In the crowded IVR Tools market and competing technologies for making IVR development easier and faster, I thought it would be an worthwhile to know how many people use what kind of IVR development tools for their IVR Software.

POLL to find out % of IVR Tools users

So, I though I would start a poll in this IVR Blog to find out how many uses what kind of IVR development tools. Though I tried to add as many as possible tools, I may have forgotten to add some. Please leave comment with the IVR Tool and I would update the options.

The poll is at the right side this blog just below the SEARCH Textbox. I request all kindly to vote. Once may choose 2 or more choices.

I hope to publish the result after a month or so with country wise data too.

Happy voting!

In my previous post on IVR as E-Com Portal , I tried to explain how IVR can be used to generate revenue. In this post, I would try to list the some services, which should be interesting and likely to generate revenue. I think, it would be best if the IVR e-com portal is operated either on a toll free numbers or on a normal telephone number without any premium charging. Normally, voice portals provide the services free while charging premium for the call.

1. Direct Selling
One would be surprised to know that, many products, services could be sold on IVR. Few such products or services are :-
a. Music CD/Albums :
One can build a complete music store on IVR. The obvious advantage on operating a music store on IVR is ‘listening trailers’ on the fly! Callers would find it very easy to search any music number or album by language, genre, singer, films etc. There can be many options how caller pay, orders DVD etc.

b. Tickets
Most probably, many people are aware about buying tickets on IVR system. One can sell flight ticket, railway ticket, bus ticket, movie tickets on IVR e-com portal.

c. Books
Books could be sold on IVR e-com portal easily and some excerpt could be read out to the caller about new arrivals of books!

d. Food
If Domino’s can sell pizzas on phone, why not you ? One can sell foods on phone with home delivery facility!

e. Branded Products
Normally all branded products need not be touched or felt or inspected personally! There are many such products which one can buy on phone. For example, why should one need to check anything about LUX soap or 1KG of Basmati Rice ?

There must be many more items which can be sold directly on phone. All those which can be sold on phone could be automated on IVR e-com portal!

2. Services
There are many services which an intelligent IVR can provide to people which could be sold on IVR e-com portal. Some of them are :-

a. Distance education
Paid courses could be made available on IVR. Also lectures by eminent professors, teachers could be made available to registered students from distance.

b. Paid consultancy on phone
Doctors, astrologers could provide consultancy on IVR E-com portal. The main advantage of IVR consultancy is anonymity and many people can explain on phone without any inhibition. Of course surgery can not be done on IVR E-com portal, but some appointment with a surgeon could be surely sold on IVR e-com portal.

c. Notification Services
IVR can notify anyone by calling up! So IVR e-com portal may provide this service either for registered paid member or per usage basis.

d. Bulk outgoing call services/On demand outgoing call services
I am quite sure, this is one area which is picking up and likely to grow more in coming years. With increasing penetration of phones, people want to travel less for sending their messages quickly to many people!

e. Advertising
Voice advertising is one area which may sell on IVR e-com portal.

These are few services, products, which I believe, can be sold on IVR e-com portal. There are various tools to develop an IVR portal using which one may develop IVR E-com portal quickly and easily.

Like any other businesses, success of IVR e-com portal will depend on many things and those are outside scope of this article. But, IVR e-com portal can surely work and generate revenue.

I have been thinking to prepare a list of RAD(Rapid Application Development) tools for developing IVR software or voice applications for long time. I have found 8 RAD tools ( including one free tool) for developing IVR Application so far and I think there may be more as I am quite sure, many IVR RAD Tool companies do not use SEO techniques to rank high in search engines! Or may be, Google does not know everything on net, after all.

I have tested only one among this list of 8 tools, VBVoice 5.6.1 of PRONEXUS, and I must admit, I am impressed with how they have made developing IVR software easy and quick! And I am sure pride of many people will be dented as who were member of exclusive and minority group of IVR developer using native API of CTI boards, including myself. I hope to download evaluation version of all the tools one day and compare all of them.

I would say, not all in this list of eight RAD Tools for developing IVR software may qualify to be called complete rapid application development tools, and here is the list:-

1. VBVoice 5.6.1 from PRONEXUS INC:-
I think this is the biggest RAD tool for IVR Software development. Very powerful, easy to use tool that uses industry standard programming environment like .NET technology. It has support for large speech and telephony technologies like ACD, SIP, HMP, MRCP, ASR, TTS and VoIP. If anyone knows VB.NET, C# then with this VBVoice 5.6.1, he can become an IVR Application developer overnight. They support high end CTI boards of Dialogic as well as other CTI boards from vendors like Donjin.

2. VoiceGuide by Katalina Technologies
Another powerful RAD tool for developing IVR. It has its own script and visual editor to write IVR Call flow. It has support for Microsoft SAPI. I feel this is a good tool to start with IVR application. They claim to have more than 5000 clients in their website.

3. Envox 7 from Envox Group
This is another big RAD tools for not only IVR Application, but for many more! It supports IP Telephony, Video Messaging and SMS! One of the key feature of this tool is support for VoiceXML, CCXML and Web Services. It has its own graphical programming environment Envox Studio. It gives good flexibility for developers to develop wide range of voice and IVR applications, most probably ideal for call center solutions. Supports wide range of CTI hardware.

4. Velocity 2.0 by Glorsoft Limited
New kid on the block! “Velocity™ is a completely new technology created by .NET developers for .NET developers.”, It is a new tool, but looks very promising. They support wide range of Dialogic CTI Boards. They have already got prestigious client like London Underground.

5. Xtend IVR 3.0 by Xtend Technologies (P) Ltd
Indian competitor in the field of IVR RAD development tool. This toolkit can be used in various programming languages like VB,VC++, C# etc. They also support speech technologies as well as CTI boards from multiple vendors. They also have a large clientele in India. Free tool for one channel IVR can be downloaded from their website.

6. CT Developer Studio 2 by Pingram Software
CT Developer Studio 2 is a Windows software that helps you quickly implement a professional voice response system into your business. Developing IVR solutions is easy with Visual IVR Script Designer and the many ready-to-use samples supplied with the product. They have their own script, visual script programming environment and simulator. They support Ai-LOgix, NMS and Dialogic boards.

7. Eurovoice objects version 2.0 by Eurovoice Ltd.
They provide COM interface to VB6, VB.net and C# programs for voice or IVR functionality. They mainly support PIKA CTI boards. But they also support PCI express boards from Dalogic. They have speech recognition through MRCP.

8. AGE (Application Generation Environment) version 2.1. by CompTek Internations
AGE is the fastest and easiest way to build voice applications. Best part is, it is completely free, but they charge you for runtime components. It supports Dialogic Voice boards. I think it may not be suitable for large IVR Applications.

I think I would give my top two ranks to VBVoice, Envox 7. Velocity 2.0 is the product to watch out for.

Though I have previously written about tools for developing IVR software as well as standardised VoiceXML based IVR Software, I was always thinking about writing rapid application development tools for developing simple to complex and large IVR software available in the market presently.

What is Rapid Application Development Tools for IVR Software ?
These are the tools like a Microsoft Visual Studio used for rapidly developing IVR Software as per IVR call flow. While Microsoft Visual Studio is very vast and supports many kind of applications, RAD for IVR Software deals only with IVR Software or IVR kind of voice application. For example, Auto Dialer, Voice Mail, Auto Attendant etc.
Normally they have beautiful GUI ( Graphics User Interface) for implementing IVR Call flow with graphical tools for controlling CTI board related and Voice Related functions. They provide visual tools implementing IVR Call Flow with minimum requirement of actual coding.
They use their own scripting for IVR Application with own syntax or syntax of standard computer programming language like basic, C. Some even provide controls (pre-compiled executable API code for specific function, can be used as it is) to be used standard Software Development Environment like .NET, Visual Basic etc.

I think there is a scope for comparing three ways to develop IVR Software or any Voice Applications as a whole. The three ways to develop IVR Software are:
1. Legacy IVR Software using native API of CTI boards using C++
2. Using open standard VoiceXML
3. Using Rapid Application Development Tools like VBVoice

In my last post about about Legacy IVRS and VoiceXML IVRS, I tried to compare pros and cons between first two in the above list. Here I would like to mention few benefits of using RAD tools for developing IVR Software.

1. One can rapidly develop IVR Software as the name suggests. The developer does not have to worry about CTI Board related functions as they are already built-in the RAD tools, tried and tested with many CTI Boards.
2. Short learning curve for developing IVR Software. As RAD tools use very simple, easy human kind of language as well as visual tools, it becomes very easy for anyone to develop IVR Software quickly.
3. Support Multiple CTI Boards. This may be one of the major advantages for using RAD tools. As RAD tools provide support for CTI boards from multiple vendors, the developer need not re-develop his IVR Application from scratch while changing CTI Cards.
4. Development Support. RAD Tools providers good support in developing the IVR Software and it comes handy as C++ developer may get stuck somewhere and nowhere to turn for help, but himself.
5. The IVR and other voice applications are getting more and more complex day by day. So, RAD tools gives an IVR Developers option to concentrate more on the call flow and IVR usability aspects than spending time on CTI board interfacing.

As I belong to old school of development, I always advocate use of good old C++ for writing stable, robust and working round the clock software. And I feel RAD Tools may not be suitable for large, complex and enterprise IVR or Voice Applications.

But recently I had tested one RAD tool for developing IVR Application, namely VBVoice 5.6.1 from PRONEXUS INC. I hope to write about this and comparing it with other RAD tools in near future.