Part IV c: Restaurant Guide

Capture Boxes and Search Boxes can be used to list restaurants -as in "Press 1 for for a French Restaurant, press 2 for Italian". Callers can locate restaurants in given parts of town, and/or by price range, etc. If interested in a selection, they can request to hear the exact location and directions.  If you have call transfer, 3 way calling, or bridging available  the caller can even be automatically connected to the restaurant to make a reservation.

The first step is to plan your call routing 'tree'. For example:

Callers can hear a greeting "Thank you for calling the restaurant hotline. To tell us the type of restaurant you are interested in, press 1. To leave us a message, press 2."

When the caller presses a 1, they will be sent to a search box where they will be asked questions about the type of restaurant they want to visit. These questions will mirror questions you have set up in a capture box where the restaurant greetings and question answers are 'captured'.

Question number 1 could be - "For an Italian restaurant press 1, for French press 2, for Chinese press 3 if you do not care about the type of food, press the star key (checking 'allow wild card' in the search box will allow the entry of the asterisk (star) and will play ALL restaurants, regardless of how this question was answered in the capture box.

Question number 2 could be - "For expensive restaurants press 1, for   medium priced restaurants press 2, for inexpensive restaurants press 3, or if you do not care about price, press the star key".

If the caller presses a star in question 1 and a 3 in question 2, they will hear all inexpensive restaurants on your system, regardless of food type. If they press a 1 in question 1 and a 1 in question 2, they will hear all expensive Italian restaurants on your system.

Restaurants can be listed on your system (that is, entered in a capture box) by 2 different methods. You can enter them yourself from the screen under Messages, then Screening Box Messages, or you can allow restaurant owners to call in and enter their own information. If you are doing it from the screen, you would create a Mailbox first, for each restaurant. Then under the Screening Box Message screen, you will record the description for the restaurant "Le Cirque is a fine 30 year old restaurant, specializing in haute cuisine French food. Average dinner prices are approximately $50 per person, not including wine. Reservations are required at least 2 weeks in advance. Suits or jackets are required for men." Answer the questions appropriately and attach the mailbox number you have assigned this restaurant.

If you are allowing the restaurant owners to create their own, you will want some type of control. The search box would be set to only play 'approved' messages from the accompanying capture box (check 'require validation' in the search box).

If you purchase the Fax Talker option, callers can even request that a menu be faxed to them (a fax box would be attached to the survey description under screening box messages in addition to the mailbox).

With Caller Id available on your phone lines, you can purchase a special voice board that will detect the information sent from the phone company. You can then direct your caller automatically to the nearest pizza delivery service, for example. You would choose the first six digits (area code and prefix) in an access box set to capture caller id. Then, list all the 6 digit numbers you might receive and direct them to capture boxes that would play the different close-by pizza services available.