The electronic receptionist: a knowledge-based approach to personal communications

Abstract

Proposed personal communications services will allow their users to be accessible anywhere and any time. Informal investigations with potential users revealed that these services would not be widely accepted without effective call prioritization and screening, akin to that provided by a human receptionist, to limit which calls get through and which are routed to colleagues or to voice messaging. An experimental, knowledge-based, electronic receptionist was constructed to investigate the features needed to facilitate personal communications. The authors describe their implementation and analysis of a knowledge-based system designed to emulate the work functions of a human receptionist. An iterative design methodology enabled rapid prototyping of numerous interfaces. Data from over 3500 calls suggest that the electronic receptionist can significantly improve productivity and was perceived to have utility for both callers and clients.