What technology predated widespread internet chatbots as the original automated gatekeepers using keypad inputs for customer service?
Answer
Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems
Before the widespread adoption of web-based chatbots, the commercial world utilized Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems for automated customer interaction. These systems operated using touch-tone inputs from a telephone keypad to direct callers through menus and automated processes. IVR functioned entirely separately from natural language understanding, serving as the initial automated barrier or gatekeeper for customer service interactions. Their mechanism was purely based on menu navigation and button presses, distinguishing them starkly from later text-based bots that attempted to interpret typed queries.
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