Method and apparatus for tailoring voice prompts of an interactive voice response system

摘要

An interactive voice response (IVR) system includes a database holding a library of pre-recorded voice prompts that have various specific contents determined by their purposes, as well as various language choices, speaker accents, degrees of formality, and so forth. The database entries are held outside the complied code of an application program that provides call flow instructions that direct the functional operation of the IVR system. When the application program requires a voice prompt, it selects a record of the database by passing a metalanguage variable to an assignment table that is also held outside the compiled code of the application program. The assignment table assigns a particular value to the meta language variable. The value of the metalanguage variable specifies the entry point into the database for recalling the database record which contains the desired voice prompt.