Inbound calls

The initial call handling can be done in two ways:
  1. The application plays a greeting (sometimes called an announcement) to callers, and then prompts them to indicate the information they want. The greeting can be prerecorded or can use text-to-speech technology. Callers can interrupt the prompt if they already know what they want to do.

    The application can be designed to play greetings in different languages depending on information such as the number that callers dialed, or the callers' own numbers.

  2. The application waits for callers to respond for a set period of time. Callers can either respond, either by
    • speaking (if speech recognition is implemented)
    • pressing keys on a DTMF phone, ranging from a single digit (such as 1 for yes or 2 for no) to multiple digits (such as a catalog number or personal identification number)
  3. If the response does not match the criteria you have defined (such as a specific number of digits), the voice application can prompt callers to enter the response again.
  4. When the waiting period has elapsed, the application can prompt the caller again, as often as you think necessary.
  5. The application takes whatever action is appropriate to the caller's response; for example, retrieving information from a database, host system, or file system and speaking it to callers; updating information in a database; storing or retrieving a voice message; or making another call.
  6. After taking action, the application should tell the caller again what to do next.
  7. The caller might indicate, in response to a prompt, that the interaction is over. The application can respond by saying good-bye, then disconnect, or the caller might simply hang up. If the caller hangs up, the application can detect this, and automatically disconnect itself.