Patent ID: 7260537

Claim:
Within an interactive voice response system, a method of automatically disambiguating results presented to a user comprising: determining the identity of a user within an interactive voice response session; receiving user inputs in response to presenting menu options during the interactive voice response session, wherein said presented menu options specify at least one of a plurality of hierarchical nodes of the voice response menu hierarchy, wherein each of said nodes corresponds to points within the interactive voice response menu hierarchy at which the user can choose to traverse one or more child nodes, wherein said user inputs specify at least one among a user selection of one of said presented menu options and a user query of said nodes of said voice response menu hierarchy; storing historical information specifying the received user inputs within a profile associated with the identity of the user, wherein the user profile specifies at least one among a path that was traversed during the interactive voice response session and at least a portion of a user query recognized during the interactive voice response session, wherein the path being specified by at least one branch indicator links a parent node and a child node; for at least one subsequent input from the user, identifying the historical information associated with the identity of the user; and using the historical information to reduce a number of possible nodes from the interactive voice response menu hierarchy which are presented to the user, wherein the number of possible selections is reduced in response to at least one among a current path matching a path specified in the user profile and a current query matching a recognized query specified in the user profile.