interactive voce response. Article in the works, check back soon
in the meanwhile - below is shamelessly stolen from whatis.com
Interactive Voice Response (IVR) is an automated telephony system that interacts with callers, gathers information and routes calls to the appropriate recipient. An IVR system (IVRS) accepts a combination of voice telephone input and touch-tone keypad selection and provides appropriate responses in the form of voice, fax, callback, e-mail and perhaps other media.
An IVR system consists of telephony equipment, software applications, a database and a supporting infrastructure. Common IVR applications include:
- Bank and stock account balances and transfers
- Surveys and polls
- Office call routing
- Call center forwarding
- Simple order entry transactions
- Selective information lookup (movie schedules, etc.)
Whatis page on Interactive Voice Response
IVR wiki page