Patent ID: 8010365

Claim:
A system for providing interactive voice response (IVR) capability together with a plurality of application systems comprising: a first primary application system at a first site and a redundant second application system at a geographically remote and distinct second site, wherein the first and second site are connected through at least one of a wide area network connection and a dedicated point to point link, for the exchange of data; and the first and second application systems, each comprising: a call router in communication with an interexchange carrier routing an incoming telephone call to the first application system or the second application system based on the real- time availability of IVR call handling resources within the first application system and the second application system, wherein during a failover situation, at least one subsequent incoming telephone call from the interexchange carrier is routed to the redundant second application system at the distinct second site, wherein the second site completes an IVR session with the subsequent incoming call from the interexchange carrier, and wherein both the first site and the second site utilize IVR applications and resources; an IVR environment comprising a plurality of IVR call handling resources, including at least a telephony server and a speech recognition system connected to the interexchange carrier through the telephony server, wherein the IVR environment receives an incoming telephone call and implements the IVR session using the IVR call handling resources within one of the first application system at the first site and the second application system at the second site to handle the incoming telephone call; and an auto call distribution server (ACD), wherein a request for a customer service agent is connected by the ACD to an agent based on real-time availability of the agents.