Patent ID: 7684989

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 where 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; an application administration server that is part of the IVR environment, for handling the incoming telephone call and routing it to an IVR application server with a voice user interface; and an ACD gateway server, located within the application system site or call center field site connecting an auto call distributor (ACD) to the respective call router, wherein a request for a customer service agent is directed by the respective call router to an agent based on real-time availability of the agents.