Voice-activated geographically based telephone routing system and method
First Claim
1. A method for routing a telephone call from an unknown geographic location to a recipient, said method comprising the steps of:
- receiving a telephone call from the caller;
asking the caller one or more series of location-narrowing questions to obtain a verbal response, said one or more series of location-narrowing questions commencing with questions related to streets, roads and highways;
digitizing the verbal response to said one or more series of location-narrowing questions using voice recognition technology;
matching the verbal response of the telephone caller to a data base containing location-narrowing data until a locational designator of the geographic location of the telephone caller can be assigned;
determining the recipient of the call from a plurality of possible recipients based on the locational designator of the caller and one of a plurality of geographic territories; and
connecting the caller to the recipient.
1 Assignment
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A method and system for determining, through voice recognition, the geographic location of the initiator of a telephone call for routing the call to one of a plurality of locations of a second party. The initiator dials a specified telephone number and is connected to a computer system. The system asks the initiator a series of questions and responses are digitized until a locational designator can be assigned to the initiator'"'"'s location and the call routed according to second party criteria. The locational designator correlates to a geographic designation, such as postal indicators (e.g., zip code, zip+4, postal code), major and minor civil divisions, latitude and longitude, geographic boundaries, political boundaries or second party service areas, sales territories, or delivery territories.
58 Citations
72 Claims
-
1. A method for routing a telephone call from an unknown geographic location to a recipient, said method comprising the steps of:
-
receiving a telephone call from the caller;
asking the caller one or more series of location-narrowing questions to obtain a verbal response, said one or more series of location-narrowing questions commencing with questions related to streets, roads and highways;
digitizing the verbal response to said one or more series of location-narrowing questions using voice recognition technology;
matching the verbal response of the telephone caller to a data base containing location-narrowing data until a locational designator of the geographic location of the telephone caller can be assigned;
determining the recipient of the call from a plurality of possible recipients based on the locational designator of the caller and one of a plurality of geographic territories; and
connecting the caller to the recipient. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15)
-
-
16. A system for routing a telephone call from an unknown geographic location to a recipient comprising:
-
means for receiving the telephone call from a caller;
one or more series of questions designed to narrow the geographic location of the caller according to the verbal response of the caller, said one or more series of location-narrowing questions commencing with questions related to streets, roads and highways;
an answer set containing sets of location-narrowing data in a decision tree for comparing a response of the caller to an answer set;
means for assigning a locational designator to the geographic location of the caller;
means for determining the recipient of the call from a plurality of possible recipients based on the locational designator of the caller and one of a plurality of geographic territories; and
means for connecting the caller to the recipient - View Dependent Claims (17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33)
-
-
34. A method for connecting a caller to a recipient, said recipient one of a plurality of possible recipients, using a dialed number specific to said recipients, said method comprising the steps of:
-
receiving a call from a caller to a system, said system having the ability to locate the point of origin of the call to determine the destination of the call from among a plurality of possible destinations;
classification of the type of communication device used by the caller as either stationary or non-stationary;
activating a logical script including questions designed to elicit a response from the caller;
eliciting at least one response from a caller to at least one question using voice recognition technology;
digitizing the at least one response using voice-recognition technology;
verifying the system has accurately understood the at least one response;
continuing the questions and answers until a locational designator has been determined;
substituting a locational designator in place of Automatic Number Identification (ANI);
correlating the caller'"'"'s locational designator to one of a plurality of possible client-defined territories;
identifying a telephone number associated with said one of a plurality of possible client-defined territories; and
connecting the caller to the telephone number associated with said one of a plurality of possible client-defined territories. - View Dependent Claims (35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48)
-
-
49. A system for digitizing vocal responses comprising:
-
a voice recognition unit;
a call quality assurance module;
a configurable timer to wait for a response from the caller; and
a configurable number-of-attempts counter. - View Dependent Claims (50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57)
-
-
58. A system for connecting a caller to a recipient, said recipient being one of a plurality of possible recipients, using a dialed number specific to said recipients, said system comprising:
-
means for substituting a locational designator in place of an Automatic Number Identification (ANI);
means for classification of the, type of communication device used by the caller as either stationary or non-stationary;
means for correlating the locational designator of the caller to one of a plurality of possible client-defined territories;
means for verifying the validity of a caller'"'"'s response. - View Dependent Claims (59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72)
-
Specification