Thomas E Neary

US Patent:

20020076008, Jun 20, 2002

Filed:

Dec 14, 2000

Appl. No.:

09/736914

Inventors:

Thomas Neary - Northport NY, US

International Classification:

H04M001/64

US Classification:

379/088010

Abstract:

After implementation of an interactive voice response (IVR) system providing voice prompts (i.e., utterances) to aid a telephone caller, it is desirable to provide call-flow verification to validate system accuracy, particularly under high-volume or saturation calling conditions. An IVR system has a call-flow verification (CFV) mode which can be activated for this purpose. In the CFV mode, the IVR system provides prompt signals which include coded signals representing the content of utterances. An automated call generator (ACG) unit places simulated user calls to the IVR system. The content of utterances is represented by coded signals included in prompt signals sent by the IVR system during the course of the simulated call and stored by the ACG unit. Verification can be applied for all possible paths an application might take (to check all possible go-right and error paths). By comparing content of received utterances represented by such coded signals with previously stored data representative of correct utterances, discrepancies are identified for call-flow verification. DTMF signals can be used to represent characters of an utterance in a coded format.