Patent ID: 9538002
Date: 2017-01-03
CPC Classifications: H04M

Claim:
1. A computer-implemented method of automatically directing a communication within an interactive communication response (ICR) system, the method comprising: at a server of the interactive communication response (ICR) system: obtaining an identity of a received incoming contact from a user to the ICR system; determining whether a previous contact of the ICR system has an identity that is the same as the identity of the incoming contact received at the ICR system, wherein the previous contact is received over a first type of communication channel, and the incoming contact is received over a second type of communication channel, the second type of communication channel being different from the first type of communication channel; applying at least one rule for handling the incoming contact at the ICR system, the at least one rule determined by information about the previous contact loaded from a first database of previous contacts including a time stamp of a previously received contact, a communication type, and a purpose of the previous contact and by information about the user associated with the identity loaded from a second database of account information, the at least one rule indicating application to the previous contact if the difference of the time stamp of the previous contact and the time stamp of the received incoming contact is below a per-purpose threshold of the at least one rule; and responsive to application of the at least one rule, generating a direct path of a single menu selection of the ICR system unique to the user, the menu selection representative of a predicted purpose of the incoming contact at the ICR system, the predicted purpose of the incoming contact based on the information about the previous contact and the information about the user.