System and Method for Providing Local Interactive Voice Response Services

• US 20100239075A1
• Filed: 03/23/2009
• Published: 09/23/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 03/23/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Digital Pharmacist, Inc.
• Original Assignee: TeleManager Technologies, Inc. (Digital Pharmacist, Inc.)
• Inventors: Kobylevsky, Paul, Gurovich, Valery
• Granted Patent: US 8,811,578 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 379/88.10
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/22 Procedures used during a speech recognition process, e.g. man-machine dialogue
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/30 Distributed recognition, e.g. in client-server systems, for mobile phones or network applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/4938 comprising a voice browser which renders and interprets, e.g. VoiceXML

Abstract

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.

Claims

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; and

a communications link between the processor and a server remote from the processor for transmitting the request to the server,

wherein the server receives the request over the communications link and transfers the request to a central data processing system in communication with the server for handling the request.

2. The system of claim 1, further comprising a page transmitted from the server to the processor over the 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 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 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, further comprising an automatic speech recognition server in communication with the server for providing speech recognition during the telephone call.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the automatic speech recognition server provides text-to-speech services for generating synthesized speech from text during the telephone call.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the information provided by the caller comprises prescription refill information, and the request comprises a prescription refill request.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the central data processing system comprises a pharmacy management system and the prescription refill request is transmitted by the server to the pharmacy management system for processing and subsequent refilling of a prescription by a pharmacy.

11. 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.

12. A method for providing local interactive voice response, comprising the steps of:

receiving a telephone call at a local facility;

receiving information from the 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 server remote from the local computer and in communication with the local computer over a communications link;

processing the request;

generating a responsive page at the server;

transmitting the responsive page from the server to the local computer using the communications link; and

parsing the responsive page using a browser at the local computer to locally generate an voice prompt in response to the request.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the step of transmitting the page further comprising transmitting a VXML page to the browser.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising generating the voice prompts by parsing the VXML page using the browser.

15. The method of claim 12, wherein the step of processing the request further comprises transmitting the request to a computer system in communication with the server and processing the request at the computer system.

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising obtaining responsive information from the computer system by the server.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the step of generating the responsive page comprises including the responsive information in the responsive page.

18. The method of claim 12, wherein the step of receiving information the caller comprises receiving a prescription refill request.

19. The method of claim 12, wherein the step of receiving information from the caller comprises receiving an order for a good or a service.

20. The method of claim 12, further comprising processing spoken information during the telephone call using a voice recognition server in communication with the local computer.