Cisco Cisco Unified Customer Voice Portal 10.5(1) User Guide

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Chapter 1:
 Introduction 
Welcome to Cisco Unified Customer Voice Portal VoiceXML Server, the most robust platform 
for building exciting, dynamic VoiceXML-based voice applications. VoiceXML Server:  
    Allows users to build complex voice applications without requiring extensive knowledge of 
Java and VoiceXML.  
    Includes an easy, graphical interface for building voice applications and simplifies the tasks 
of building custom components that easily plug into the software’s modular architecture.  
    Provides the fastest, most error-free process for building professional, dynamic voice 
applications. 
This user guide introduces the process of building voice applications utilizing the various 
components of Unified CVP software. Its primary focus is to explain the concepts required to get 
the most out of one Unified CVP component, Unified CVP VoiceXML Server, while introducing 
the others. It will refer to additional documentation to fully describe other components. The 
reader just getting started with Unified CVP software should read at least the first few chapters to 
get an idea of the environment in which Unified CVP software revolves and some of the design 
of the Unified CVP platform.  
 
VoiceXML Overview 
Since its introduction in 2000, VoiceXML has quickly become the standard technology for 
deploying automated phone systems. To understand VoiceXML’s quick acceptance by 
enterprises, carriers and technology vendors, a brief overview of the traditional technologies used 
to develop interactive voice response systems is given. 
Limitations of Traditional IVR Technologies 
Despite investing millions of dollars in Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems, many 
organizations know that the applications responsible for handling automated customer service do 
not fulfill their business requirements. Organizations need their IVR to be as flexible and 
dynamic as the rest of their enterprise applications, but proprietary, one-size-fits-all solutions 
cannot easily support regular modifications or new corporate initiatives. Additionally, most of 
these IVR solutions are not speech enabled and upgrading to speech recognition on a traditional 
IVR platform is difficult and costly. 
Heightened customer expectations for fast, quality service and a consistent experience across 
phone and web contact channels are putting pressure on businesses to implement a higher quality 
IVR solution. However, due to their proprietary nature, traditional IVR systems do not allow the 
choice and flexibility necessary to meet the increasing demands of high expectation customers. 
While the limitations of a traditional IVR pose considerable challenges for many organizations,