Patent ID: 7050560

Claim:
A method of providing a caller with a directory assistance dialog, the dialog being switchable from an automated speech recognition (ASR) path to an operator-assisted (OP) path, comprising: providing a series of ASR sub-dialogs, the sub-dialogs including at least a sub-dialog operable to perform each of the following tasks: prompting the caller for a location response and applying ASR to the location response, and prompting the caller for a listing response and applying ASR to the listing response; after each ASR sub-dialog, branching to the OP path if the ASR for that sub-dialog is not successful; and providing a particular configuration switch after a particular ASR sub-dialog having a particular prompt that could be set to cause the remaining dialog to branch to the OP path even if the ASR applied to the caller's response to the particular prompt is successful, such that after the step of applying the ASR to the caller's response to the particular prompt, and before a remaining prompting step, there are both a conditional decision based on the success or failure of the applying step, and an application of the particular configuration switch; wherein the particular configuration switch is controlled based at least on ASR success rates for previously received caller responses to an ASR prompt following the particular prompt in the series of ASR sub-dialogs.