INTERACTIVE VOICE RESPONSE SYSTEM (IVRS)

CONTENT: 1.ABSTRACT 2.INTRODUCTION 3.DETAILS OF TOPIC AND ANALYSIS 4.BLOCK DIAGRAM OF IVRS 5.BLOCK DIAGRAM EXPLANATION 6.EXAMPLE 7. DESIGNING OF IVR INTERFACE 8.ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES 9. APPLICATIONS 10.FUTURE CONCEPTS 11.CONCLUSION

ABSTRACT: Handling routine phone requests for information can consume a substantial amount of staff time & money. So we need a system, to offer an automated and less costly way to provide the same information more cost-effectively. The solution is IVRS.

INTRODUCTION: IVRS is an important development in the field of interactive communication which makes use of the most modern technology available today. IVRS is a unique blend of both the communication field and the software field, incorporating the best features of both these streams of technology. .

(IVR) systems allow callers to interact with their communication systems over the telephone. An IVR system talks to callers following a recorded script. Caller respond either verbally or by pressing a touch tone key and system supplies the information based on the response made.

It is a basic system, which simply records a message and that is played when a person hits the appropriate number on the telephone keypad. . This model is a voice recording system where voice responses are stored in database and when any customer requests for information through his mobile using key pad to navigate to the interested filed to find his answer. 

Voice recordings are stored in the database and customer will hear pre-recording voices and inform customer about further rooting procedure to be followed. The IVRS on the whole consists of the user telephone, the telephone connection between the user and the IVRS and the personal computer which stores the data base.

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 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. Touch – Tone Keypad: 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.

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).

BLOCK DIAGRAM OF IVRS:

BLOCK DIAGRAM EXPLANATION: The interactive voice response system consists of the following parts. 1. Relay: For switching between the ring detector and the DTMF decoder. 2. Ring detector: To detect the presence of incoming calls. 3. DTMF decoder: To convert the DTMF tones  to 4 bit BCD codes. 4. Micro controller: To accept the BCD calls, process them and transmit them serially to the PC.  

5. Level Translator: To provide the interface between PC and micro controller. 6. Personal Computer: To store the data base and to carry out the text to speech conversion. 7. Audio Amplifier: To provide audio amplification to standard output and to act as a buffer between the telephone line and sound card.

EXAMPLE: The opto isolator is used to isolate the microcontroller from high voltage AC signals. 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.

At the same time,microcontroller will transmit ‘#’ to the computer which is an indication to play the‘Welcome’ message. 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 thedecoded 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.

DESIGNING (IVR) INTERFACES: LOCALISATION FOR LOW LITERACY USERS: They proposed a dialog (user interface) design model consisting of three components: Get input, Error-recovery, and Play results (output).

Dialog design model for IVR interfaces GET INPUT NO FETCH RESULT OUTPUT ERROR YES ERROR RECOVERY Dialog design model for IVR interfaces

GET INPUT: The semantic options (what the user can do or request) should be presented to the user . ERROR RECOVERY: When there is an error, it guides users to correctly state their request. OUTPUT: this offers the principled basis for presenting the requested information back to the user.

ADVANTAGES: The biggest advantage of IVR for small and large organizations is to save time and money. An IVR system can be available 24 hours a day to field questions and help customers with simple tasks.

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. .

APPLICATIONS:. EDUCATION: Apart from providing an environment for learning, educational establishments are now improving their quality of service, offering a better level of support to students through: Library Book Renewal Student Registration System

GOVERNMENT: In order to improve the efficiency of information accessibility, many government departments such as the Labour Department,the Education Department, and the Department of Health, have already implemented IVRS systems to provide services.

FUTURE ASPECTS: In future, the concept of IVRS can be used in various transport departments like Bus transport, Metro rail, Railways and Airports . information system providing: Information Enquiry   Schedule Enquiry Teleticketing System

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