Voice mail with embedded executable responses

A creator of a voice mail message is provided with the ability to pre-define responses to the message. The pre-defined responses may be sent (i.e., are embedded) with the voice mail message to a recipient's mailbox so that when the recipient opens the voice message, the message is heard, and the recipient is provided with a menu of pre-defined responses from which to choose. After listening to the pre-defined responses, the recipient selects a particular response which is then forwarded to the creator of the original voice mail message.

TECHNICAL FIELD 
The invention relates to telecommunications. More particularly, the 
invention relates to voice mail with embedded executable responses. 
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
Voice mail has become a widely used channel of communication in both home 
and office environments. Conventional voice mail systems allow a sender to 
leave a message for a recipient to facilitate communication between them, 
for example, when the recipient is busy or away from a telephone. 
Typically, such voice mail systems provide the ability to the sender to 
record and leave an audio message in the recipient's voice mailbox. Some 
voice mail systems provide the sender with a selection of fixed options 
that may be applied to a particular voice message. For example, the sender 
may give priority status to a message so that the recipient will hear such 
a priority message before hearing other messages in the mailbox. A message 
may be made private so that the recipient is precluded from forwarding 
such a private message to other parties. A sender may also have an ability 
to send a message to multiple recipients. 
The recipient of a voice mail message, upon accessing his or her voice 
mailbox at some convenient time, may then listen to the message sent by 
the sender. Voice mail systems generally provide the recipient with a 
number of fixed options such as the ability to save the message, forward 
the message to other parties, and record a reply message to be forwarded 
to the sender of the original message. 
While many known voice mail systems function quite satisfactorily in many 
applications, the options that are provided to the users are generic in 
that no options may be customized and applied to a particular message. 
Consequently, a need exists for enhanced voice mail capabilities where 
users would have better control over the information contained in a voice 
mail message. 
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
The need for enhanced voice mail capabilities is met by the present 
invention where a creator of a voice mail message is provided with the 
ability to pre-define responses to the message. The pre-defined responses 
may be sent (i.e, are embedded) with the voice mail message to a 
recipient's mailbox so that when the recipient opens the voice message, 
the message is heard, and the recipient is provided with a menu of 
pre-defined responses from which to choose. After listening to the 
pre-defined responses, the recipient selects a particular response which 
is then forwarded to the creator of the original voice mail message or 
otherwise acted upon. 
In an illustrative example of the invention, a computer supply business may 
use the invention by sending a voice mail message to a customer who has 
recently purchased a personal computer. The message thanks the customer 
for the business and then prompts the customer to "press one on your touch 
tone phone if everything is working well with the computer, press two if 
you are having problems with installation and would like a technician to 
call you, or press three if you would like a call back next month to check 
that everything is satisfactory." After the customer accesses the mailbox 
and receives the message (including the pre-defined responses), the 
customer makes the desired selection and the response is returned to the 
sending business or its voice mailbox. Different such menus may be 
provided for different businesses and applications. 
Other examples of the invention are provided to highlight additional 
inventive features: responses may be counted, which may be useful in 
polling applications; identities of the recipients may be returned to the 
message sender; the selection of certain responses may be used to trigger 
the playback of additional message content; audio segments or digital data 
may be recorded by the recipient as part of a response returned to a 
message creator; a telephone call may be initiated as part of a predefined 
response; and advantageous combinations of the aforementioned features may 
be utilized in some applications.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
FIG. 1 is a simplified block diagram of a voice mail system 100 which 
facilitates practice of the invention. Shown are creator terminal 102, 
recipient terminal 104, communication network 106, voice mail system 
controller 108, and memory 110. Terminals 102 and 104, in this 
illustrative example of the invention, are conventional telephones. 
However, multi-media-capable computers, wireless personal communication 
devices, cellular telephones, paging devices may also be used with 
particular advantage in certain applications of the invention. Such 
devices are known and are described in further detail herein. 
Communication network 106 may be a public switched telephone network 
("PSTN"), a computer network such as the Internet, a private branch 
exchange, and the like. Communication network 106 carries information to 
terminals 104 and 106 as well as to voice mail system controller 108 which 
are coupled to the network as shown. Voice mail system controller 108 is 
coupled to memory 110, which is used to store voice mail messages in 
individual mailboxes under the control of voice mail system controller 
108. Memory 110 may also be used to store system information and prompts 
which facilitate use of the voice mail system. Voice mail system 
controller 108 and memory 110 form voice mailbox system 112. 
In accordance with the principles of the invention, a creator of a voice 
message at creator terminal 102 dials through the communication network 
106 to voice mail system controller 108. Voice mail system controller 108, 
using conventional automated response unit technology such as that sold by 
Lucent Technologies Inc. under the tradename Conversant.RTM. (not shown), 
may then interact with the message creator at terminal 102 so that the 
inventive voice mail message may be created and delivered to the intended 
recipient. To aid in the clarity of presentation of the inventive 
concepts, the inventive voice mail message is referred to herein as an 
"action message" to distinguish it from conventional voice mail. The term 
"action" is used because the recipient is prompted to take action to the 
message rather than merely take a passive interest as with conventional 
voice mail. 
Referring now to FIG. 2, there is shown a simplified block diagram of an 
illustrative voice mail system, in accordance with the principles of the 
invention. More specifically, FIG. 2 illustrates details of the voice mail 
system controller 108 shown in FIG. 1. Included within voice mail system 
controller 108 are service controller 202 which is operably coupled to 
User ID system 204, voice port 206, data modem 208, message retrieval and 
playback system 210, and message creation system 212. Service controller 
202 is also optionally coupled to mailbox network interface 214. Mailbox 
network interface 214 may be used to facilitate communication (via 
inter-system mailbox local area network 220) with other remotely located 
voice mailbox systems including local mailbox system 2 . . . local mailbox 
system n, which are designated by reference numerals 216 and 218, 
respectively, as shown in FIG. 2. 
FIG. 3 is a flowchart illustrating how users gain access to the voice 
mailbox system in order to create or retrieve an action message in 
accordance with the principles of the invention. Such access process is 
common to both message creation and retrieval. 
The process starts at block 302 where the user (i.e., the customer of the 
voice mail service as either a message creator or message retriever) dials 
into the voice mail system controller 108 to gain access to the action 
messaging system via communication network 106 (which, in this 
illustrative example of the invention, is a PSTN). System controller 108 
answers the call using service controller 202 which communicates with the 
user ID system 204 so as to identify the customer as shown in block 304. 
The user is prompted to log into the system, as shown in block 306, with a 
user identification or password. The user may do so by entering a user 
identification and password, typically by using dual-tone-multifrequency 
("DTMF") signals generated by pressing the number pad on the telephone 
terminal device. Such DTMF signals are commonly known as "touch tones." 
While the use of DTMF tones and automated response units are 
illustratively utilized, other interface techniques (including the use of 
live operators, and automated systems utilizing voice recognition 
technology) are also intended to fall within the spirit and scope of the 
present invention. Alternatively, the automatic number identification 
("ANI") signal which may accompany the user's call may be used to provide 
a means of identifying the user to the voice mail system controller 108. 
After the user's identification is verified, user ID system 204 passes the 
user ID to service controller 202 with the authorization to proceed with 
the access process. 
After log in, as shown in block 308, service controller 202 comunicates 
with the message retrieval and playback system 210 which checks the 
received message data base 222 in memory 110 for new messages. A prompt is 
played to the user: "you have N new messages" where N is the number of new 
messages stored for that user. In block 310, service controller 202 offers 
the user a choice of retrieving the new messages or recording and sending 
messages, including action messages of the present invention. Depending on 
the user's choice, as shown in decision block 312, the process continues 
with that shown in FIG. 4 or FIG. 5. 
If a user chooses to create a message, then the process as shown in the 
flowchart of FIG. 4 is applicable. Decision block 402 determines whether 
an action message or a conventional voice mail message is desired. As 
shown in FIG. 4, if a conventional method is desired, the user (which in 
this case is now referred to as the message creator) presses "1" and 
records a conventional voice message in block 404 which is stored for a 
later retrieval by a message recipient at terminal 104 (FIG. 1). 
Continuing with the description of FIG. 4, if the message creator working 
at terminal 102 (FIG. 1) desires to create an action message, then a "2" 
is pressed on the telephone keypad which causes message creation system 
212 to call the action message script generator 226 (FIG. 2) which 
provides an interactive voice response interface for action message 
creation, in accordance with the invention. Scripting is used in this 
illustrative embodiment of the invention, to facilitate the generation of 
instructions to the voice mail system. 
The action message script generator 226 prompts the message creator to 
indicate the desired number of pre-defined responses that will be offered 
to the voice message recipient as shown in block 406. In this illustrative 
example of the invention, a number between 1-9 is indicated using the 
telephone keypad as shown in block 408. As shown in block 410, the action 
message script generator 226 (FIG. 2), after prompting the user, receives 
the DTMF tone indicative of the number of desired predefined responses, N, 
configures the script accordingly. More specifically, action message 
script generator 226 adds a collect module to the script which accepts the 
digits 1-N as valid inputs. Appropriate error messages may be created by 
action message script generator 226 and played for inputs outside this 
range. The action message script generator also structures the script to 
include N specific action modules, each associated with one of the N 
choices. As each action type is subsequently selected by the message 
creator, the action message script generator 226 appends the associated 
action module to the script. By this process, once the message creator has 
fully specified each of the actions 1-N (including the necessary audio 
clips, call transfer numbers, etc.) the script is complete. 
Moving to block 412, a choice of one of six action types may be selected 
for each pre-defined response. As will be evident in the discussion that 
follows, the action message script generator iterates through a menu of 
selections for each of the N pre-defined responses chosen. The iteration 
runs 1, 2, . . . i . . . N. As shown in block 412, for any i.sup.th 
response, the message creator selects an action type. In this illustrative 
example for action type 1, a cumulative count of recipients choosing a 
particular predefined response may be tallied and delivered to the message 
creator. A voicemail address list of recipients who picked a particular 
response may be generated as a second action type. An additional audio 
clip may be played as a third action type. A prepaid reply may be 
generated as a fourth action type. Further discussion of prepaid replies 
may be found in our co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 
08/723,340, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein. A 
call transfer may be implemented as a fifth action type. And, as a sixth 
action type, a numeric response may be collected. It is emphasized that 
many action types are envisioned to fall within the scope of the 
invention, and the six types described herein are merely illustrative. 
Moreover, the variety of action types shown in block 412 are optional, 
that is, in some applications of the invention, it may be desirable to 
limit the number of action types. 
For example, to minimize complexity for the message creator, a limited 
number of action message "templates" may be pre-programmed and offered to 
the message creator from a template menu. Those skilled in the art will 
appreciate that templates are another convenient form of providing 
instructions to the voice mail system so as to faciliate practice of the 
present invention. The pre-programming may be provided by the voice mail 
service provider or in some instances, by the user. Such templates may 
include, for example, 1) a two-choice "yes/no" template with individual 
responses returned to the sender; 2) a four-choice survey template, with 
cumulative counts returned to the sender; and 3) a two-choice call 
transfer template (e.g., "if you are satisfied, press 1; if you need to 
speak with our representative, press 2"). In such a case, the individual 
respondent's address is returned to the sender. In instances where 
templates are used, storage and transport requirements for the action 
message may be reduced, for example, as merely the specifications of the 
message may be sent and stored. The message retrieval and playback system 
210 (FIG. 2), equipped with a similar template as that provided to the 
action message script generator, can then reconstruct the original action 
message. 
Examples of action messages using each action type noted above will be 
provided in more detail in later discussion. 
In block 416, the message creator indicates to the action message script 
generator 226 as to which action type is desired for the i.sup.th response 
in the set of N desired pre-defined responses. For types 1, 2, and 4, the 
voice mail system action message script generator 226 adds the appropriate 
response collect and record modules to the script and tests whether the 
iteration is complete for all N responses, as indicated in blocks 418 and 
414. If not, another iteration is started by returning to block 412 as 
shown in FIG. 4. If all N iterations have been completed, then the service 
controller 212 prompts the message creator to record an audio message as 
shown in block 422. Upon completion of the recording, the voice mail 
system controller 108 performs review, addressing, and delivery to one or 
more desired voice mailboxes (for example, local mailboxes 216 and 218 in 
FIG. 1) in a conventional manner as shown in block 424. The action message 
script generator 226 then stores the completed script and associated voice 
mail message and clips in the outgoing message database 224, as shown in 
block 436. A unique action message identification is also assigned to the 
particular action message created for identification and tracking, the 
details of which are described below in more detail. The total number of 
recipients for this particular action message may also be conveniently 
tracked and addresses of the recipients stored at this point in the 
process. Such tracking of total number of intended recipients and storage 
of their addresses may be useful, for example, to determine the success 
rate of a particular message and to identify who has not responded to a 
particular message. 
For action type 3, the action message script generator adds a voice clip 
module to the script and prompts the message creator to record the audio 
clip as shown in block 426. In block 428, the message creator records the 
audio clip in a conventional manner. Control is then passed to block 418 
and the process continues as discussed above. 
For action type 6, the action message script generator 226 adds a numeric 
value collect module to the script and informs the message creator that 
the message recipients should terminate numeric entries with the pound 
sign as shown in block 430. Control is then passed to block 418 and the 
process continues as discussed above. 
For action type 5, the action message script generator 226 adds a call 
transfer module to the script and prompts the message creator to enter the 
telephone number to which calls are to be transferred, as shown in block 
432. The message creator enters the number using the telephone keypad, as 
shown in block 434. Control is then passed to block 418 and the process 
continues as discussed above. 
The completed script and modules, as described above, are saved for 
delivery to the appropriate voice mailbox system of the intended 
recipient. The script and associated modules form the basis for supplying 
instructions to a voice mailbox system to implement the desired action 
message. These instructions, which may be referred to as a "datagram," 
when acted upon trigger the action portion of the voice mail message to 
implement the features of the present invention. 
Several examples will now be discussed to further highlight the invention. 
As mentioned previously, a computer business may use an action message to 
survey the last 100 customers who have purchased a computer from their 
business. In such an example, the message creator presses "3" on the 
telephone keypad as in block 410 of FIG. 4 to indicate that three 
predefined responses are desired for inclusion in this particular action 
message. In block 416, the message creator presses "1" on the telephone 
keypad to indicate that cumulative responses are desired. After three 
iterations, the representative of the computer business records the 
message: 
"press one on your touch tone phone if you primarily use your computer at 
home; press two if you primarily use your computer at work; or press three 
if you use your computer at both home and work." 
Since the first action type was selected by the computer business for each 
predefined response, a cumulative count of the number of times each 
pre-defined response is selected by the recipients is tallied by the voice 
mail system controller 108 and stored in memory 110 for delivery to the 
business, for example, using the business's voice mailbox in either a 
local or remote voice mail system. In block 424 of FIG. 4, the business 
would address the action message to the 100 intended recipients using 
conventional methods, for example, automated voice mailing lists and the 
like. In addition, a conventional computer interface may be used to 
interact with the voice mail system controller 108 (FIG. 1) through data 
modem 208 (FIG. 2) to create and receive action messages and responses, in 
accordance with the principles of the invention. 
Action type 1 may also be useful in informal opinion polling. For example, 
a newspaper may send out an action message to its subscribers asking them 
to indicate which comic strips are the most popular. 
Action type 2 provides for return addresses of the recipients to be 
returned to the message creator. Such information may facilitate the 
request for more information by interested recipients. For example, a 
mutual fund company may choose action type 2 for the message "please press 
one to receive a prospectus of our latest offering." Upon receipt of the 
appropriate DTMF tone during playback of the message to the recipient, the 
voice mail system controller 108 would collect that recipient's voice mail 
address for delivery to the company. Those skilled in the art will 
appreciate that the return addresses may be used to automatically send out 
the appropriate information when they are received. 
Action type 3 facilitates the playback of additional audio information to 
the action message recipient, and the number of times the response was 
selected may be tallied. For example, a record company may select action 
type 3 to accompany the message "to hear a sample of our latest compact 
disc, press one on your touchtone keypad." It is also noted that a 
combination of action types may be mixed in the same action message. 
Continuing with the record company example, the record company may record 
the action message "press one if you prefer rock music, two if you prefer 
jazz, and three if you would like to hear a sample of our latest compact 
disc." Action type 1 would be selected for pre-defined responses one and 
two, and action type 3 would be selected for the third pre-defined 
response. 
Action type 4, the prepaid reply, offers the action message recipient a 
chance to record a return message at the expense of the original message 
creator. Such a choice may be particularly desirable, for example, in the 
context of commercial solicitations for customer opinions. Those skilled 
in the art will also recognize that such prepaid replies may be desirable 
for games and contest applications, or for customer feedback about a new 
product, for example. 
Action type 5 provides an opportunity to launch a telephone call as a 
direct response to the original message. An example highlighting this 
particular inventive feature is a sports retailer who is promoting a sale 
on golf clubs. The action message may include general information about 
price and features of the promoted clubs and then give as one of several 
pre-defined responses "press 1 if you would like to be transferred to our 
customer order hotline." When the recipient presses "1," the voice mail 
system controller 108 communicates with communication network 106 to allow 
an outbound call to be placed to the sports retailer and the recipient is 
transferred and bridged in a conventional manner. 
Action type 6 enables an action message recipient to enter numeric data 
which will be forwarded to the message creator. The voice mail address or 
identification may also optionally be forwarded. Examples of numeric data 
include social security number, credit or calling card account numbers, a 
product stock number for a catalog purchase, a prior order tracking 
number, and the like. 
FIG. 5 is a flowchart illustrating the playback of an action message from a 
recipient's mailbox, in accordance with the principles of the invention. 
The process continues (from the block 312 of the access process discussed 
when referring to FIG. 3) with the message retrieval and playback system 
210 getting messages from received messages database 222 in memory 110 
(FIG. 1), as shown in block 518. The new messages contained in the 
received messages database 222 for that particular user could be a mix of 
conventional and action messages, in accordance with the invention. 
In block 520, message retrieval and playback system 210 determines whether 
a retrieved message is an action message. If a retrieved message is an 
action message, then message retrieval and playback system 210 calls 
action message script interpreter 228 to execute the particular 
pre-defined responses and action types, as described above, in an action 
message script as shown in block 522. The responses selected by the action 
message recipient are collected as shown in block 524. As appropriate, the 
voice mail ID or address is packaged with the selected responses in block 
526. In addition, a unique action message identification is included with 
the selected responses which are delivered to the service controller 202 
for return to the message creator. In block 528, typical save, delete, 
forwarding and other fixed options are provided to the message recipient. 
If the result of decision block 520 is that the message is a conventional 
message (and not an action message), then control is passed to block 530 
where the conventional message is played back to the message recipient in 
a conventional manner. 
The playback process continues through blocks 518 to 532 in an iterative 
manner until no more new messages are available, at which point playback 
control is returned to service controller 202 as shown in block 534. 
FIG. 6 is a flowchart illustrating collection, tabulation, and retrieval of 
action message responses by the exemplary voice mail system 112 (FIG. 1), 
in accordance with the principles of the invention. The process starts in 
block 602 where a voice mail message is received by the service controller 
202. It is also noted that the message received by the service controller 
202 may be a conventional voice mail message, an action message (created 
in accordance with the flowchart shown in FIG. 4), or an action message 
response sent by the recipient of an action message. The voice mail 
message could be received, internally, from voice mail system 112, or from 
other voice mailbox systems 216 and 218 (FIG. 2). Service controller 202 
routes the voice mail message to message retrieval and playback system 
210, as shown in block 604. Moving to block 606, message retrieval and 
playback system 210 looks for an action message response indicator in the 
voice mail message header. If the result of decision block 608 is that the 
voice mail message received by service controller 202 is not an action 
message response (i.e, it is either an action message or a conventional 
voice mail message), then service controller 202 delivers the message to 
the recipient's received messages datebase 222 via the message retrieval 
and playback system 210, as shown in block 610. 
If an action message response is received by service controller 202, then 
block 612 is reached, and message retrieval and playback system 210 reads 
the message header so that the action type and action message ID are 
determined. Continuing with block 614, message retrieval and playback 
system 210 processes the response according to the selected action type 
and action message ID. 
For action types 1, 3, and 5, control is passed to block 622 where a 
counter is incremented for this type of action according to action message 
ID in a reply summary report. An illustrative reply summary report is 
shown in FIG. 9. A summary report may be generated upon request of the 
sender, after some predetermined interval, or after a predetermined number 
of recipients have responded. For example, a summary report may be 
prepared hourly, daily, or weekly, or perhaps 24 hours after a particular 
action message is sent by the sender. The summary report may be in audio 
or paper format as shown in blocks 626, 628 and 630 in FIG. 6. 
For action type 4, control is passed from block 614 to block 616 where an 
audio reply is routed to the sender's voice mailbox with a prepaid reply 
designation. Control is then passed to block 622 where the counter is 
incremented for this action type according to the message ID as described 
above. 
For action type 6, control is passed from block 614 to block 618 where 
numeric responses are tallied and the recipient's collected according to 
the message ID. Control is then passed to block 622 where the counter is 
incremented for this action type according to the message ID as described 
above. 
For action type 2, control is passed from block 614 to block 620 where both 
the action type and recipient addresses are collected. Control is then 
passed to block 622 where the counter is incremented for this action type 
according to the message ID as described above. 
FIG. 8 is an illustration of an exemplary action message reply record, in 
accordance with the principles of the invention. Those skilled in the art 
will appreciate that the reply record is one means of supplying the 
originating sender of the action message with a response to action 
message. An exemplary action message reply record is shown in FIG. 8. The 
reply record may be generated by message retrieval and playback system 
210, at the recipient's mailbox system, and added to a reply summary 
report as shown in block 624. The reply record includes nine fields. Field 
802 is used to identify the recipient of the action message response by 
voice mailbox ID. In accordance with the invention, the recipient of the 
action message response is the original sender of the action message. 
Similarly, field 804 is used to identify the sender of the action message 
response by voice mailbox ID. In accordance with the invention, the sender 
of the action message response is the recipient of the original action 
message. Fields 806 and 808 are used to indicate date and time of the 
response, respectively. 
Field 810 is used to indicate the status of the record as being either an 
action message, not an action message (i.e., a conventional voice mail 
message), or a reply to an action message. Those skilled in the art will 
appreciate that the use of field 810 allows the reply record to be used as 
a general record with applicability to more than simply action message 
responses. 
Field 812 indicates a unique action message ID. Field 814 indicates an 
action template number. As discussed above, templates are used to simplify 
or facilitate certain interactions with the voice mail system. Field 816 
is used to indicate the action type, and field 818 is used to communicate 
additional arguments or information as needed. It is emphasized that all 
the fields in FIG. 8 are illustrative, and are optionally utilized with 
the invention. 
FIG. 7 is an illustration of an exemplary action message file, in 
accordance with the principles of the invention. The action message file 
includes eight fields. Fields 702 to 714 correspond in format and function 
to fields 802 to 814 in FIG. 8. Field 716 is utilized to actually store 
the digitized audio message content portion of the action message, as well 
as the associated audio clips included in embedded action message 
responses. It is emphasized that all the fields in FIG. 7 are 
illustrative, and are optionally utilized with the invention. 
FIG. 9 is an exemplary action message reply summary report, in accordance 
with the principles of the invention. The reply summary report provides 
results achieved from the collection and tabulation of action message 
responses within a predefined time period or upon specific request of the 
sender. Accordingly, each action message reply record (FIG. 8) is used to 
create the results report. As shown in FIG. 9, for this illustrative 
report, the sender is informed as to the results of a particular action 
message that the sender created on a particular time and date, as shown in 
field 902. The template used by the sender is also identified. Field 904 
identifies the number of messages sent and responses received as of a 
particular status time. A tally for each option provided to the recipient 
is provided in fields 906, 908, and 910, as shown. Field 912 indicates 
that two recipients, identified by voice mail ID, have not yet responded 
to the action message.