voice response unit. Ninety percent of all PBXs shipped today include software to provide voice response, also known as Interactive Voice Response (IVR) or a Voice Response Unit (VRU). These systems allow callers to use the telephone touch pad or spoken words to access information, such as store locations, or conduct credit card transactions. Some banks even allow customers to pay their bills by means of IVR. Both IVR and Call Prompting present a caller with a menu of options, and they both can use prompted digits to route calls. However, IVR can also use that input to interact with a computer, retrieve database information, or perform simple transactions. In addition, IVR can return simple data to a customer, such as reading an account balance or a list of recently cleared checks.