17.2. Components of an IVR

The most basic elements of an IVR are quite similar to those of an automated attendant, though the goal is different. We need at least one prompt to tell the caller what the IVR expects from him, a method of receiving input from the caller, logic to verify that the caller’s response is valid input, logic to determine what the next step of the IVR should be, and finally, a storage mechanism for the responses, if applicable. We might think of an IVR as a decision tree, although it need not have any branches. For example, a survey may present exactly the same set of prompts to each caller, regardless of what choices the callers make, and the only routing logic involved is whether the responses given are valid for the questions.

From the caller’s perspective, every IVR needs to start with a prompt. This initial prompt will tell the caller what the IVR is for and ask the caller to provide the first input. We discussed prompts in the automated attendant in Chapter 15. Later, we’ll create a dialplan that will allow you to better manage multiple voice prompts.