Patent ID: 8885799

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving at an interactive voice processing system an affirmative response from a calling party to an offer from an operator service to use instant communications to contact a called party at a communication station, wherein the operator service is part of the interactive voice processing system and the operator service is performed manually by a human operator, or automatically by interactive voice response, and wherein the offer is provided after the calling party uses the operator service in a failed attempt to establish communication with the called party other than with the instant communications; requesting, by the interactive voice processing system, presence information regarding the called party from an intelligent presence gateway; determining by the intelligent presence gateway to obtain the presence information from a presence server that maintains the presence information; determining by the intelligent presence gateway to obtain a capability attribute associated with the communication station from a capabilities server; and determining to receive the presence information and the capability attribute at the interactive voice processing system from the intelligent presence gateway, wherein an instant communication session is established when the capability attribute associated with the communication station indicates that the communication station can engage in instant communication.