ABSTRACT

In today’s competitive world any business must build flexible systems that adapt easily to

evolving requirements of the critical business processes. IVRS is one such system that

transforms the traditional business model into customer centric model. IVRS is

historically interactive speech memory driven that walk the caller through a series of

prompts where they respond to questions by pressing the combination of one or more

buttons of the phone keypad.

The decision tree associated with the prompts and the responses will route the caller to

information they desire. These IVRS systems are typically utilized to check bank account

balance, buy and sell stocks, check the show times for your favorite movie.

In telephony, Intelligent Voice Response, or IVR, is a phone technology that allows a

computer to detect voice and touch tones using a normal phone call. The IVR system can

respond with pre-recorded or dynamically generated audio to further direct callers on

how to proceed. IVR systems can be used to control almost any function where the

interface can be broken down into a series of simple menu choices. Once constructed

IVR systems generally scale well to handle large call volumes.

CONTENTS SR. NO. TITLE PAGE NO.

TITLE I

CERTIFICATE II

SPONSORSHIP LETTER III

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT IV

CONTENTS V

ABSTRACT VII

1. INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Aim Of The Project 2

1.2 Brief History Of IVRS 2

1.3 Literature Survey/ Technological Survey 4

1.3.1 Technologies used 5

1.3.2 An IVR can be utilized in several different ways 5

1.4 Recent Trends And Development In The Field 7

2. DETAILS OF TOPIC AND ANALYSIS 9

2.1 Principle Of IVRS 9

2.2 Sequence Followed In The IVRS Service 9

2.3 General Description About Telephony 10

2.3.1 On-Hook 10

2.3.2 Off-Hook 10

2.3.3 Signaling Tones 10

2.4 Telephone Interface Section 12

2.4.1 Ring Detector Section 12

2.4.2 Ring activating signals 12

2.4.3 Optocoupler 13

2.5 Design Flow Of Hardware And Software 13

3. BLOCK DIAGRAM OF IVRS 14

3.1 Block Diagram Explanation 14

3.1.1 Ring Decoder 15

3.1.2 DTMF Decoder 15

3.1.3 Microcontroller 15

3.1.4 Relay 16

3.1.5 MAX 232 16

3.1.6 Isolation Transformer 16

3.1.7 Voice Card 16

4. SYSTEM DESIGN 17

4.1 Selection of DTMF Decoder 17

4.2 Selection of Microcontroller 17

4.3 Selection of Relay 17

4.4 Selection of MAX 232 18

4.5 Selection of Computer 18

5. WORKING OF THE PROJECT 19

6. SOFTWARE TO BE USED: 20

6.1 Advantages of using Visual Basic 6.0 20

6.2 Advantages using MS-Access 2003 20

7. ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF USING

IVR SYSTEMS

21

7.1Advantages 21

7.2 Disadvantages 21

8. APPLICATIONS 22

8.1 Banking & Finance 22

8.2 Education 22

8.3 Government 23

8.4 Telecommunications 23

9. FUTURE ASPECTS 24

CONCLUSION 25

REFERENCES 26

Chapter 1.

INTRODUCTION

What can be done using an Inter voice System?

When connecting an Inter-voice system into telephone lines (either analog lines or digital

T1/E1 trunks), the applications can handle either incoming or outgoing calls and then

perform the following voice processing features:

• DTMF or pulse tone input

• Provides unlimited pre- recorded voice messages

• Live recording of customer messages

• Accesses or stores information to and from the back-end host, database or the

Internet

• Uses leading speech recognition technology to process either spoken words or full

sentences

Who should use Inter voice?

Using Inter voice hardware and software, we have developed voice automation

applications, which can:

• Transfer the customer calls to the right people to handle

• Provide the most updated product or service information

• Record customer messages for follow up later

• Perform automated transaction processing without human intervention.

What are interactive voice response (IVR) systems?

Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems allow callers to interact with the

communications system over the telephone. IVR is used to enable the caller to retrieve

information from a database, enter information into a database, or both. IVR systems

allow the user to efficiently exchange information, reducing clerical processing.

How It Works?

An IVR system talks to callers following a recorded script. It prompts a response to the

caller and asks him to respond either verbally or by pressing a touchtone key, and

supplies the caller with information based on responses made.

What are important features of IVR systems?

IVR system should store responses made by callers.

Should be able to provide different responses to callers based on time of day called.

Should be able to capture either touch-tone or voice responses by callers.

1.1AIM OF THE PROJECT

We have decided to choose this topic “IVRS” because

• IVRS is a Acronym for Intelligent Voice Response System

• The system used is Intelligent for Interaction

• Will consider the nature of the user, to provide the correct response.

• And will provide the user with all sorts of related information for his concern

So we have decided it to implement this system for educational purpose i.e. marks

enrollment.

1.2 BRIEF HISTORY OF IVRS CALL centres originated as a cost-cutting measure by US companies several decades

ago, but they only really started to take off in the UK in the 1970s. The initial centres

were in-house operations in larger organizations and they tended to share and be formed

by the same basic assumptions and drivers. The idea was that if you could cluster the

majority of telephone based contacts with the customer in a single department you could

have people focused just on call-related services.

Several advantages would follow. First, as a coherent department focused on telephone

services, such a ‘centre’ could be managed more coherently. A second motive was that

through careful management of the centre, you would inevitably get the benefit of having

more calls handled by fewer people.

Steve Morrell, Managing Director at ContactBabel, an organization that specializes in

analyzing the call centre market, points out that this early focus on ‘efficiency’ and cost

cutting, in a sense, got the call centre industry started off on the wrong foot - at least in

relation to current ‘best practice’

"It meant that the whole industry focused on measuring things such as call lengths, or

time to resolution. The faster the operator could complete a call, the more efficient and

effective the contact with the customer was deemed to be," he explains.

Divide the number of calls by the number of operators, and you could see at a glance how

‘efficiently’ your centre was operating. The bigger the number, the better. The shorter the

call duration and the shorter the time to resolution, the better.

There were obvious problems with this approach. First, it led to a ‘sweat the agent’

attitude, since the pressure was on to set call centre agents more and more ‘stretching’

targets by way of calls per hour that they were supposed to complete. Second, it led to a

high turnover in staff as people became burned out by the pressure cooker atmosphere.

Since the costs of training a call centre agent are not trivial (Morrell puts them at around

£6,000 per agent on average), a high staff turnover leads to high costs.

A third issue, which took rather longer for companies to grasp, was that agents were not

being given the opportunity to learn very much about the customer, or to add much value

to the customer’s relationship with the organization. In fact in many instances an

emphasis on keeping call times as brief as possible would actually cause the agent, at

best, to sound impersonal and unsympathetic to the customer. At worst the experience

would be decidedly unsatisfactory and would possibly do lasting damage to the

company’s brand and reputation in the customer’s eyes.

Morrell points out that call centres were given a huge boost in the UK in the 1980s when

telecoms deregulation led to a fall in the price of fixed line calls. Channeling contact to

the customer through the telephone became an even more cost effective option for

companies.

Since the UK led the way in telecoms deregulation in Europe, this was a major factor in

the UK having more call centre seats than any country with the exception of the US. We

currently have in excess of 800,000 call centre places across the UK, and the number is

projected to go beyond 1,000,000 within the next three years.

Colin Mackay, a Director of the industry body, the Call Centre Managers Association

(CCMA), points out that pioneering centre set up by Direct Line and then by First Direct,

proved how powerful these centres could be for financial services organizations. "It

meant that they could reach large numbers of the public without the requirement for sales

people on the street," he said.

As Mackay notes, about 80% of the questions that people have about financial services

products, from mortgages to loans and insurance, can be answered over the phone,

without the need for a face-to-face meeting. Operations such as Direct Line were able to

demonstrate considerable cost savings and efficiencies over conventional financial

services product distribution strategies.

Scotland and the north-east of England did very well out of the first two decades of call

centre operations in the UK. As Mackay explains, call centre operators tended to favour

regions outside the expensive south-east of England, where building premises were far

cheaper, and where there was a reasonably well-educated potential work force. The fact

that the north-east of England and Scotland had seen a massive decline in their heavy

industries meant that there was also competitive pressure for jobs, so wages were more

competitive too, than down south.

1.3 LITERATURE SURVEY/ TECHNOLOGICAL SURVEY

A Survey was carried by us was found that the system we are going to implement is not

present in any of the college in “Pune University”

Literature related to our topic is as follows:

• Interactive voice technology development

For telecommunications applications

A Speech and Acoustics Laboratory, NTT Human Intel face Laboratories, Japan

• Efficient client–server based implementations of

mobile speech recognition services

Richard C. Rose a,*, Iker Arizmendi b, 1 a McGill University, Department of

Electrical and Computer Engineering,

• Analyzing interactive voice services

Kenneth J. Turner *

Computing Science and Mathematics, University of Stirling, Stirling FK9 4LA,

UK

1.3.1 Technologies used

DTMF signals (entered from the telephone keypad) and natural language speech

recognition interpret the caller's response to voice prompts.

Other technologies include the ability to speak complex and dynamic information such as

an e-mail, news report or weather information using Text-To-Speech (TTS). TTS is

computer generated synthesized speech that is no longer the robotic voice generally

associated with computers. Real voices create the speech in tiny fragments that are

spliced together (concatenated) before being played to the caller.

1.3.2 An IVR can be utilized in several different ways:

1. Equipment installed on the customer premise

2. Equipment installed in the PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network)

3. Application service provider (ASP).

4. Virtual Hosted IVR

Many business applications employ this technology including telephone banking, order

placement, caller identification and routing, balance inquiry, and airline ticket booking.

A simple Voicemail system is different from an IVR in that it is person to person whereas

an IVR is person to computer. IVR Voice forms can be used to provide a more complex

voicemail experience to the caller. For example, the IVR could ask if the caller wishes to

hear, edit, forward or remove a message that was just recorded.

An Automatic Call Distributor (ACD) is often the first point of contact when calling

many larger businesses. An ACD uses digital storage devices to play greetings or

announcements, but typically routes a caller without prompting for input. An IVR can

play announcements and request an input from the caller. This information can be used to

route the call to a particular skillset. (A skillset is a function applied to a group of call-

center agents with a particular skill)

Interactive voice response can be used to front-end a call center operation by identifying

the needs of the caller. Information can be obtained from the caller such as account

numbers. Answers to simple questions such as account balances or pre-recorded

information can be provided without operator intervention. Account numbers from the

IVR are often compared to caller ID data for security reasons and additional IVR

responses are required if the caller ID data does not match the account record.

IVR call flows are created in a variety of ways. A traditional IVR depended upon

proprietary programming or scripting languages, whereas modern IVR applications are

structured similar to WWW pages, using VoiceXML, SALT or T-XML languages. The

ability to use XML developed applications allows a Web server to act as an application

server, freeing the developer to focus on the call flow. It was widely believed that

developers would no longer require specialized programming skills, however this has

been proven to be misguided as IVR applications need to understand the human reaction

to the application dialogue. This is the difference between a good user experience and

IVR hell.

Higher level IVR development tools are available in recent years to further simplify the

application development process. A call flow diagram can be drawn with a GUI tool and

the application code (VoiceXML or SALT) can be automatically generated. In addition,

these tools normally provide extension mechanisms for software integration, such as

HTTP interface to web site and Java interface for connecting to a database.

In telecommunications, an audio response unit (ARU) is a device that provides

synthesized voice responses to touch-tone key presses (DTMF) by processing calls based

on (a) the call-originator input, (b) information received from a database, and (c)

information in the incoming call, such as the time of day.

ARUs increase the number of information calls handled and to provide consistent quality

in information retrieval.

1.4 RECENT TRENDS AND DEVELOPMENT IN THE FIELD

It has become more common in industries that have recently entered the telecom industry

to refer to an Automated Attendant as an IVR. This means that when discussing an IVR

application, it is important to ensure that the person you are talking to understand the

term to mean the same thing as you do. Generally-speaking, those with a traditional

telecom background are more likely to refer to an Automated Attendant and IVR as

separate things, whereas those from an Emerging Telephony or VoIP background are

more likely to use the term IVR to define any kind of telephony menu, even the most

basic Automated Attendant.

First IVR System / 1991

ITD successfully implemented the first interactive voice response systems in

Turkey at Pamukbank*, Yapý Kredi Bank and Akbank.

First Digital IVR / 1992

ITD made the implementation of the first biggest digital IVR system in Turkey.

First National Switch Center (BKM) / 1993

ITD has important contributions at the formation of the first and only transaction

switching system project of Turkey. The system is implemented jointly by BKM,

Deluxe Data International and ITD. This EFT (Electronic Funds Transfer) switch

provides ATM & POS sharing capabilities among member banks and serves as a critical

link between

First Introduction of CTI Concept / 1994

ITD introduced the first Computer Telephony Integration at Biliþim '94.

ITD became the distributor of Genesys's Computer

First Speaker Independent Voice Recognition / 1995

ITD realized the first speaker independent

First Internet Integrated Call Center / 1998

ITD began to work on the first internet integrated call center project at Garanti

Bank and successfully made the implementation in February '99.

First Speech Recognition System / 2000

ITD launched Turkey’s First Speech-Enabled Call Automation System in July

2001 with Global Menkul Deðerler. Callers dial the main number, respond to various

voice prompts using the Turkish language, and tell the system the company name

Chapter 2.

DETAILS OF TOPIC AND ANALYSIS

2.1 PRINCIPLE OF IVRS

Interactive voice response refers to technology supporting the interaction of customer

with the service provider generally over the telephone lines.

When a person wants to access any of the services of the Interactive Voice Response

System, he presses a number through his telephone keypad. The pressed number appears

across the line and the ring detector circuit senses this ring. After a specified number of

rings the relay is activated through the microcontroller, which in turn connects the line to

DTMF decoder.

The activation of relay causes the number pressed to appear across the DTMF decoder.

The decoder decodes the number pressed and then the decoder output is passed through

the microcontroller to the computer.

Now, when the caller presses a number, the number pressed is decoded by the DTMF

decoder and passed to the computer through the microcontroller using MAX232.

The computer recognizes the number and accesses the particular file from the database to

output the voice message.

The output voice is passed through the voice card where the digitized serial data is

converted into analog voice form and passed to the line. The caller gets the information

through the line.

2.2 SEQUENCE FOLLOWED IN THE IVRS SERVICE

• Caller dials the IVRS service number.

• The computer waits for a specified number of ringing tones at the end of which,

the connection is established.

• The connection is established by lifting the handset of telephone base from ON-

HOOK condition.

• Now, a pre-recorded voice greets the caller conforming that the number dialed

corresponding to the particular service.

• Next, the menu is presented to the caller again in the voice form, giving him the

various options to choose from.

• If the information to be relayed back is confidential, then the system may even

ask the dialer, to feed in a password number.

• The database is accordingly referenced and the necessary information is obtained.

• Next, the same information is put across to the user in voice.

• The caller generally given the option to :

a. Repeat whatever information was voiced to him.

b. Repeat the choices.

c. Break the call by restarting ON-HOOK condition

2.3 GENERAL DESCRIPTION ABOUT TELEPHONY

Any telephone set will always be in any of the conditions mentioned below:

2.3.1 ON-HOOK

It is the state whenever telephone handset is placed on the cradle. During this state, the

telephone line is open circuit with the exchange and the voltage of –48 V is available on

each telephone line from the exchange.

2.3.2 OFF-HOOK

This is the state whenever telephone handset is displaced from the cradle. During this

state the voltage level is between ± 5V to ± 12 V. The telephone OFF – HOOK resistance

is typically 600 Ω .

2.3.3 SIGNALING TONES

• Dial tone:

This tone indicates that the exchange is ready to accept dialed digits from the subscriber.

The subscriber should start dialing only after hearing the dial tone. Otherwise, initial

dialed pulse may be missed by the exchange that may result in the call landing on the

wrong number. The dialed tone is 33 Hz or 50 Hz or 400 Hz continuous tones.

• Ring tone:

When the called party is obtained, the exchange sense out the ringing current to the

telephone set of the called party. This ringing current has the familiar double ring pattern.

Simultaneously, the exchange sends out the ringing tone to the calling subscriber, which

has the pattern similar to that of ringing current, the two rings in the double ring pattern

are separated by a time gap of 0.2s and two double rings patterns by a time gap of 2s.The

burst has duration of 0.4s. The frequency of the ringing tone is 133 Hz or 400 Hz.

• Busy tone:

Busy tone is bursty 400 Hz signal with silence period in between. The burst and silence

duration has the same value of 0.75s. A busy tone is sent out to the calling subscriber

whenever the switching equipment or junction line is not available to put through the call

or called subscriber line is engaged.

• Number unobtainable tone:

The number unobtainable tone is a continuous 400 Hz signal. This tone may be sent to

the calling subscriber due to a variety of reasons. In some exchanges this tone is 400 Hz

intermittent with 2.5s ON period and 0.5s OFF period.

• Routing tone:

The routing tone or call – in – progress tone is 400 Hz or 800 Hz intermittent patterns. In

an electromechanical system it is usually 800Hz with 50% duty ratio and 0.5s ON-OFF

period. In analog electronic exchange it is 400 Hz pattern with 0.5s ON period and 0.5s

OFF period. In digital exchange it has 0.1s ON-OFF period at 400 Hz

• TOUCH –TONE KEY PAD

Touching a button generates a ‘ tone’, which is a combination of two frequencies, one

from lower band and other from upper band. For e.g. pressing push button ‘7’ transmits

852 and 1209 Hz.

1209Hz 1336Hz 1477Hz

1 2 3

4 5 6

7 8 9

* 0 #

Fig 2.1 Typical 4 x 3 touch keypad

In the keypad ten keys of decimal digits are used to call required number. The touch-tone

telephone produces decade or DTMF signals for DTMF type. The keypad produces two-

tone sinusoidal outputs. Rows and columns determine the frequency. This keypad is

working with different frequencies but only two frequencies are transmitted at a time. So

the signal coming from this type of telephone is called Dual Tone Multi Frequency

(DTMF).

2.4 TELEPHONE INTERFACE SECTION

It consists of following subsections:

2.4.1 Ring Detector Section

Ring detector circuit does the function of detecting the ring activating signals and then

counts the number of rings.

2.4.2 Ring activating signals

This is send by telephone exchange to the subscriber. This signal causes an audio tone in

the subscriber’s telephone set. This ring tone is an alarming signal, which diverts the

attention of the subscriber towards the instrument. The ring signal produced at the

central office is composed of a 10v ac, 400Hz signal that is always present on the

telephone line with the handset in ON-HOOK position.

The ring-activating signal is |ON for 0.2 sec and the subscriber can hear the sound of ring

in that duration of time. For next 0.4 sec the ring-activating signal goes OFF. Now the

subscriber can’t hear the sound. Again this repeats for six times with the pause of 2 sec.

Thus the subscriber hears six rings.

697Hz

770Hz

852Hz

941Hz

2.4.3 Optocoupler

In the same application it is necessary to isolate input and output. The isolation can be

achieved in many ways. One of these is to use an Opto-coupler. Opto-coupler is

controlled by optical energy.

2.4.4 Construction:

Optocoupler is MCT 2E. The device consists of GaAs infra red emitting diode optically

coupled to a monolithic silicon phototransistor detector.

2.5 DESIGN FLOW OF HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE

Fig. 2.5.1 Design Flow of software Design Flow of Hardware

Chapter 3.

BLOCK DIAGRAM OF IVRS

Fig. 3.1 Block Diagram of IVR System

3.1 BLOCK DIAGRAM EXPLANATION

The main blocks of my system are as follows:

• Ring Decoder

• DTMF Decoder

• MICROCONTROLLER

• MAX 232

• Relay

• Isolation Transformer

• Voice Card

3.1.1 Ring Decoder

Ring decoder consists of:

• Bridge Rectifier

• Capacitor Filter

• Opto Isolator

3.1.2 DTMF Decoder

In DTMF signaling, two frequencies are allocated to each digit in the push button keypad.

The main function of the DTMF decoder is to detect the two frequencies and until and

unless these two frequencies allocated for a particular digit are obtained, that particular

digit will not be recognized by the DTMF decoder. The decoder uses digital counting

technique to detect and decode all 16 DTMF tone pairs into 4 bit code.

Its features are:-

• Complete DTMF Receiver

• Low power consumption

• Internal gain setting amplifier

• Adjustable guard time

• Central office quality

• Power-down mode

3.1.3 Microcontroller

• It is the central controller of the whole project.

• It scans all channels continuously.

• It transfers the logical values serially to the PC.

• Various tasks are assigned to peripherals.

3.1.4 Relay

Relay is used as a switch to provide the connection between the telephone line and the

voice card as well as the DTMF decoder.

3.1.5 MAX 232

• Convert the voltage levels.

• Dual driver/receiver that includes capacitive voltage generator to supply 232

voltage levels from single 5V supply.

• Each receiver converts 232 inputs to 5V TTL/CMOS levels.

• Each driver converts TTL/CMOS input levels into 232 levels.

3.1.6 Isolation Transformer

The simplest and the most common way to do the isolation is by using audio transformer

which is a 1:1 isolation transformer.

3.1.7 Voice Card

It is the output device of the project.

The caller will get to hear the information through the voice card.

Chapter 4.

SYSTEM DESIGN

4.1 SELECTION OF DTMF DECODER

This is the most important task for my project. As the number pressed by the caller is

needed to be decoded before sending it to the microcontroller, a DTMF decoder is

needed.

For our project, we have used DTMF decoder IC8870.Its features are :-

• Complete DTMF Receiver

• Low power consumption

• Internal gain setting amplifier

• Adjustable guard time

• Central office quality

o Power-down mode

4.2 SELECTION OF MICROCONTROLLER

To achieve this task we first analyzed my needs. Those were..

• To achieve fast operation

• To achieve great sensitivity

So for these we decided to select microcontroller 89C52. As it is having sufficient

amount of RAM for such simple operations of reading. It supports high speed operation

and has greater sensitivity when put into scanning mode of its inputs.

4.3 SELECTION OF RELAY

Relays available are HK, PLA, OEN and GOODSKY. These are the different

manufacturers of relays. Also, according to the DC voltages, relays available are

5V, 6V, 12V, 18V AND 24V. According to the type, relays available are SPST, DPDT

and SPDT.Also, relays can be PCB mountable and Panel mountable. According to the

need of my project, I have used a 12V, DPDT, PCB mountable relay manufactured by

GOODSKY.

4.4 SELECTION OF MAX 232

Actually MAX 232 is used because we wanted to have serial communication between

microcontroller and computer. This supports short distance serial communication.

we are using MAX 232 in IC format due to ready made availability of this.

Some capacitors have to arrange along peripherals pins of this IC which we have

connected in our actual circuit. Need of these capacitors is due to fact that MAX 232

datasheet shows need of such capacitors in order to pull data from one point to another

point.

4.5 SELECTION OF COMPUTER

Basically, we are going to implement a Visual Basic Code and a hardware depending on

these VB commands. So while selecting a computer, we considered some points like

whether Microsoft’s Visual Basic 6.0 is installed on this machine or not, then machine’s

RAM and Hard disk space necessary to support VB environment, then secondary factors

like color screen for exciting GUI and attractive model.

Also, as our project needed a voice card as the output device, a personal computer with a

voice card was chosen.

Chapter 5.

WORKING OF THE PROJECT

• When the telephone is in the idle condition, the voltage will be -48V.

• When the ringing occurs, it will be 125V peak to peak AC signal superimposed on -

48V.

• The opto isolator is used to isolate the microcontroller from high voltage AC signals

and it consists of GaAs infrared emitting diode optically coupled to a monolithic

silicon phototransistor.

• The microcontroller will detect the ring through the port 1.5 and it will count the

number of rings.

• After a fixed number of rings, the microcontroller will send a signal to the relay and

then the automatic off-hooking of the telephone takes place.At the same time,

microcontroller will transmit ‘#’ to the computer which is an indication to play the

‘Welcome’ message.

• The relay used is DPDT type and after automatic off-hooking takes place, the relay

connects the telephone lines to the decoder IC 8870 and isolation transformer.

• The transformer used is a line transformer used to isolate voice card from high

voltages.

• As the telephone lines are connected to the voice card, the caller gets to hear the

stored messages and asks the caller to enter the roll number of the student whose

result is to be known. After the caller dials the roll number from the touch tone

keypad of his telephone, that number will be decoded by the decoder IC 8870 and the

decoded information will be sent to the computer via the microcontroller.

• Computer on receiving the decoded information will check the database to access the

result of the student whose roll number is entered.

• Then the computer will send the desired information to the voice card and the caller

will get to hear the result of the student on his telephone through the voice card.

Chapter 6.

SOFTWARE TO BE USED:

• Visual Basic 6.0

• MS –Access 2003

6.1 ADVANTAGES OF USING VISUAL BASIC 6.0

• Office/VSTO development.

The Office object model was created with optional parameters, a feature of VBA, in mind

and makes heavy use of it. As Visual Basic supports this it has an advantage over C#

• COM inter-op with older applications.

And in this case I am specifically referring to COM interop without a complete type

library, something common in VB6 or Visual FoxPro. This is where Option Explicit Off

is a great helper and time saver.

6.2 ADVANTAGES USING MS-ACCESS 2003

Although there is always overlap, the following rules might help when deciding when or

when not to use MS Access:

• MS Access is best used for long-term data storage and/or data sharing.

• MS Excel is best used for minor data collection, manipulation, and especially

visualization.

• SPSS is best used for minor data collection and especially data analysis.

• It is easy to export data from MS Access to Excel SPSS

• Cheap, readily available (packaged with MS-Office Premium).

• Easy to use (relative to other systems –Oracle may require one FTE to maintain

the server as a database administrator and another FTE to serve as an application

developer).

Chapter 7.

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF USING IVR SYSTEMS

7.1 ADVANTAGES

The biggest advantage of IVR for small and large organizations is to save time and

money. Answering phone calls takes a lot of time, and not every phone call deserves the

attention of a trained employee. IVR systems can take care of most of the frequently

asked questions that an organization receives (office hours, directions, phone directory,

common tech support questions, et cetera) and allow customer service reps, salesmen and

tech support specialists to concentrate on the harder stuff. If a large company is able to

shave even a second off the average length of each phone call with a live operator, it can

save them hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars a year [source: Human

Factors International]. IVR systems have the advantage of making callers and customers

feel like they're being attended to, even if it's just by a machine. If you have a simple

question, it's better to get a quick answer from a computerized operator than to wait ten

minutes on hold before talking to a human being.

Another advantage is that IVR systems don't sleep. They don't take lunch breaks. They

don't go on vacations to the Bahamas. An IVR system can be available 24 hours a day to

field questions and help customers with simple tasks. An IVR system can make a small

company look bigger. Some IVR hosting plans even set you up with an 800 number to

look more official. Subscription IVR hosting plans make it easier for businesses and

organizations to use these automated phone services. This is a big advantage of days past,

when only large companies with big telecommunications and computing budgets could

afford the hardware, software and staff to run in-house IVR systems.

7.2 DISADVANTAGES

The greatest disadvantage of IVR systems is that many people simply dislike talking to

machines. Older adults may have a hard time following telephone menus and lengthy

instructions. And younger callers get frustrated with the slowness of multiple phone

menus

Chapter 8.

APPLICATIONS

8.1 BANKING & FINANCE

Technological innovations have brought about not just new types of electronic money,

but also new bank-customer relationships. These relationships are fuelling the demand for

more and more innovative banking services such as:

• Call Center with Customer Relationship Management Software

• Credit Card Activation System

• Credit Card Authorization

• Forex Enquiry by Speech Recognition

• Stock Quote By Speech Recognition

• Telephone Banking System

• Telephone Loan Approval

• Trade & Account Inquiry Service

• Voice Recording System

8.2 EDUCATION

Apart from providing an environment for learning, educational establishments are now

improving their quality of service, offering a better level of support to both students and

to the public through:

• Enquiry Hotline

• Library Book Renewal

• Student Registration System

• Student Result Declaration System

8.3 GOVERNMENT

In order to improve the efficiency of information accessibility, many government

departments such as the Labour Department, the Education Department, the Immigration

Department, the Inland Revenue and the Department of Health, have already

implemented IVRS systems to provide hotline services.

8.4 TELECOMMUNICATIONS

In this highly competitive industry, we can help telecom service providers (wire line or

wireless) to develop infrastructure and add value to their services through:

• Prepaid Roaming

• Postpaid Calling Card, Prepaid Calling Card, and Wireless Prepaid (or Mobile

Prepaid)

• Mobile Number Portability

• Number Change Announcement

• Fax Stored-And-Forward Service

• Signaling Protocol Converters

• Telecom Call Center

Chapter 9.

FUTURE ASPECTS

In future, the concept of Interactive Voice Response System can be used in various

transport departments like Bus transport, Metro rail, Railways and Airports as the

transport companies not only need to be fast and responsive, but also need to provide

customers with an easily accessible information system providing:

• Information Enquiry

• Schedule Enquiry

• SISR Information Enquiry

• Teleticketing System

So, in near future, all the information regarding routes, timings etc. will be known

through the Interactive Voice Response System.Also, this concept may be implemented

in Cinema halls and Multiplexes where the caller will get to know the timings of his

favourite movies as well as he can book his tickets through this system.

CONCLUSION

The system designed will be intelligent for interaction and will suitably provide a good

response to the caller who will access it. It will be truly a responsible system for human

mankind. We will make it better than the present scenario system. It will be digitally

accessed and will have a strong data base and can be operated easily and of low cost. And

the future will show that every organization will be using our system.

REFERENCES

Websites:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_voice_response

2. http://web.cmc.net.in/products/ivrs/ivrs.asp

3. http://www.blissit.org/ivrs.htm

4. http://www.kleward.com/ivr_solutions.htm

5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=information+on+IVR+system

6. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VRG-

4C0RRMJ-

4&_user=7427940&_coverDate=08%2F05%2F2004&_alid=810799566&_rdoc=

6&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_cdi=6234&_docanchor=&view=c&_ct=7&_acct=

C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=7427940&md5=58db2884bc

bc7ed43d9119ed01eefe1a

Books:

1. Thiagarajan Vishwanathan/Telecommunication Switching System &

Networks/India PRI Pvt.ltd/Second Edition

2. Kenneth J.Ayala/The 8051 Microcontroller Architecture ,Programming and

Applications/India/PRI Pvt.ltd/Second Edition

3. Douglas V.Hall/Microcontroller and Interfacing/New York/TMH Publishing

Company Pvt Ltd/Second Edition