Patent ID: 7881703

Claim:
A method of permitting a mobile phone associated with a subscriber to locally perform an action on the mobile phone, wherein the subscriber's mobile phone is coupled wirelessly to a wireless cellular network, wherein the wireless cellular network is coupled to a customer support call center, and wherein the wireless cellular network is also coupled to a server configured to receive calls, the method comprising: receiving at the server an indication of a voice call from the subscriber's mobile phone, wherein the subscriber's voice call is associated with a request for information or assistance; determining at the server whether the subscriber's voice call should be intercepted and handled automatically by the mobile phone; if the subscriber's voice call is not to be intercepted, then allowing the subscriber's voice call to continue for processing by the customer support call center; if the subscriber's voice call is to be intercepted, then intercepting the subscriber's call and redirecting or rerouting the subscriber's call back to the mobile phone for local processing at the mobile phone, wherein the redirecting or rerouting of the subscriber's call is performed after a voice call connection is indicated to the server via the wireless cellular network; wherein the server is a customer support call center server that employs a software application to automatically processes requests for information or assistance that are directed to the customer support call center server from mobile phones, or the server is a proxy call center server that automatically responds to voice call requests for information or assistance; wherein the indication of the voice call from the subscriber's mobile phone received at the server includes receiving access information to facilitate routing of messages back to the mobile phone; wherein the redirecting or rerouting of the subscriber's call back to the mobile phone includes sending a message back to the mobile phone; wherein the message is sent back to the mobile phone via short message service (SMS), unstructured supplementary service data (USSD) or a network signaling technology; and, wherein after receiving the sent message, the mobile phone locally performs an action on the mobile phone so that the customer's voice call to the customer support call center is converted into the action to be performed locally on the mobile phone.