Patent ID: 7606726

Claim:
A computerized surveying system for collecting survey information comprising: a communication device that initiates establishment of a communication channel between the system and a survey participant for presenting a question to the survey participant about a product, a service, or a product and a service with which the survey participant has experience; a server for serving a first questioning series of core item questions developed to elicit feedback from the survey participant regarding the product, service, or product and service; and wherein said server is also for serving a second questioning series of drill-down questions, wherein each one of the drill-down questions is associated with one of the core item questions or another drill-down question and is presented only when a response to the associated question meets a specified criterion; an interactive voice recognition unit including a computer for executing software for providing said questions to the survey participant in a verbal manner, wherein said interactive voice recognition unit also receives the responses to said questions in a verbal manner; a database server for storing survey participant answers to said core item questions and/or said drill-down questions communicated to the interactive voice recognition unit via the communication channel established for presenting the question to the survey participant; and a survey presentation unit including a computer for executing software for automatically formatting and presenting said survey participant answers as a survey result to a user, wherein a verbatim question is served to the survey participant by said server when a response to a previous question meets a specified criterion but no verbatim question is provided if the response does not meet the specified criterion, and wherein said survey system includes a voice recorder for digitally recording said verbatim answer given by the survey participant for audio playback to the user.