A new breed of inbound centers is starting to emerge – self-service centers. In tradition contact centers, all interaction between the customer and the center is done with human agents. However, in self-service centers a good portion of the load is being shifted toward non-human systems, such as automated response or even speech-enabled. This shift provides significant cost savings and faster response times to customer inquiries. Automated response systems enable the customer to use the keypad on their phone to answer questions by pushing buttons. Each button push brings them closer to the information they want. Automated response systems have been around for years, giving the customer access to simple (and common) information such as addresses, account balances, procedural instructions. These systems can also be used to route calls to the most appropriate agent able to answer the call. | 
