Story Time Through IVR

While the most common use of IVR is for customer service and call routing, some companies are utilizing the technology for entertainment purposes.  Indian cellular provider Reliance Mobile has introduced a children's story telling IVR system.  Through the system, a user can select from many of India's most famous folk tales narrated in one of ten common languages for a small per minute fee.  In addition, a subscriber can select one of the stories as a caller tune for their phone.  Caller tunes play a specific song or track rather than a ringer when someone is trying to connect with a user by phone.  This serves as a form of entertainment for the caller, like on-hold music, while the connection is being established.

Although it may seem like a rather unimportant product, this and others like it are examples of non-traditional uses of IVR systems and their ability to generate revenue.  In the United States, IVR has been employed for some entertainment purposes but not to the extent that it has been applied in European and Asian countries.  This specific type of product might not work in the US, but a variation of it could be a hit with certain customers and/or demographics.  It's hard to gauge the market for IVR-as-entertainment in the US but for now it appears to be a potential opportunity for development in India.  Development of these types of IVR applications will help diversify the industry and allow it to live longer in a world where disruptive technology can change the world overnight.