[1] IVR systems can be used to create self-service solutions for mobile purchases, banking payments, services, retail orders, utilities, travel information and weather conditions.
[3] Early voice response systems were digital signal processing (DSP) technology based and limited to small vocabularies.
[citation needed] At that time, a system could store digitized speech on disk, play the appropriate spoken message, and process the human's DTMF response.
As call centers began to migrate to multimedia in the late 1990s, companies started to invest in computer telephony integration (CTI) with IVR systems.
With improvements in technology, systems could use speaker-independent voice recognition[4] of a limited vocabulary instead of requiring the person to use DTMF signaling.
IVR speech recognition interactions (call flows) are designed using 3 approaches to prompt for and recognize user input: directed, open-ended, and mixed dialogue.
The open-ended prompt requires a greater degree of natural language processing to extract the relevant information from the phrase (i.e. "balance").
A call flow diagram can be drawn with a GUI tool and the presentation layer (typically VoiceXML) can be automatically generated.
When an IVR system answers multiple phone numbers, the use of DNIS ensures that the correct application and language is executed.
Additional caller authentication data could include account number, personal information, password and biometrics (such as voice print).
Voice-activated dialing (VAD) IVR systems are used to automate routine inquiries to a switchboard or PABX (Private Automatic Branch exchange) operators, and are used in many hospitals and large businesses to reduce the caller waiting time.
[13] IVR systems are used by pharmaceutical companies and contract research organizations to conduct clinical trials and manage the large volumes of data generated.
The caller will respond to questions in their preferred language and their responses will be logged into a database and possibly recorded at the same time to confirm authenticity.
Some of the largest installed IVR platforms are used for televoting on television game shows, such as Pop Idol and Big Brother, which can generate enormous call spikes.
[15] Developing countries have a prevalence of mobile phones even in rural areas, which allows room for IVR technology to support social good projects.
[citation needed] Research in ICTD has helped tailor IVR towards social impact has created innovative applications in health, agricultural, entertainment and citizen journalism.
In the context of tuberculosis, patients need to adhere to the medicine daily basis for a period of few months to completely heal.
In public sector, there is a scheme called DOTS (Directly Observed Therapy Short Course[citation needed]) which was the most effective source for poor population.
Although radio is a very popular means of entertainment, IVR provides interactivity, which can help listeners engage in novel ways using their phones.
ICTD research has used IVR entertainment as a mechanism to support communities and provide information to populations that are hard to reach by traditional methods.
The introduction of Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) means that point-to-point communications are no longer restricted to voice calls but can now be extended to multimedia technologies such as video.
IVR manufacturers have extended their systems into IVVR (interactive voice and video response), especially for the mobile phone networks.
The introduction of full-duplex video IVR in the future will allow systems the ability to read emotions and facial expressions.
As calls are queued in the SIP contact center, the IVR system can provide treatment or automation, wait for a fixed period, or play music.
[citation needed] IVR technology is being used to automate IM conversations using existing natural language processing software.