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Systems and methods for producing build calls

This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 60/898,351 filed 30 Jan. 2007, the entire content of which is incorporated herein by reference.

The present disclosure relates generally to automated telephone calling techniques and, and more particularly, to methods and systems used to capture specific responses from an initial automated telephone conversation and using that data to build or create a more personal and intelligent future interactions with the person involved with the initial telephone call.

In the new, connected economy, it has become increasingly important for companies or service providers to become more in tune with their clients and customers. Such contact can be facilitated with automated telephonic transaction systems, in which interactively-selected prompts are played in the context of a telephone transaction, and the replies of a human user are recognized by an automatic speech recognition system.

The answers given by the respondent are processed by the system in order to convert the spoken words to meaning, which can then be utilized interactively, or stored in a database. One example of such a system is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,990,179, issued in the names of Lucas Merrow et al. on 24 Jan. 2006 and assigned to the assignee of the present application, further discussed below, the entire content of which is incorporated herein by reference.

In order for a computer system to recognize the words that are spoken and convert these words to text, the system must be programmed to phonetically break down the spoken words and convert portions of the words to their textural equivalents. Such a conversion requires an understanding of the components of speech and the formation of the spoken word. The production of speech generates a complex series of rapidly changing acoustic pressure waveforms. These waveforms comprise the basic building blocks of speech, known as phonemes.

Vowels and consonants are phonemes and have many different characteristics, depending on which components of human speech are used. The position of a phoneme in a word has a significant effect on the ultimate sound generated. A spoken word can have several meanings, depending on how it is said. Linguists have identified allophones as acoustic variants of phonemes and use them to more explicitly describe how a particular word is formed.

Automated telephone calls that use speech recognition are a cost effective method of engaging large populations; organizations use this methodology to reach out to thousands of people in a single day.

While such prior art automated telephone call techniques can be effective for their intended purposes, such techniques can present certain problems and limitations. For example, if the telephone calls are perceived by the recipient as being impersonal or context-insensitive, and thus not approximating a conversation with a live human being, the call(s) can be ineffective.

The present disclosure addresses the limitations and problems noted previously for prior art automated phone call techniques by providing methods and systems for capturing specific responses from an initial automated telephone conversation and using that data to build or create a more personal and intelligent subsequent interaction with the person involved with the initial telephone call. A primary purpose of any such subsequent “build calls” includes that information conveyed or acquired during a previous or initial call or information concerning an action (or lack thereof) requested during a previous or initial call is utilized (or built upon) for a subsequent call.

An embodiment of the present disclosure includes a method of creating an engaging and intelligent series of speech-activated telephone calls, where a follow-up conversation with an individual builds upon responses gathered from a previous call that the system conducted with that person. An initial telephone call can be made or conducted to a call recipient or targeted person. Information can be gathered or received from that person during the initial call and saved for subsequent use. One or more subsequent calls can be made to the same person, with the one or more subsequent calls being built with or incorporating information received from the called person during the initial call. An automated system can be used to make the initial call and/or the subsequent call as well as for recording responses of the called person.

Another embodiment of the present disclosure includes a system configured to initiate and conduct (hold) initial and/or subsequent calls to one or more targeted people over a telephone system. For such calls, the system can produce spoken voice prompts for telephony-based informational interaction. The system can record responses given during an initial call. The information recorded by the system can be used for one or more subsequent calls, or build calls, to the same individual(s). Each subsequent call can incorporate or be based (or built) on information gathered from the called person during the previous call(s), forming a so-called “build call”. The system can include an automated calling system, a storage system/medium, and a speech recognition system. For populations (e.g., large) of targeted or potential call recipients, the speech recognition system can be speaker-independent so that it does not require any voice training by the individual call recipients.

Aspects and embodiments of the present disclosure may be more fully understood from the following description when read together with the accompanying drawings, which are to be regarded as illustrative in nature, and not as limiting. The drawings are not necessarily to scale, emphasis instead being placed on the principles of the disclosure. In the drawings:

FIG. 1 depicts a flow chart according to an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure;