Automated testing of interactive voice response applications

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.