Unified Messaging : Speech-Enabled Call Routing

Autoattendant services, which are usually available as a standard part of a voice-mail package, have not been as widely used with Centrex as with PBX systems. However, there are some mass-market Centrex applications where it is important to have an autoattendant front end.

Call routing systems are now available that have high-performance automatic speech recognition (ASR) abilities and that can work well for large, distributed organizations with hundreds of users. Such a system can be very useful for inbound, outbound, and internal calls.

For inbound communications, ASR is easier and faster to use than touch-tone dialing. Internal callers can control some features, such as initiating conference calls and forwarding calls to selected destinations, without using specific codes or keys. On outbound calls users do not need to remember dialing codes or long number sequences to call the required party. For all callers, an ASR system provides round-the-clock assistance and can be cost-effectively integrated with an IP-Centrex softswitch.