80 results about "Voice response unit" patented technology

A method and apparatus are provided for matching ready-to-act consumers and pre-qualified service providers. According to one aspect of the present invention, the Internet is used to attempt to solve communications problems and to achieve efficiency in Consumer-to-Business commerce transactions. Initially, a database of pre-qualified service providers is established. Then, a description of the consumer's needs may be extracted from a consumer using decision trees appropriate for the desired task. Subsequently, the consumer needs are packaged and presented to multiple service providers that meet a set of predetermined qualifications. The consumer needs may be presented, for example, by way of a set of heterogeneous communication devices depending upon preferences supplied by the service providers. For example, the set of heterogeneous communication devices may include facsimile, pager, mobile phone, home phone, office phone, Interactive Voice Response (IVR) unit, email, etc. The service providers may choose to submit a response for the consumer's needs or reject the task. After a sufficient number of responses have been received from the pre-qualified service providers, they are presented to the consumer. The consumer may then select from the pre-qualified service providers based upon one or more objective and / or subjective factors associated with the pre-qualified service providers. For example, objective service provider qualification information may be presented to the consumer along with the service provider responses. In addition, a database of consumer-generated service provider ratings and / or reviews may be maintained and made available for consumer queries.

A method and system for prepaying wireless telecommunications charges utilizes computer hardware and software including, for example, a user's mobile phone, a mobile operator's interactive voice response unit, a mobile payments interactive voice response unit, SMS, test messaging, email, ATM, kiosk, the Internet, and / or WAP or the like, a mobile payments engine, a mobile operator's prepaid billing system, a subscriber database, a payment gateway, and a transaction processing platform. The mobile payments engine receives information identifying a user's wireless telecommunication device via the mobile payments interactive voice response unit, passes the information to the mobile operator's billing system with a request for validation of a mobile account for the user, and if validation is received, the mobile payments engine receives financial source account and user identity verification information from the user, assigns a mobile personal identification number for the user, and arranges a credit from the source account to the user's mobile account.

Systems and methods are described for delivering targeted content to a customer through a voice response unit (VRU). When the customer calls into the VRU, the customer is prompted to enter identification information. A unique customer identification code (UCIC) associated with the customer is used to look up an anonymized customer profile stored by a third party server. An advertisement identification code (ADIC) associated with the anonymized customer profile is used to identify targeted offers for the customer. The customer is then informed of the targeted offers verbally by the VRU. Optionally, the customer is presented with details of the offer verbally via the VRU. According to another aspect, the customer can select alternate media for delivery of the offer details (e.g., email, text message, etc.).

An Interactive Voice Response unit (IVR) is provided that includes a menu structure comprising a plurality of menus, each menu comprising a plurality of options that are selectable by a user, wherein the plurality of menus and each menu's respective plurality of options define a plurality of potential navigation paths for the user through the menu structure and a processor operable to receive, from the user, a request to change the menu structure; effect the requested change to the menu structure; and associate the changed menu structure with the requesting user.

The invention provides a voice recognition processing and feedback system and a voice response method. The method includes the steps of collecting user's voice information, identifying the user's voice information and transforming the identified voice information into text information, generating a text feedback corresponding to the text information, detecting the user's gender and age, acquiring and storing a male speech database, a female voice database and a children speech database, selecting the female speech database to perform the speech synthesis of the text feedback so as to generate a female voice file to reply to the user when the detected user is a male but not a child, selecting the male speech database to perform the speech synthesis of the text feedback so as to generate a male voice file to reply to the user when the detected user is a female but not a child, and selecting the children database to perform the speech synthesis of the text feedback so as to generate a cartoon voice file to reply to the user when the detected user is a child. With the method, different voice responses with different tones can be generated based on a speaker's age and gender.

A subscriber's prepay balance is provided to a wireless mobile station (e.g., a cellular telephone) for visual display to a subscriber. Preferably, the prepay balance information is retrieved by a prepay application and, rather than be provided to an interactive voice response unit for conversion into an audible message, the prepay balance is provided through the network to the mobile station itself and displayed thereon. The prepay balance can be provided upon registering the mobile station with the carrier's network and / or upon completion of a phone call. In this way, within a relatively short period of time following the termination of a phone call or during registration, the subscriber's mobile station automatically displays the new prepay balance.

Aspects of the invention provide a solution for detecting man-in-the-middle attacks in electronic transactions using prompts. One embodiment includes a method for authenticating an electronic transaction. The method includes: receiving an electronic transaction request from a user, determining an IP address associated with a client system from which the electronic transaction request originates, providing the user with a password associated with the electronic transaction request, receiving a telephonic communication from a telephonic device associated with the user, prompting the user, via a voice response unit, to input the password using the telephonic device, authenticating the user by comparing the inputted password and the provided password, determining a probable location of the user based on the determined IP address of the client system, communicating to the user the probable location of the user based on the determined IP address, and prompting the user to confirm the probable location of the user.

This invention discloses a system for transmission of audio content to a telephone, the system including an audio stream navigation functionality operable by using a telephone user interface and enabling a user to select audio data to be heard by the user via said telephone, an interactive voice response unit operative in response to an input from said telephone user interface operating said audio stream navigation functionality and a transcoder operative in response to an input from said interactive voice response unit for providing audio data, from an audio source remote from said transcoder, to said interactive voice response unit for listening by said user via said telephone.A method for transmission of audio content to a telephone is also disclosed.

A system for emulating interaction with an interactive voice response unit is provided. The system comprises, a client node connected to the network, the client node soliciting interaction with the interactive voice response unit and a proxy server node connected to the network, the server node accessible to client node, the interactive voice response unit accessible to the server node. A connection is established between the client node and the proxy server node, the proxy server node accepts data from the client node and translates the data into a format for interacting with the interactive voice response unit whereupon the data is then propagated to the interactive voice response unit. Response data resulting from the input data at the interactive voice response unit is propagated to the proxy server node whereupon the response data is translated into a format for dissemination at the client node and propagated thereto.