Infographics

80s Flashback: Knight Rider. If you remember the show, then you’ll remember KITT, the car that could talk to its driver, Michael Knight. Was that a dialog system? Quite possibly. A dialog system is an automated computer-based system that can talk with a human being, much like another human being would talk.…

The fax machine has gone electronic! It all started in 1823 when English inventor, Francis Ronalds, built the first working electrostatic telegraph. Fast forward to 1833, to find Germans Carl Friedrich Gauss and Wilhelm Weber installing a telegraph line through Gottingen, Germany, that stretched for nearly a mile. The line transmitted messages…

Love the simplicity of calling your bank whenever you want and getting your account information from an automated teller rather than having to wait for assistance from a live operator? The ease of automation is brought to you by Interactive Voice Response, or IVR, which allows computers to interact with the human…

Headsets are a call center's best friend, providing clear communication and a hands free experience for customer care representatives. Originally invented in 1910, they make it possible for operators to talk and listen without having to hold a telephone receiver, which can get in the way of speedy customer service. Headsets usually…

The advent of the Private Automatic Branch Exchange, PABX or PBX for short, brought an end to the need for switchboard operators and manual cord circuit connections. PBXs enabled intercommunication between central office lines at an organization with a large number of telephones, and connected outgoing calls to the PSTN via trunk…

Do you like waiting in line? If you said yes, then we seriously question your judgment. The fact is that no one we know likes waiting in line. Whether you’re loitering around the Haunted Mansion ride at Disney, or camping outside of Best Buy at 3 a.m. on Black Friday hoping to…

Ever wonder how they handle customer service at the North Pole? Even Santa can't do it all. That's why he has elves! So we interviewed one. He drew us a picture and we posted it below. Happy Ho-Ho-Holidays from Specialty Answering Service! Copy the code below to use this infographic: [html] <img…

You know how when election time rolls around, you get those pre-recorded calls from candidates with a message about a bunch of campaign promises that they almost never keep following being voted in? Those calls are made by an invention called the Auto Dialer. An auto dialer can automatically make calls from…

Asterisk is more than just a pretty symbol you can use to bleep out foul language. It’s also software! Created in 1999 by Mark Spencer of Digium, Asterisk is an open source framework that turns regular computers into communications servers. That makes them able to interact with attached telephone lines and networks…

H.A.L. 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Lost in Space’s B-9, that sounded the warning, “Danger Will Robinson!” Number 5, the electrified robot from Short Circuit. What do these artificial life forms have in common? Movies with cheesy writing and bad graphics? No. Two words: speech synthesis. The first computer-based speech synthesis…