Recently, I have come across many IVRs which asks multiple choice questions and press a key to answer the correct options. For every correct answer, the caller gets a point and these points are accumulated. If I remember correctly, this kind of quiz on IVR has been popular in voice portal services in India where some contest was organised and top 10 scorers were given prizes.

Normally, this kind of quiz contest on IVR used to work following way :-

1. Voice Portal had hundreds of questions ( some easy, some difficult).
2. The questions were asked randomly.
3. A caller can call many times till the end of the contest period.
4. The caller never gets a question twice whose correct answer has been already given by him. But wrongly answered questions may be asked again.
5. With every correct answer, his/her points keep increasing.

This kind of quiz contest were popular some 5/6 years ago when there was not IPhone or other smart phones! Now a days, I hardly come across such contests. May be VAS ( Value Added Service) providers have run out questions or people are no longer interested in playing such contest on phone.

But, similar IVR applications seem to have come back again! But this time, this is not a contest, but few specific questionnaire on a product or service!

While interacting with few people, who are using such questionnaire on IVR, I have come to know about interesting benefits:-

They normally schedule such questionnaire to a person who has stayed in their hotel. While many people enter a phone number in their guest register, but there is no option to verify that number. So, as soon as the guest is checked out, IVR calls up that number and asks few questions about quality of room, services etc. I solves two purposes, it verifies that number and it gets some feedback for their services too which is very important for quality purpose.

In order to sweeten the IVR call, they offer some cash discount on their next stay in the hotel if the complete the questionnaire! They also get a report about these feedback properly which is useful for various analytical purposes.

Another questionnaire is used for screening candidates applying for a job. The IVR calls up the prospective candidate and asks related questions for the position where candidate is given multiple option to choose. The IVR gives giving points as per the option chosen by the candidate!

This IVR questionnaire act as an first line of screening and it also helps gauge if the candidate really want the job or not!

This is complete automated system where one gets back score of each candidate, hang up in between etc. It saves cost by reducing foot falls in the recruiters office as well as save time.

So, I think, quiz on IVR is back again and this time it has different applications and different usage! I also think, questionnaire on IVR could be applied in different industries where some processes could be automated!

Apex Voice Communication, one of the major IVR based Service Delivery Plateform providers in the world, has announced about OMNILITE™, a menu-based web portal for customizing applications designed and developed in the graphically-based OmniView® Service Creation Environment. It works as a compliment to

APEXVoice Launches OMNILITE

“The OmniLite product is the direct result of requests voiced by a number of our mobile Network Operator customers with call and contact centers,” said Elhum Vahdat, Executive Vice President of APEX Voice Communications. “They need changes in the customer experience to be made in various departments on systems hosted by the IT or Engineering department, without the need to involve IT or Engineering and without affecting the stability of the underlying application.”

The OmniVox3D SIP Application Server is the core component of the APEX Service Delivery Platform (APEX SDP™), a mature, field-proven and future-proof platform that delivers immediate returns on the new generation of voice, video and data enhanced services. The APEX SDPs inherent design ensures the scalability, reliability and high-availability required by mobile and fixed-line Network Operators and Value Added Service Providers, while its award-winning OmniVox3D and OmniView offer the flexibility for rapid deployment of service bundles across multiple networks – 3G, SIP/IMS, TDM/SS7, AIN/IN and converged. The APEX SDP and OmniVox3D together can process an almost unlimited number of applications, including converged Web 2.0 and Telecom services (mashups), Self-Service Optimization (APEX First Touch™), Network IVR, Video IVR, Interactive Text Response (ITR), Voice/Video Messaging, Real-Time Billing (Prepaid), Voice/Video Conference Calling, and Automated Collect Calling.

About APEX Voice Communications (www.apexvoice.com, sales@apexvoice.com This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , +1 818.379.8400)
APEX is a global provider of Service Delivery Platforms and Application Servers to Network Operators, Value Added Service Providers (VASPs) and Value Added Resellers (VARs) for voice, video and data enhanced services. With over 15,000 installations across 95 countries since 1989, APEX continues to be a leader in delivering the latest solutions for mission-critical and revenue-generating enhanced services.

For complete Press Release : ApexVoice.

Recently, I came across an interesting article about usage of IVR in Economic Times, India. This was about simple outbound IVR used for monitoring one of the largest welfare scheme in India, Mid-day meal scheme. In this scheme, students in primary schools in India are offered free meals!

This welfare scheme has been successful in India and it has increased enrollment of students in primary schools, improved attendance as well as reduced drop outs.

Interesting Outbound IVR

According to the article, most populous state in India, Uttar Pradesh, is experimenting with IVR ( Interactive Voice Response) system to monitor implementation of Mid Day Meal scheme. After mobile phone boom in India, telephone connectivity has reached almost all villages, small towns in India. Outbound IVR makes outgoing to calls automatically during midday to teachers of primary schools and prompts to enter number of students present on that day. Their response is recorded using DTMF (Dual Tone Multiple Frequency) or telephone keypress and recorded in government website automatically.

This interesting outbound IVR application is implemented by Knowlarity Communications Pvt. Ltd.

This is another example of how IVR can used to monitor welfare schemes by governments.

We wish all our readers, web visitors, sponsors and associates a very happy new year 2011!

So, at the end of an eventful year 2010, we would like to list few articles here for some quick reading and reference :-

1. Top 5 reasons for opting hosted IVR solution
2. Types of IVR Development Tools
3. Few important finer details of IVR Software
4. Can outbound IVR replace predictive dialer ?
5. How to choose IVR Solution

1. Top 5 reasons for opting hosted IVR solution
IVR Hosting is growing world-wide and many people are increasingly opting for Hosted IVR solutions. Though hosted IVR Solution may not be able to replace On-Preimse IVR solutions in some cases, but here are top five reasons why one should opt for IVR hosting.

2. Types of IVR Development Tools

Like many emerging services and technologies, development of IVR services too have many competing methods to develop IVR software. While Googling, interacting with various IVR companies, professionals I have found out some different types of IVR development tools or ‘school of thought’ as they call!

3. Few important finer details of IVR Software

There are few parameters or features of IVR which are important and are common to almost any type of IVR application. These parameters play very important role in making the voice application more user friendly. These parameters are used at many stages in IVR software or in any call flow. I hope, knowing these would help people who are looking to develop an IVR or looking to purchase IVR software.

4. Can outbound IVR replace predictive dialer ?

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.

5. How to choose IVR Solution

IVR (Interactive Voice Response) Systems are available in two ‘forms’, hosted IVR and On Premise IVR. Choosing right IVR solution among these two types, may not be easy. I would try to document few points to consider between the two IVR types.

Finally, good by to year 2010 and welcome to year 2011!

In India, not many courier companies have tracking system on IVR ( Interactive Voice Response) system, though almost everyone has web-based online tracking system. Majority of the courier companies have their offices or franchisees in many smaller cities for larger coverage as well as networks in India. Most websites of the courier companies list the phone numbers of these offices for local tracking of the shipments.

Recently, I have observed that, few employees are almost busy all the time answering telephone calls in these offices and tracking the shipment according to the consignment number. On top of that, these employees majorly check the status manually on their computer and inform status of the shipment to the caller.

All these processed could be automated completely using IVR hosting service at any location in India. It is possible since the tracking system is already cumputerised as well as accessible online. Courier tracking on IVR is being widely used in western countries like United States of America, Europe etc.

In any shipment, it has few finite status, for example, it will have the following statuses :-

1. Shipment in transit : This will state that, the shipment is on transit but it has not reached the destination. It can also announce the current city where the shipment has reached apart from expected delivery date.

2. Shipment at Destination : Shipment has reached the destination town or city, could be collected in person, but delivery will be made next day only.

3. Shipment out for delivery : Shipment is in destination city/town, and shipment is taken out for delivery. Most probably, many people would enquire during this status!

4. Shipment Delivered : Shipment has been delivered on time and date.

In hosted IVR enthronement, it should be quite easy to retrieve the status of any shipment by its consignment number. Courier

Since online tracking is already available on web, courier companies can easily provide an HTTP based API ( Application Programming Interface) to retrieve the shipment status to hosted IVR system.

Here is tentative steps, how hosted IVR service for shipment tracking can work :-

1. Caller calls the IVR number and IVR greets him in his local language as per caller id.
2. Caller dials the consignment number.
3. Hosted IVR uses Web service API to retrieve the current status and announce that.

So, hosted IVR can easily provide telephone based shipment tracking system in easy and simple ways using the local languages. Hosted IVR for shipment tracking system can be very useful as it is quick to go live and does not require any big initial investment.

While web based shipment tracking is very useful, but it can be used by many illiterate people as well as those people who do not have internet access. But now a days, majority people have access to mobile phone or public telephone booth, using which one can track shipment status on IVR. Another main advantage of IVR is use of local language which is not possible in case of websites.

Hosted IVR based tracking system can reduce burden of employees of courier companies, provide useful and time tracking system to its clients.

Internet offers many services which are useful in our day to day life. There are many web portals which providing directory services which list traders, shops, local business houses, various service providers etc. along with with easy ‘search and find’ option.

Web Directory Service IVR

There are few challenges for maintaining a directory service portal with accurate information. For example :-

1. Many directory service web portals still list phone numbers which are no longer in service or disconnected for may business houses. These phone numbers need to be periodically checked and verified. Or before listing them, one needs to verify it. When outdated phone number is listed against any shop or service providers ina directory listing website, it loses confidence in web visitors.

2. Address verification is another tedious and manual process which takes a lot of resources of the web portal. By providing accurate address, a directory web portal increases reputation among web visitors and gain popularity.

3. Many directory services allow web visitors or local business establishments to list themselves on the web portal. The phone numbers, addresses provided by them needs to be verified before publishing them. It is tedious and time consuming process.

IVR ( Interactive Voice Response) System can automate all the above verification process and can easily verify all the data.

How IVR can help directory services ?

1. IVR can make automatic outbound calls against any phone number listed against any address or business establishment. It can dial out the number and report back if the number is not reachable. If it is land-line number and does not ring, gets disconnected immediately or does not get busy tone after trying three times, it can safely assume that, the number does not work or exist and stop it getting published on the website.
When the phone number rings and picked up, then it can announce purpose of calling and then verify his address by asking him to press few keys!

This process can be completely automatic and can be done periodically to keep phone numbers updated and accurate.

2. In order to verify correct information or address, IVR can dial out the phone number, read out address using TTS ( Text To Speech) and then ask the called party to press a key to verify. IVR can also transfer the call to some human agent in case further assistance is required. With accurate address, the web portal can increase its credibility and respect by web visitors.

3. For user submitted data ( where web visitors are allowed to submit their shop, services to be listed in the web directory), IVR can be used quite effectively to validate phone numbers, verify address without manual intervention. While user submitted data can help a web directory portal grow, but these kind of data seem to be most inaccurate. With use of IVR, the accuracy of user submitted data can be improved.

Apart from IVR for verifying data, another important IVR application, Click To Call can be used to track leads generated by its listing, as well as allow added facility for web visitors to speak to these listings free of cost!

If you own a web directory service, yellow pages, it is time to augment your effort using IVR system!

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!

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!

Today on 23rd August, ivrsworld.com has turned two years old!

I would like to thank all readers and their valuable comments on this blog. When I started writing this blog two years back, I simply wanted to keep posting about information about IVR that I Google in internet, various IVR related news, my personal experiences with various IVR projects. But I think it has now become a blog about IVR!

IVR Visitor

The turning point came somewhere December 2009, when this blog had started getting more than 100 unique visitors per day and I thought I should take it seriously ( presently, the latest figures in Google analytic shows 4400 unique visitors a month, majorly from India, USA, Canada and Europe). It felt good when this blog is shows up at first page in Google while searching for many IVR related keywords! The registered readers ( Google Feedburner) of the blog has reached 100 with email IDs ending with dialogic.com, sangoma.com, pronexus.com, invox.com, aculab.com to name few! These were surely inspiring!

Then VBVoice, IVR toolkit for .NET developers came as sponsor which was moral booster! Otherwise I was majorly using Google Adsense to display graphics, not to earn anything!

Then MessageTech, the hosted IVR Service provider has come to sponsor and I even could afford a paid WordPress Theme for the blog.

I thank you all the sponsors for sponsoring this IVR blog which were really helpful and inspiring. I hope to have one more sponsor this year so that I could host www.ivrsworld.com on VPS/dedicated server with minimum down time . Presently it is on a shared hosting and I have been embarrassed few times when readers mailed me to inform they were not able to open the site.

I thought I would prepare a PDF book in the second year, unfortunately I could not not achieve that, but this year, I will again try to achieve that. Other wise, I think, ivrsworld.com has had a good year!

This year, I would test more CTI boards, IVR RAD tools and post my experience here. And at the end of year, I would like to prepare a comparison chart using some common parameters.

What is Call – In – Sick ?
Call In Sick is some urgent absent notification by employees about their intended absence in office normally before start of office or at the beginning of it. Employees normally call to their superiors or leave a message with heir colleague.
This is common practice to “call in sick” to office at some point of time either due to genuine sickness or for some urgent personal reason. In India, any employees are granted few leaves in a year, known as CL ( Casual Leave).

Many large corporates with thousands of employees may get many ‘call-in-sick’ calls everyday. Receiving, recording all such calls and then providing information to respective superiors may become a tedious process for large corporates. IVR can be used as an effective tool to manage all “call-in-sick” calls. Presently, employees call their superiors or colleagues to inform about sickness and urgent requirement for unplanned leave for a day.

How IVR can be used ?

One dedicated number will be provided to employees for call-in-sick purposes. All employees will use this telephone number to report urgent leave of absence for the day.

1. As soon as employee calls to this number, IVR will ask to enter the employee number. IVR will then look up employee details as well as already availed casual leaves.

2. IVR will ask reasons for asking casual leave with most used reasons, like sudden sick, accident etc. For others, it will record a voice message.

3. Once the reason for asking casual leave is recorded, the notification of absence of the employee will be immediately notified to his/her colleagues as well as superiors.

4. IVR may even inform the caller if some urgent meeting was scheduled for the day and his presence in office is a must, or inform him his number of leaves taken for falling ill for the current month.

Some advantages of using IVR for managing Call In Sick :

1. Supervisors or seniors would instantly know if any of his juniors are absent as soon as they ope their mailbox and may even get SMS alert, instead of finding out physically. This will help him plan, depute in the absence of of the employee.

2. In any school, it becomes a night mare when one teacher call-in-sick, and no alternative arrangement is made quickly by school principal.

3. It allows keep track of absent employees daily basis.

4. Genuine call in sick employees can record their absence without having to call up the boss who might not be co-operative enough to understand and an IVR can surely save him from embarrassment of trying to convince his non-cooperative boss! IVR can even remind call-in-sick employees, how many times he/she had taken sick leave so far!

5. IVR can provide MIS report for departmental heads for call-in-sick by employees, day wise, month wise or employee wise for better HR resource planning as well as appraisals.

So, IVR could be used to record, manage all ‘call in sick’ employees without anyone’s involvement in the process. With futuristic feature like ‘Speaker recognition’, IVR might even be able to predict if the employee calling in sick is actually ill or not! This will be a real good feature departmental heads.