Xtend IVR
Xtend IVR is Rapid Application Development toolkit developed for automating customer transactions over phone. This toolkit has extensive support for telephony voice cards like PIKA, Ocha, Synway, Donjin, SIP, NMS, Diva Server, Ai-Logix, H.323, Dialogic, TAPI, Sangoma etc.
Xtend IVR Features
- Full-fledged developer edition
- TTS and speech recognition
- Highly scalable to 4000+ Ports
- Automatic call distribution
- Support for multi-lingual prompts
- Works with proprietary EPABX
Xtend IVR
Lottery Result Announcement
A lottery is a popular form of gambling which involves the drawing of lots for a prize. Lotteries are most often run by governments, local states
or private agencies. Some governments forbid it, while others endorse it to the extent of organising a national lottery. It is common
to find some degree of regulation of lottery by governments. Lotteries come in many formats. The prize can be fixed cash or goods. The prize may be guaranteed to be unique where each ticket sold has a unique number. The goal of some lottery ticket buyers may not be to win the game, but merely to have a thrill and indulge in a fantasy of possibly becoming wealthy.
Since lotteries are good money-making mechanisms for the conductors of the game, now there are weekly lotteries, monthly lotteries and seasonal jackpot lotteries. Weekly lotteries are drawn on a particular day of the week. Monthly lotteries are those conducted once in a month. Seasonal jackpot lotteries are those conducted only seasonally but they really carry huge prize amounts along with a jackpot prize such as car, motor bike, television, refrigerator, cooking range, washing machine etc. Naturally, the cost of a seasonal jackpot lottery ticket will be very high.
Present Scenario
At present, a lottery ticket buyer can come to know about the result of a draw only in three ways - (i) through a Government Gazette, if it is a government lottery (ii) through daily newspaper, if the results are published in print media and (iii) through a lottery agent, if a copy of the results is provided. There are disadvantages for all these three ways of knowing the lottery results.
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Through a Government Gazette, if it is a government lottery : If a lottery ticket buyer buys a government lottery, the best way of knowing the accurate results is to refer the gazette (that is what the government says!). The government, in their terms and conditions on the lottery ticket, will say that you should refer the gazette to ensure the accuracy of the results. But, for a common man, it is very difficult to find a gazette in a public place. He has to go to the District Collectorate or Information Centre or a public library to refer a gazette. Also, he has to find time in his daily busy schedule for this. Even if he does so, it is not easy to get a gazette for reference because only one or two copies will be available at a place. Since the gazette contains not only the lottery results but also all those things related to government activities, you may find a queue for referring the gazette.
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Through daily newspaper, if the results are published in print media :
Provided the lottery results are published in a print media by the agency, government or private, the ticket buyer will get the results at his doorstep. But, usually the results will appear in a newspaper on the next day or two days after they are drawn. This is because of the delay in communication between the print media and the public relations office of the agency. Also, the results published in a print media are not fully reliable because there are chances for errors. That is why, the agencies mention in the terms and conditions of their lottery tickets to refer other reliable sources also before claiming the prize. To get an older result, you will have to keep the newspapers in a safe place and in order. -
Through a lottery agent, if a copy of the results is provided :
Mostly, the lottery agent will be using the same newspaper cuttings as his reference until his copy arrives from the agency. The agent will get his copy late into his hands due to the delay in posting. The results published in a print media are not fully reliable because there are chances for the manipulation. So, the agencies ask the buyer, through the terms and conditions of the lottery ticket, to refer other reliable sources before claiming the prize. If you are looking for the result of a draw held a few weeks back, the agent may not have the archives.
Role of an IVR System in Lottery Result Announcement
An IVR system can be used to retrieve information on lottery results. A common man can get the lottery results by keying in some numbers through an ordinary telephone. Let us see two examples on how it works. Some lotteries are conducted in a single series and some are conducted in multiple series. The first example is a simple one with single series and the second one is that of multiple series.
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Example-1: Single Series Lottery - Let us assume that an agency has implemented an IVR system for single series lottery results announcement. When a person dials the number, he is automatically taken into the IVR system because the telephone line is connected directly to it. After the welcome message, the system will ask the caller to enter the date of draw and then the lottery ticket number. If the number has won a prize, the caller will get a message that he has won a prize. Otherwise, it will say that there is no prize for this number.
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Example-2: Multiple Series Lottery - Let us assume that an agency has implemented an IVR system for multiple series lottery results announcement. When a person dials the number, he is automatically taken into the IVR system because the telephone line is connected directly to it. He gets a message saying "Welcome to the agencies' Automatic Lottery Result Announcement System".
Now, he will be asked to enter the date of draw. If the date of draw is 16th of January 2005, he has to key in the date as 16012005 (dd-mm-yyyy format). The system will read out the 'keyed-in' date and the caller will be asked to press 1 if the date is correct or press 2 to re-enter the date. Suppose this particular lottery was conducted in three series PA, PB and PC, now the person is asked to press 1 if his ticket number starts with PA, press 2 if it starts with PB and press 3 if it starts with PC. Again, the caller is asked to confirm the series as done previously in the case of date of draw.
The IVR system will now ask the caller to key-in the ticket number. The system will read out the keyed-in number and will ask the caller to press 1 if the number is correct or press 2 to re-enter the number. If the number is invalid, the system will say "Invalid Number! Thank You for using our Automatic Lottery Result Announcement System" and will exit from the system.
If the ticket number has won a prize it will say "Congratulations! You have won a prize worth so and so rupees." If there is no prize it will say "Sorry! You have no prize this time. Try your luck next time." Then, the system will ask the caller to press 1 if he wants to get information on how to claim the prize he has won or press 2 to exit from the system. Finally, when the caller exits, he will get a message "Thank You for using our Automatic Lottery Result Announcement System."