Help Approaching Telephone Service Problem

[Ricky158]

I'm trying to build a system that accepts phone calls (like a 1-800 number) and provides services to the caller such as "press 1 to add credit to your account" and normal actions like that.

It's really just a phone-based user management system. Users that would normally use a web interface to perform actions like accessing their account info, adding credit to it, etc, are doing this from their phones.


From what I understand of this problem from a very general level, I need...

- a phone line with a 1-800 service
- a computer to take the calls
-- computer needs to playback prerecorded instructions ("press 1 to...")
-- computer needs to listen for user input via touch tones (user pressed 1 on their phone)
-- computer then goes to menu item 1's submenu and plays back the new instructions

It doesn't have to be so sophisticated where it does voice recognition (and have people yell commands into their phone), just a simple phone tree as they call it.


How can one of these be homegrown?


This is an unusual problem, but I definitely appreciate the help!

Thanks,

R.

[clunk.werclick]

Hi there,

This sounds like call steering/platform? If it's going to steer and put through to a person or mailbox, it's the domain of a PBX with some decent call steering ability.

Good news is you can do this free (*learning curve and possibly some hardware cards needed*) with something like: http://www.trixbox.org/ (built on Asterisk). I've never set it up myself, but it's reported as well established and solid.

If this is not for you, it may take you into the right direction. "Call Steering PBX" is the phrase you are probably looking for.