies.

Presently, many share trading companies maintains dedicated call center to serve their clients where many of the incoming calls are just to check their portfolio positions for the day! Also SMS ( Short Messaging Service) is being used to update both share trading tips as well as portfolio status to registered numbers.

IVR ( Interactive Voice Response) System can be used to perform regular enquiries like portfolio status, stock market update etc. which will free up human agent in call center for other tasks to assist actual stock trading assistance to callers.

Both Inbound IVR and outbound IVR can be deployed by any share trading company to automate timely information update to its clients as well as provide their portfolio status on demand.

1. Inbound IVR

Inbound IVR, where caller will make a call to the IVR number, can be used to provide the following updated and rea-ltime information :-

a. Portfolio Status
A quick information about the current portfolio status is what everyone wants to know at the end of the day or weekly to help plan then about buying or selling shares or doing other stock trading. Getting updates on IVR is much easier and its available on any phone both land-line and mobile.

b. Quick Stock updates
A caller can also hear latest stock exchange index, top performing companies, top loss making shares etc.

c. Call transfer to human agents
IVR can provide option to transfer the call to human agent intelligently like while announcing the top earning shares so that it may persuade them to do any transaction.

2. Outbound IVR

Outbound IVR can be used same wa as inbound IVR as described above,e except that the all would be initiated by IVR to the client.
The only difference is, the outbound call can be triggered when some important announcement or alert ha to be sent to the client. Some sudden fluctuation of share price owned by the client may trigger a call to him informing about the fluctuation and then IVR can immediately transfer the call to human agent for further assistance.

Voice call alert are more reliable as it can be ascertain either the call was received by the called party or not in time. In SMS alert or EMail alert, the client may not open the SMS or email in time which may cause him to miss the important update.

Outbound IVR is also useful to provide clients with timely stock tips which are very urgent in nature.

So, if you are in share trading business and if you are not using IVR, then most probably you are going to lose out to your competitor who is using IVR!

The usage of IVR is growing in India. IVR has been used for long time in India like any other country in the world. These IVR systems were majorly used as train status information, flight status information and other few complaint lodging/booking system. And at that time ( before 1997), India had very low telecom density. After telecom boom in 1999, telecom density in India has grown to over 44% by 2010. Until recently, India was adding almost 10m telephone ( both land line and mobile) users per month.

Usage of IVR has also seen growth int the same period. Also, IVR systems are being used in many new areas increasingly. In my opinion, there are four major areas where IVR is being increasingly used in India :-

1. IVR as Value Added Service
2. IVR in Call Center/Contact Center
3. IVR in payment gateways
4. IVR for traditional usage like complaint management, Railway enquiry etc.

1. IVR for value added service

After mobile boom in India, SMS based VAS services saw phenomenal growth. At the same time, voice portals have also entered into the area with premium charging per minute. CRBT service can also be termed as IVR system which has become major revenue earner for mobile companies in India.
Recently, IVR is also being used as voice blasting services for product and service promotions, election campaigning, or any telephonic remainder service. Even IVR based click to call service has also started in India. I think, this is one type of IVR which has huge potential for growth in India.

2. IVR in Call Center/Contact Center

With India’s large English speaking population, BPO industry flourished after 2000 and many call centers have sprung up. With these call center, the use of outbound dialer or predictive dialer grew. Inbound IVR has been increasingly used in call center to screening the caller, providing mundane and regular information to the callers. Though call centers in India have not started very intelligent IVR yet which could be used for complete automated self service complaint management systems or any other self-help automated system.
Lately, people have been trying to integrate IVR with existing CRM software or bundle IVR with newer version of CRM software.

3. IVR in payment gateways

With major international and private banks opening shops in India, IVR has found usage in payment gateways as well as banks as Phone banking service.
IVR is also being used in payment gateways for credit card transaction using telephone. This kind of IVR needs to be PCI compliant and there have been many vendor which have developed PCI compliant IVR software. With low penetration of internet, but very high penetration of mobile phone and telephone, this type of IVR may grow healthily in recent time.

4. IVR for traditional usage like complaint management, Railway enquiry etc.
Indian Railways and BSNL (Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited) has been oldest users of IVR in India. Indian Railways has installed many IVR systems ate individual busy stations for providing Train status information, Ticket Reservation status enquiry etc.
BSNL has been using IVR for fault and complaint booking. Apart from these two, many PSUs have been using Voice Mail systems in their PABXs.
Airlines have also been using inbound IVR for updating flight status information.

Apart from these, IVR in clinical trial has not really picked up here in India which is one of the most widely use area in other parts of the world. But there are many interesting IVR usage in India and we can be sure that some innovative IVR application will be developed by some company to exploit its huge number of telephone users!

I had posted a report few weeks back about IVR market growing to $2.7 billion by 2011 provided by DMG Consulting LLC, and today I had come across another press release while Googling, which says IVR market will grow to $514million from present estimate of $431million this year, as per T3i Group LLC, which “provides market research, data, analysis, and consulting and advisory services to the telecommunications industry.”

Few Key findings of the report says :
1. 95% of IVR shipped would be supporting VXML from recent less than 75%.
2. Top three IVR systems are
a. Inbound Call handling for contact centers
b. Inbound IVR self service transactions
c. Outbound IVR for alerts like appointment confirmations, payment collection remainder.
3. Inbound IVR will see decrease by 10% by 2013.
4. Outbound IVR will grow by 12% yearly.
5. Analog CTI boards are decreasing and DTMF based menu in IVR application are also on the decline. Speech enabled menu is growing and will be have 2:1 advantage over DTMF.

Complete Press release, Please visit : http://telecomweb.com/aboutus/pressreleases/262963.html

About T3i Group LLC

T3i Group LLC provides market research, data, analysis, and consulting and advisory services to the telecommunications industry. It has clients in 46 countries and conducts its business through four operating units: InfoTrack publishes reports that analyze shipment, revenue, market share and other pertinent data of importance to telecommunications equipment manufacturers; TelecomTactics maintains a database of the features and functionality of major telephony systems; Tarifica maintains a database of pricing-related information covering 400 telecommunications carriers operating in 130 countries; and TelecomWeb (www.t3igroup.com) serves as T3i Group’s primary delivery mechanism for distributing its reports, analyses and data to subscribers.

T3i Group LLC is headquartered in Parsippany, N.J., with additional offices in New York City; London, England; and Cherry Hill, N.J.