Call processing and subscriber registration systems and methods
The present invention relates to telecommunications, and in particular, to systems and processes for processing telephone calls and providing telephony services. In one embodiment, a call processing system, compromises a first telephony interface configured to receive a call from a caller, a storage device configured to store a greeting, and a call answering system. The call answering system is configured to play the greeting in response to receiving the call, record a voice message from the caller, determine when the caller has completed recording the voice message, after determining that the caller has completed recording the voice message, play a prompt regarding the caller becoming a subscriber to call services provided by the call processing system, receive from the caller information used to establish a call services account, and establish a call services account for the caller.
1. A system comprising:
at least one computing device;
non-transitory memory storing program instructions, that when executed by the at least one computing device, are configured to cause the system to perform operations comprising:
receiving a first call from a caller intended for a user wherein the first call includes call signaling information including a phone address of the caller;
playing a sales lead generation prompt to the caller;
determining that the caller has entered an instruction provided at least partly in response to the sales lead generation prompt; and
performing a call routing determination regarding a current availability of a call center, the call center comprising call center human operators, to take the first call from the caller, and
at least partly in response to a determination that the call center is currently available, connecting the first call from the caller to the call center, and
at least partly in response to a determination that the call center is currently unavailable, playing to the caller an Interactive Voice Response menu.
2. The system as defined in claim 1 , wherein the call routing determination is based at least in part on the call center's hours of operation.
3. The system as defined in claim 1 , wherein the call routing determination is based at least in part on a current number of calls in a queue at the call center.
4. The system as defined in claim 1 , wherein the call routing determination is based at least in part on an average hold time for calls at the call center.
5. The system as defined in claim 1 , the operations further comprising:
transmitting information provided by the caller to an information recipient, at the call center.
6. The system as defined in claim 1 , wherein the connection of the first call to the call center is a bridged second call.
7. The system as defined in claim 6 , the operations further comprising: populating an ANI field associated with the bridged second call with the phone address obtained from an ANI field associated with the first call so that caller identification information can be presented to a call center agent.
8. A computer-based method of processing a call, the method compromising:
receiving, at a computing, system a first call from a caller intended for a user wherein the first call includes call signaling information including a phone address of the caller;
playing, by the computing system, a sales lead generation prompt to the caller;
determining that the caller has entered an instruction provided at least partly in response to the sales lead generation prompt provided to the caller by the computing system; and
performing, by the computing system, a call routing determination regarding a current availability of a call center, the call center comprising call center human operators, to take the first call from the caller,
at least partly in response to a determination that the call center is currently available, connecting the first call from the caller to the call center, and
at least partly in response to a determination that the call center is currently unavailable, playing to the caller an Interactive Voice Response menu.
9. The method as defined in claim 8 , wherein the call routing determination is based at least in part on the call center's hours of operation.
10. The method as defined in claim 8 , wherein the call routing determination is based at least in part on a current number of calls in a queue at the call center.
11. The method as defined in claim 8 , wherein the call routing determination is based at least in part on an average hold time for calls at the call center.
12. The method as defined in claim 8 , the method further comprising:
at least partly in response to playing to the caller the Interactive Voice Response menu, obtaining information provided by the caller; and
recording the obtained information from the caller.
13. The method as defined in claim 8 , the method further comprising:
recording a voice message from the caller for the user during the first call; and
determining when the caller has completed recording the voice message prior to the sales lead generation prompt being played to the caller.
14. The method as defined in claim 8 , the method further comprising:
at least partly in response to playing to the caller the Interactive Voice Response menu, requesting that the caller verbally provide information to be used to set up a call services account;
recording verbally provided information from the caller; and
transmitting at least a portion of the verbally provided information to a service person.
15. The method as defined in claim 8 , wherein, prior to playing the sales lead generation prompt, information is accessed indicating how many times the sales lead generation prompt has previously been played to the caller.
16. The method as defined in claim 8 , the method further comprising:
recording a voice message from the caller during the first call; and
streaming the voice message to a terminal associated with the user in substantially real time.
17. The method as defined in claim 8 , wherein the connection of the first call to the call center is a bridged second call.
18. The method as defined in claim 17 , the method further comprising: populating an ANI field associated with the bridged second call with the phone address obtained from an ANI field associated with the first call so that caller identification information can be presented to a call center agent.
19. The method as defined in claim 8 , the method further comprising:
receiving a second call with associated caller identification information from the caller;
based at least in part on the caller identification information associated with the second call, accessing information indicating how many times the sales lead generation prompt has been played to the caller; and
based at least in part on the accessed information, determining whether to play the sales lead generation prompt to the caller again.
20. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing computer-executable instructions that when executed by a processor perform operations comprising:
receiving a first call from a caller intended for a user wherein the first call includes call signaling information including a phone address of the caller;
playing a sales lead generation prompt to the caller;
determining that the caller has entered an instruction provided at least partly in response to the sales lead generation prompt;
performing a call routing determination regarding a current availability of a call center, the call center comprising call center human operators, to take the first call from the caller; and
at least partly in response to a determination that the call center is currently available, connecting the first call from the caller to the call center,
at least partly in response to a determination that the call center is currently unavailable, playing to the caller an Interactive Voice Response menu.