System and method for providing local interactive voice response services
A system and method for providing local interactive voice response (IVR) services is provided. A local computer system having associated telephony equipment and installed at a local facility (e.g., a retail store of a chain, etc.) receives telephone calls to the local facility. The local computer system generates IVR prompts locally, and is controlled by a central IVR server. Reduced bandwidth is required between the local computer system and the central IVR server since no voice traffic is communicated between the central IVR server and the local computer system.
1. A system for locally-generated interactive voice response, comprising:
a gateway at a local facility for receiving a telephone call from a caller;
a processor at the facility for locally generating voice prompts for prompting the caller to provide information, and for generating a request relating to the information provided by the caller;
a first communications link between the processor and a first server at a service provider remote from the local facility for transmitting the request to the first server; and
a second communications link between the first server and a second server remote from the first server;
wherein the first server receives the request over the first communications link, processes the request using an interactive voice response (IVR) application executing on the first server to generate a response, communicates information stored in the request to the second server over the second communications link, said information generated during an IVR session generated by the processor at the facility, and transmits the response to the local facility, the processor receiving the response and conveying the response to the caller using the gateway, and
wherein the processor at the facility receives spoken information from the caller during the telephone call, digitizes the spoken information, and transmits the digitized spoken information to a speech recognition server remote from the processor, local facility, and the speech recognition server processes the digitized spoken information into textual information and transmits the textual information to the processor for subsequent use of the textual information by the processor.
2. The system of claim 1 , further comprising a page transmitted from the first server to the processor over the first communications link for controlling local generation of voice prompts by the processor.
3. The system of claim 2 , wherein the page comprises a Voice Extensible Markup Language (VXML) page transmitted to a browser executing on the processor by the first server.
4. The system of claim 3 , wherein the browser parses the VXML page to generate the voice prompts.
5. The system of claim 1 , wherein the first server generates a responsive VXML page and transmits the responsive VXML page to the processor.
6. The system of claim 5 , wherein the responsive VXML page is parsed by a VXML browser executing on the processor to generate a responsive voice message for the caller.
7. The system of claim 1 , wherein the automatic speech recognition server provides text-to-speech services for generating synthesized speech from text during the telephone call.
8. The system of claim 1 , wherein the information provided by the caller comprises prescription refill information, and the request comprises a prescription refill request.
9. The system of claim 8 , wherein the second server comprises a pharmacy management system and the prescription refill request is transmitted by the first server to the pharmacy management system for processing and subsequent refilling of a prescription by a pharmacy.
10. The system of claim 1 , wherein the information provided by the caller comprises order information, and the request comprises an order for a good or a service.
11. A method for providing local interactive voice response, comprising the steps of:
receiving a telephone call at a local facility;
receiving information from a caller at a local computer at the local facility;
generating a request at the local computer relating to the information received from the caller;
transmitting the request to a first server remote from the local computer and at a service provider location remote from the local facility, the first server in communication with the local computer over a data network;
processing the request using an interactive voice response (IVR) application executing on the first server;
generating a responsive page having a response at the first server;
communicating information stored in the request to a second server remote from the first server over the data network, said information generated during an IVR session generated by the local computer;
transmitting the responsive page from the first server to the local computer using the data network;
parsing the responsive page using a browser at the local computer to locally generate an voice prompt in response to the request;
receiving spoken information from the caller during the telephone call at the processor;
digitizing the spoken information using the processor;
transmitting the digitized spoken information to a speech recognition server remote from the local facility;
processing the digitized spoken information into textual information at the speech recognition server; and
transmitting the textual information to the processor for subsequent use of the textual information by the processor.
12. The method of claim 11 , wherein the step of transmitting the page further comprising transmitting a VXML page to the browser.
13. The method of claim 12 , further comprising generating the voice prompts by parsing the VXML page using the browser.
14. The method of claim 11 , wherein the step of communicating the response to the second server comprises transmitting the request to a computer system in communication with the first server and processing the request at the computer system.
15. The method of claim 14 , further comprising obtaining responsive information from the computer system by the first server.
16. The method of claim 15 , wherein the step of generating the responsive page comprises including the responsive information in the responsive page.
17. The method of claim 11 , wherein the step of receiving information the caller comprises receiving a prescription refill request.
18. The method of claim 11 , wherein the step of receiving information from the caller comprises receiving an order for a good or a service.
19. The system of claim 1 wherein the second server processes orders for goods/services for fulfillment.
20. The system of claim 1 wherein the second server comprises a central data processing system for providing information to the first server.
21. The system of claim 20 the information provided by the central data processing system is communicated from the first server to the local facility over the first communications link and to a caller.