Abstract:
A Mobile Direct Self Service (MDSS) mobile device incorporating a mobile contacts outdialer and method thereof. The MDSS mobile device may include a connection application operable to connect to at least one contact device. The connection application may include a launch interface that displays a representation of the at least one contact device, a selection interface that allows a user of the MDSS mobile device to select one or more of the at least one contact device, and a contact protocol operable to communicate with the selected at least one contact device. The multimedia application may be operable to present a multimedia presentation to the selected at least one contact device, wherein the multimedia application is further operable to solicit and collect one or more responses from the at least one contact device to the multimedia presentation.

Description:
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS 
     This application is a continuation from U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/138,465, filed Jun. 13, 2008, and entitled MOBILE CONTACTS OUTDIALER AND METHOD THEREOF, which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety. 
    
    
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     The present invention relates to a system and method for mobile device communication. More particularly, the present invention relates to a mobile contacts outdialer and method thereof for contacting a user from the mobile device, presenting a multimedia presentation to the user, and soliciting and collecting input from the user in response to the multimedia presentation. 
     In telephony, Interactive Voice Response (IVR) is a technology that allows a computer to detect voice and touch tones in a telephone call. 
     Many companies employ systems based on IVR technology to process and route telephone calls originating from their respective customers. Examples include telephone banking, televoting, and credit card transactions. IVR systems are typically used to service high call volumes, reduce cost and improve the customer experience. 
     If a customer dials a telephone number that is answered by an IVR system, the system executes an application that responds to the customer/caller with pre-recorded or dynamically generated audio files. These audio files explain the options available to the caller and direct the caller on how to proceed. The caller selects an option by using spoken words or Dual-Tone Multi-Frequency (DMTF) tones, e.g., telephone keypad touch tones. 
     Modern IVR applications are structured similar to World Wide Web pages, using languages such as VoiceXML. Other languages may include, for example, SALT or T-XML. 
     Since many companies do not have their own IVR platforms, they typically turn to outsourcing companies or vendors to either host their VoiceXML application or manage the application as a whole. An example of such a hosted environment is shown in  FIG. 1 . 
     The hosted environment shown in  FIG. 1  may include end user devices, such as a mobile device  105  or a land-line phone  110 ; hosted vendor systems  115 ; and client systems  120 . The mobile device  105 , such as a cellular phone, PDA, or iPhone, and/or the land-line phone  110  may communicate with the hosted vendor systems  115  via a telephony interface  125 . The telephony interface  125 , in turn, interacts with a VoiceXML browser  130 , a MRCP TTS Server  135 , and a MRCP Speech Recognition Server  140 , all of which are part of the hosted vendor systems  115 . 
     The VoiceXML browser  130  may be a web browser that presents an interactive voice user interface to the user and that operates on pages that specify voice dialogs. These pages may be written in VoiceXML language, which is the W3C&#39;s standard voice dialog markup language, but other proprietary voice dialog languages may be used. The VoiceXML browser  130  may present information aurally, using pre-recorded audio file playback or using Text-To-Speech (TTS) software to render textual information as audio. Further, the VoiceXML browser  130  may obtain information from the end user of the mobile device  105  and/or the land-line phone  110  by speech recognition and keypad entry, e.g., DTMF detection. 
     The VoiceXML browser  130  interacts with the MRCP TTS Server  135  and the MRCP Speech Recognition Server  140 . MRCP stands for Media Resource Control Protocol, which is a communication protocol that allows speech servers to provide various speech services, such as speech recognition, speech synthesis, and TTS to its clients. The MRCP TTS Server  135  provides TTS services to its clients, and the MRCP Speech Recognition Server  140  provides speech recognition services to its clients. 
     Computer Telephone Integration (CTI) data are sent from the hosted vendor systems  115  to a CTI Management Server  145 . CTI is a technology that allows interactions on a telephone and a computer to be integrated or coordinated. As contact channels have expanded from voice to email, web, and fax, CTI has expanded to include the integration of all customer contact channels (voice, email, web, fax, etc.) with computer systems. Common functions that may be implemented using CTI are, for example, call routing, call information display with or without using calling line data, phone control (answer, hang up, hold, conference, etc.), automatic dialing and computer-controlled dialing, etc. 
     Furthermore, application requests are sent from the VoiceXML Browser  130  to a VoiceXML Application Server  150 , and the requested VoiceXML application is delivered from the VoiceXML Application Server  150  to the VoiceXML Server  130 . The CTI Management Server  145  and the VoiceXML Application Server  150  are both part of the client systems  120 . 
     More and more people use intelligent mobile devices, such as cellular phones, PDAs, or iPhones, as a means of communication. These intelligent mobile devices become more and more sophisticated due to, for example, increased computing power or memory capacity, and due to, for example, the availability of mobile Software Development Kits (SDKs), such as J2ME or Apple&#39;s iPhone SDK. This may lead to decreased reliance on teleservices companies that are built on standard telephony technology. More particularly, this may lead to decreased reliance on hosted environments for IVR applications, for example. 
     BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     The present invention, in exemplary embodiments, overcomes the above disadvantages and other disadvantages not described above. Also, the present invention is not required to overcome the disadvantages described above, and an exemplary embodiment of the present invention may not overcome any of the problems described above. 
     Thus, in one aspect, the present invention is directed to a Mobile Direct Self Service (MDSS) mobile device that may include a connection application and a multimedia application. The connection application may be operable to connect to at least one contact device, and may comprise: a launch interface that displays a representation of the at least one contact device; a selection interface that allows a user of the MDSS mobile device to select one or more of the at least one contact device; and a contact protocol operable to communicate with the selected at least one contact device. 
     The multimedia application of the MDSS mobile device may be operable to present a multimedia presentation to the selected at least one contact device, wherein the multimedia application is further operable to solicit and collect one or more responses from the at least one contact device to the multimedia presentation. 
     In another aspect, the present invention is directed to a method for Mobile Direct Self Service (MDSS) mobile device communication. In this aspect, the method may comprise: displaying a representation of at least one contact device on a display of the MDSS mobile device; selecting one or more of the at least one contact device from the displayed representation; establishing a communication link between the MDSS mobile device and the selected at least one contact device; presenting a multimedia presentation to the selected at least one contact device; and soliciting and collecting one or more responses from the at least one contact device to the multimedia presentation. 
     In yet another aspect, the present invention is directed to a computer readable medium comprising instructions that implement the aforementioned method of the invention. 
     The present invention may allow companies requiring only a basic, DTMF-only IVR application to host their VoiceXML application on their existing web infrastructure and provide users of mobile devices access to the same IVR functionality that would normally need to be provided by an outsourced vendor. Companies requiring more advanced features as part of their IVR application may still benefit from the present invention by moving the call handling and VoiceXML processing off of a hosted platform and only using an outsourced vendor to perform advanced features such as speech recognition, natural language, or text-to-speech. Alternatively, the present invention may allow companies to move both basic, DTMF-only IVR applications and IVR applications with advanced features off of the hosted platform to their existing web infrastructure. Further, the present invention may allow companies to solicit feedback from multimedia surveys of consumers or other users by using the mobile contacts outdialer of the invention. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWING 
       In the following section, the invention will be described with reference to exemplary embodiments illustrated in the attached Figures, in which: 
         FIG. 1  illustrates a hosted environment for IVR applications as it may be known in the related art; 
         FIG. 2  illustrates a Mobile Direct Self Service (MDSS) system in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention; 
         FIG. 3  illustrates a MDSS VoiceXML Navigation situation in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention; 
         FIG. 4  illustrates incorporation of multimedia data into MDSS in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention; 
         FIG. 5  illustrates a method in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention; and 
         FIG. 6  illustrates a method in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
     Reference will now be made in detail to exemplary embodiments of the present invention, examples of which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings. 
     Given the rapidly increasing processing power of mobile devices and the availability of mobile SDKs, a hosted application browser of the related art, such as a hosted VoiceXML browser, may be moved directly to an end user&#39;s mobile device. In other words, an application browser, such as a VoiceXML browser, and other, associated components may be deployed as a mobile application and implemented on the mobile device to allow a VoiceXML application to be processed directly on the mobile device. This concept may also be known as Mobile Direct Self Service (MDSS). 
     MDSS may provide the benefit of reduced cost or, in the case of simple applications, no hosting cost to companies, for example. In addition, the end-user features that MDSS provides may allow applications to become more user-friendly. 
       FIG. 2  illustrates a MDSS system in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention. 
     As shown in  FIG. 2 , a mobile device  205  communicates with client systems  210  and media resource systems  215  of a vendor. The mobile device  205  may include an Application Browser  220  that interacts with a CTI Manager  225  and a Media Resource Gateway  230 . The CTI Manager  225  and the Media Resource Gateway  230  may also be included in the mobile device  205 . These components may utilize the mobile device&#39;s  205  mobile broadband or wireless connection to communicate with the client systems  210  or the service vendor&#39;s media resource systems  215 . The mobile device  205  may be, for example, a cellular phone, a PDA, or an iPhone, and may operate, for example, in a CDMA or GSM network. The mobile device  205  may also include a GPS component  235  to provide, for example, location-based services to the user of the mobile device  205 . 
     As is the case in the related art, the client systems  210  may include a VoiceXML Application Server  240  and a CTI Management Server  245 . The vendor&#39;s media resources systems  215  may include an MRCP Speech Recognition Server  250 , a Media Resource Gateway  255 , and a MRCP TTS Server  260 . 
     The Application Browser  220  of the mobile device  205  may be a VoiceXML 2.1 compliant browser with a minimal memory footprint and minimal processing overhead. Unlike the VoiceXML browsers used in a hosted environment in the related art, the Application Browser or VoiceXML browser  220  may only need to be able to handle one call. Therefore, the required processing power is significantly reduced. In addition, the VoiceXML browser  220  may be able to handle a majority of the call flow required to provide an IVR application to the user of the mobile device  205 . The VoiceXML browser  220  may send application requests to the VoiceXML Application Server  240 , and the requested VoiceXML application may be delivered from the VoiceXML Application Server  240  to the VoiceXML browser  220 . 
     The CTI Manager  225  may communicate important telephony events to the client systems  210 , in particular to the CTI Management Server  245 . Such telephony events may include, for example, set up, deliver (ringing), establish (answer), clear (hang up), end, hold, retrieve from hold, conference, transfer, forward, etc. When a legitimate call is being processed on the mobile device  205 , the CTI data provided by the CTI Manager  225  may be used, in conjunction with data of the VoiceXML Application Server  240 , to authorize access to advanced MRCP features. The advanced MRCP features may include automatic speech recognition (ASR) that may be provided by the MRCP Speech Recognition Server  250  or Text-To-Speech (TTS) that may be provided by the MRCP TTS Server  260 , for example. Proper authentication may be important because MRCP features may be charged per transaction by the vendor. Also, the CTI Manager  225  may be important with respect to transfers. Transfers that usually depend on a carrier&#39;s advanced features may need to be implemented by other means, so it may be necessary for User-to-User Information (UUI) and other call data to be transferred out-of-band. 
     The Media Resource Gateway  255  may provide advanced services, such as ASR or TTS to the application, by bridging communication between the VoiceXML browser  220  and the MRCP services. As part of authorizing communication to media resources, MRCP requests from the Voice XML browser  220  may be directed through the Media Resource Gateway  255 . The gateway layer may handle authentication and then host the MRCP communication through the established channel. If the mobile device  205  is capable of processing speech or generating TTS on its own, resources not requiring vendor-specific handling may be passed off to the mobile device  205  by the Media Resource Gateways  230 ,  255 , thereby saving the application provider additional advanced service fees. 
     To facilitate the configuration of MDSS components prior to running a vxml document, a Mobile Direct Self Service file (.mdss) may be used. This file may be an xml-based configuration file that contains the configuration settings of the Media Resource Gateways  230 ,  255  and the CTI Manager  225  as well as the URL of the intended VoiceXML target. 
     Having a unique file type for voice applications targeted to mobile devices may also be useful in allowing seamless integration of MDSS into a web environment. A mobile device may automatically launch the MDSS application when the user follows a link that provides MDSS content. The format of such a file may be defined, published and validated via standard xml validation methods. 
     Simple blind transfers may be accomplished by allowing the MDSS application to access the phone&#39;s system APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) to simply dial the transfer number. More complicated transfers may require functions that may be unavailable within the realm of the mobile device&#39;s capabilities on the mobile carrier&#39;s network. To implement these transfers may require dialing a toll-free number that has carrier-advanced features and then utilizing CTI data to execute the transfer. 
     The following may be exemplary applications of MDSS that may be advantageous to, for example, the end users, vendors, service providers, companies and clients involved. 
     With respect to access to IVR applications, in the case of MDSS, the user may be allowed to access applications via web URLs rather than phone numbers. A client&#39;s site may list individual URLs for each subsection of their application, giving the user direct access to billing or technical support features, without the need for the client to have individual phone numbers for each service. Having direct access to the VoiceXML interpretation allows the user to easily “pause” the IVR, and it may be relatively simple to provide a complete range of controls a user would normally be accustomed to with other media, such as fast forward, rewind, etc. 
     Instead of having to rely on the application&#39;s menu repeat options, the user may interact with the browser instructing it to scan through a prompt in reverse, go back to the beginning of the current prompt or menu, or even go to a previous menu and either accept the user&#39;s original response again or provide new input. To support such features, when it comes to application reporting, it may be beneficial to create new VoiceXML events that the browser can handle, so reporting can accurately reflect the user&#39;s navigation.  FIG. 3  shows an exemplary illustration of MDSS VoiceXML Navigation. 
     Having direct access to the call flow data may allow implementing user-defined hotkeys or “bookmarks” in a VoiceXML application. If the user would like to return to a portion of an application at a later time, he or she may press a hotkey capture button, which may then suspend the running VoiceXML application. The MDSS browser may store the current state and the input required to reach that state. After speaking or entering a bookmark identifier, the application may resume normally. At a later time, the user may request access to the bookmark, and this may instruct MDSS to run load the application and automatically proceed to the bookmarked state if modifications to the applications do not prevent it. In the case where the application has been modified, MDSS may provide a message to the user indicating the bookmark needs to be updated; present the user with the prompt where the application changed; and wait for the user to indicate that he or she has once again reached the point in the application the user wishes to bookmark. 
     Location-based services is another area in which having the MDSS browser running directly on the mobile device may be of advantage. Providing location-based information to customers may mean to add more value in the mobile realm. Rather than relying on complicated data exchanges to determine the location of the caller, the browser may directly access the device&#39;s GPS coordinates and pass them on to the application server. This may all be done as part of the initial request to the application server. Self-service applications may then be catered for the caller&#39;s current location prior to even the first prompt. 
     Multimedia resources, as illustrated, for example, in  FIG. 4 , may be referenced within the VoiceXML application, allowing the mobile device to display supplemental data during the progress of the call. This may be utilized by providing an image of the caller&#39;s current billing statement when the caller requests payment information; by providing a video clip of the steps required to reset a satellite receiver when the caller is requesting technical support; or even by launching a web page with a registration form when the caller wants to enroll in some special program. There may also be the branding aspect that may be important to many companies, so a company logo, customer notifications, or advertising may be displayed on the mobile device while working with their IVR. 
     In the VoIP world, it may be common for a conference call to be presented along with video conferencing or a shared desktop for a presentation. MDSS may add functionality in the voice self-service world because the multimedia may also interact back with the IVR. For example, if the caller has a question about their bill, MDSS may display the caller&#39;s recent billing statement on the screen and allow the user to select the billing line-item the caller has a question about and say “What is this charge”? Again, due to the fact that the VoiceXML interpretation is happening locally on the caller&#39;s phone, the act of selecting an item on the screen may be passed to the browser as input without complex data exchanges. This sort of interaction may be simplified because MDSS is just a single application that accepts multiple forms of input. 
     MDSS may be an industry standard that may be implemented by mobile device builders as part of their devices&#39; core features. 
     There may be several versions of MDSS to support various mobile device architectures. Open development environments like J2ME may aid in that sort of development, but each device may require its own special development for its unique features or hardware. 
       FIG. 5  illustrates a method in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention. In step  510 , an application browser that is implemented on an MDSS mobile device may request an application from an application server. The application browser may be a VoiceXML browser; the application may be a VoiceXML application; and the application server may be a VoiceXML application server. 
     In step  520 , a CTI manager may provide CTI data. The CTI manager may also be implemented on the MDSS mobile device. The CTI data, in conjunction with data from the application server, may authorize access to advanced MRCP services such as ASR or TTS. 
     In step  530 , the advanced MRCP services may be provided to the application that was requested by the application browser. The advanced MRCP services may be provided by a media resource gateway. 
       FIG. 6  illustrates another method in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention. In step  610 , a MDSS mobile device displays a representation of at least one contact device on a display of the MDSS mobile device. In step  620 , a user of the MDSS mobile device may select one or more of the contact devices from the displayed representation. Further, at step  630 , a communication link may be established between the MDSS mobile device and the selected contact devices. 
     Once the communication link has been established, at step  640 , the user of the contact device may be presented with a multimedia presentation. This may include, for example, a telephone voice recording, or even a video. 
     In step  650 , the user of the contact device may be solicited for input regarding the content of the multimedia presentation. This can include, for example, any number of solicited responses known in the art. Further, the results of the solicitation may also be collected. 
     As will be recognized by those skilled in the art, the innovative concepts described in the present application can be modified and varied over a wide range of applications. Accordingly, the scope of patented subject matter should not be limited to any of the specific exemplary teachings discussed above, but is instead defined by the following claims.