Abstract:
Dialing a telephone number of an organization and coming across
an automated system attending the call, instead of a human, has become
common. These automated applications are known as Interactive
Voice Response (IVR) systems. IVR system provides 24x7
connectivity to an organization and many critical applications like
customer care services and call routing run on IVR. Thus, it is important
to have well tested IVR applications with all the necessary
optimization tested by the IVR developers. A variety of tools available
to test the IVR system at the infrastructure and system levels.
However, a lack of testing tools at the application level, often forces
developers to write their own customized test scripts or manually
test the system. Manual testing is time consuming as it involves
actually calling and listening to how an IVR application behaves.
In this paper, we present MockTell, a tool for the call emulation
with ability to mimic user behavior. MockTell has ability to dial a
phone number, listen to a voice prompt, enter the required DTMF1
or recorded speech input for testing IVR applications. MockTell
can also use data generated from real world calls for call emulation.
Mimicking user behavior provides the ability to optimize and
evaluate the performance of IVR applications. MockTell also enables
developers and researchers to automate various other application
tests as well, thus providing a complete testing tool for IVR
applications.