초록 ▼

Recipients of a promotion broadcast over an essentially one-way mass medium are prompted to respond thereto through their telephone sets having different subscriber telephone numbers, and the task of handling the resulting mass response is divided into a call receiving phase and a subsequent respons

Recipients of a promotion broadcast over an essentially one-way mass medium are prompted to respond thereto through their telephone sets having different subscriber telephone numbers, and the task of handling the resulting mass response is divided into a call receiving phase and a subsequent response completing phase. Such call receiving phase is shortened relative to the response completing phase by automatically receiving calls of recipients using their telephone sets to respond to the broadcast promotion, electronically capturing the subscriber telephone numbers of the telephone sets through which these calls are made, and automatically confirming to substantially all callers while on line during these calls that their calls have been received. The response completing phase is subsequently carried out by using the electronically captured subscriber telephone numbers to call on multitudes of the telephone sets at a time, electronically prompting all persons who answer the calls on these multitudes of telephone sets to complete their responses to the broadcast promotion through their telephone sets while on line, and automatically receiving the completed responses while on line with these persons through their telephone sets. In one system embodiment, a plurality of subsystems are geographically distributed over a wide area, and each subsystem of the plurality carries out both the call receiving phase and the response completing phase for calls received by a particular subsystem. Each subsystem stores information generated by and received through such subsystem, and the stored information is polled from a centralized location.

대표청구항 ▼

A method of enhancing response to a broadcast promotion, comprising in combination the steps of: broadcasting said promotion over an essentially one-way mass medium; prompting recipients of that broadcast promotion to respond thereto through their telephone sets having different subscriber telephone

A method of enhancing response to a broadcast promotion, comprising in combination the steps of: broadcasting said promotion over an essentially one-way mass medium; prompting recipients of that broadcast promotion to respond thereto through their telephone sets having different subscriber telephone numbers; at a plurality of locations, automatically receiving calls of recipients using their telephone sets to respond to said broadcast promotion, electronically capturing the subscriber telephone numbers of the telephone sets through which said calls are made, and automatically confirming to substantially all callers while on line during said calls that their calls have been received; at said plurality of locations, subsequently using the electronically captured subscriber telephone numbers to call on multitudes of the telephone sets at a time, electronically prompting all persons who answer the calls on said multitudes of telephone sets to complete their responses to the broadcast promotion through their telephone sets while on line, and automatically receiving the completed responses while on line with said persons through their telephone sets; and communicating with said plurality of locations and polling information generated by said received calls and said returned calls.