Patent ID: 7889858

Claim:
A method for creating a caller preference database for use in determining a listening preference of a caller, comprising the steps of: receiving a call from the caller; identifying the telephone number of the call; determining whether it is necessary to place the caller in a hold queue; determining whether the caller desires to hear listening options while in the hold queue; when the caller desires to hear the listening options, determining whether the identified telephone number is currently in the database, and when the determination is that the identified telephone number is currently in the database, determining whether a listener with the identified telephone number currently in a listeners' record in the database desires to make changes to currently existing listener choices in the listeners' record and storing the changes in the listeners' record; when the caller desires to hear the listening options and the identified telephone number is not currently in the database, creating a record for the identified telephone number, the record comprising fields for the area code of the identified telephone number, the identified telephone number, and the listening preference of the caller; presenting the listening options to the caller; detecting a listening option selected by the caller from the presented listening options; recording the listening option selected by the caller in a caller listening preference field of the created record; storing the created record in the database in a location based on the area code of the identified telephone number, the database having a set of sub-directories based on the exchange and extension code of the telephone numbers of callers and the listening options; and repeating said steps for each newly identified telephone number of received calls.