Dialed Number Identification Service (DNIS) is a service sold by telecommunications companies to corporate clients that lets them determine which telephone number was dialed by a customer. This is useful in determining how to answer an inbound call. The telephone company sends a DNIS number to the client phone system during the call setup. The DNIS number is typically 4 to 10 digits in length.
For example, a company may have a different toll-free telephone number for each product line it sells. If a call center is handling calls for multiple product lines, the switch that receives the call can analyze the DNIS and play an appropriate recorded greeting. A company may also use multiple toll free numbers for multilingual customer support, for which each support language is associated with a dedicated toll free number.
With IVR (Interactive voice response) systems, DNIS is used as routing information for dispatching purposes, to determine which script or service should be played based on the number that was dialed to reach the IVR platform. e.g. 0906 123 4567 and 0906 123 4568 may both connect to the same IVR system but one number may be required to provide a competition service and the other might be an information line. The DNIS is what distinguishes these lines from each other and hence the IVR will know which service to provide to the caller.
Famous quotes containing the words number and/or service:
“God ... created a number of possibilities in case some of his prototypes failed—that is the meaning of evolution.”
—Graham Greene (1904–1991)
“Whatever events in progress shall disgust men with cities, and infuse into them the passion for country life, and country pleasures, will render a service to the whole face of this continent, and will further the most poetic of all the occupations of real life, the bringing out by art the native but hidden graces of the landscape.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)