Intelligent time slot recommendation for interactive voice response (IVR) systems

A system configured to provide an interactive voice response, the system comprising:

• a telephone interface configured to receive a call from a caller;
• and
• one or more processors configured to execute computer program instructions to:
• receive from the caller a caller preferred choice for an appointment, the caller preferred choice including a date and a time for the appointment;
• determine that the caller preferred choice for the appointment is not available;
• evaluate, using a set of heuristic evaluations, each of a plurality of available time slots individually to generate a plurality of intermediate results for each of the plurality of available time slots to be used for the appointment, each intermediate result having a weight associated with a corresponding heuristic evaluation, wherein at least one of the weights associated with a corresponding heuristic evaluation is an assigned initial weight that is adjustable based on information received from the caller;
• for each of the plurality of available time slots, aggregate the plurality of intermediate results using multiplicative weightings based on respective weights associated with the corresponding heuristic evaluations to produce aggregated results;
• generate a ranked list of candidate time slots for the appointment based on the aggregated results;
• and
• prompt the caller for a selection from the ranked list of candidate time slots.

A non-transitory computer readable storage media encoded with software comprising computer executable instructions and when the software is executed operable to:

• receive a call from a caller at an interactive voice response server;
• receive from the caller information indicating a caller preferred choice for an appointment, the caller preferred choice including a date and a time for the appointment;
• determine that the caller preferred choice for the appointment is not available;
• evaluate, using a set of heuristic evaluations, each of a plurality of available time slots individually to generate a plurality of intermediate results for each of the plurality of available time slots to be used for the appointment, each intermediate result having a weight associated with a corresponding heuristic evaluation, wherein at least one of the weights associated with a corresponding heuristic evaluation is an assigned initial weight that is adjustable based on information received from the caller;
• for each of the plurality of available time slots, aggregate the plurality of intermediate results using multiplicative weightings based on respective weights associated with the corresponding heuristic evaluations to produce aggregated results;
• generate a ranked list of candidate time slots to be used for the appointment based on the aggregated results;
• and
• prompt the caller for a selection from the ranked list of candidate time slots.