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Recognize This!

by Bill in Features

We coined a cool buzzword created a something interesting and new today and we're calling it a recognizer.

What is it? Glad you asked! A recognizer understands what a caller is saying and performs a task based on some rules you create such as routing them to a group of phones dedicated to your Sales department or, if they say something mean, routing them to the IRS toll free number.

While I don't recommend the last part there are a plethora (is that really a word?) of things you can do with them, here's an example ...

So, What is a Recognizer, really?

A recognizer is just a simple set of rules that tells our service what to do when it recognizes a keyword or phrase such as connect the call to one or more mobile phones (or voip devices) or play a prompt asking a question:

"Thanks for calling The Widgets Company, you can say Sales, Support, or just tell me who you want to talk to."

"Pay My Bill"

"Ok, you said you want to pay your bill, great. Is this a business or personal account?"

"Business"

"Ok, got it, connecting you to someone who can handle your business account payment."

Here we have just two recognizers, one that recognized "Pay My Bill" and another that recognized "Business" and that's all it took to drive the caller to the person that handles business account payments.

The "Pay My Bill" recognizer plays a prompt asking the account type and then the "Business" recognizer connects the call to the appropriate mobile phone or voip device, so easy.

Recognized ... Now What?

To recap, a recognizer listens for keywords or phrases, and then does something.

When you build a recognizer you get to choose how the call is handled with options like:

  • Play a prompt
  • Call extensions
  • Choose what caller id is shown
  • Enable sequential or simultaneous calling
  • Send the caller to voicemail
  • Record the call

Any combination will work and calls can be sent to just one or groups of extensions.

Trussville Telephone is Smart!

Well, it's not going to cut your grass or anything so maybe not that smart, but it does a good job of deducing all the right things.

You can build a recognizer to route calls and/or play a prompt, maybe just a message that says today's special or directions to your shop. Or, you could use prompts to further determine where to route a call such as the example above.

So, with the power of recognizers and Trussville Telephone's easy to use portal you can build an incredibly useful virtual phone system ... we're excited to see what you come up with, w00t!