Methods and apparatus for enforcing caller listening behavior on interactive voice response applications
View Patent ↗An interactive voice response (IVR) system which allows a caller to barge-in on all prompts, yet still allows the caller to receive important information contained in the prompts. When a caller barges-in on a prompt that contains important information, the IVR system interrupts the prompt to play a short announcement with the goal of re-enforcing the importance of listening to the entire prompt. The IVR system then resumes playback of the prompt, from the beginning or of a modified version.
1. A method of enforcing caller listening behavior on interactive voice response applications, comprising the steps of:
selecting a predetermined prompt from a database of prompts based on speech input by a caller;
playing said predetermined prompt;
interrupting said predetermined prompt if said caller starts to speak during playback of said predetermined prompt;
determining whether the caller has spoken at least one of a plurality of predetermined reserved words or phrases;
allowing full barge-in and performing a predetermined action associated with the predetermined plurality of reserved words or phrases determined to have been spoken by the caller; and
playing a predetermined barge-in-acknowledgement prompt informing the caller to continue listening to the information in the predetermined prompt if it is determined that the caller has not spoken one of said plurality of reserved words or phrases and resuming playback of said predetermined prompt,
wherein the method further comprises activating a speech recognition system to interpret speech input by said caller.
2. The method according to claim 1 , wherein said selecting step selects said predetermined prompt based on an interpretation by said speech recognition system.
3. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the step of playing said predetermined barge-in-acknowledgement prompt replays said predetermined prompt from the beginning.
4. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the step of playing said predetermined barge-in-acknowledgement prompt plays a modified version of said predetermined prompt.
5. The method according to claim 1 , wherein if the caller interrupts said predetermined prompt a predetermined number of times, said predetermined prompt is played to completion and said caller's speech is ignored until playback of said predetermined prompt is complete.
6. The method according to claim 1 , wherein said predetermined prompt is an audio file.
7. The method according to claim 1 , wherein said predetermined prompt is a text file.
8. The method according to claim 7 , further comprising:
converting said text file to speech.
9. A system for enforcing caller listening behavior on interactive voice response applications, comprising:
means for selecting a predetermined prompt from a database of prompts based on speech input by a caller;
means for playing said predetermined prompt;
means for interrupting said predetermined prompt if said caller starts to speak during playback of said predetermined prompt;
means for determining whether the caller has spoken at least one of a plurality of predetermined reserved words or phrases;
means for allowing full barge-in and performing a predetermined action associated with the predetermined reserved words or phrases determined to have been spoken by the caller; and
means for playing a predetermined barge-in-acknowledgement prompt informing the caller to continue listening to the information in the predetermined prompt if it is determined that the caller has not spoken one of said plurality of reserved words or phrases and resuming playback of said predetermined prompt,
wherein the system further comprises means for activating a speech recognition system to interpret speech input by said caller.
10. The system according to claim 9 , wherein said selecting means selects said predetermined prompt based on an interpretation by said speech recognition system.
11. The system according to claim 9 , wherein said means for playing said predetermined barge-in-acknowledgement prompt replays said predetermined prompt from the beginning.
12. The system according to claim 9 , wherein said means for playing said predetermined barge-in-acknowledgement prompt plays a modified version of said predetermined prompt.
13. The system according to claim 9 , wherein if the caller interrupts said predetermined prompt a predetermined number of times, said predetermined prompt is played to completion and said caller's speech is ignored until playback of said predetermined prompt is complete.
14. The system according to claim 9 , wherein said predetermined prompt is an audio file.
15. The system according to claim 9 , wherein said predetermined prompt is a text file.
16. The system according to claim 15 , further comprising:
means for converting said text file to speech.