A personal interactive voice response system with a web-based interface
allowing the user to specify treatment of incoming calls based on voice
or touchtone responses provided by the calling party. A graphical user
interface available over a computer network, such as the Internet, allows
the user to personalize greetings that callers hear, as well as
customizing treatment of callers based on the caller's response. The user
may record an initial greeting or other messages, either over the
telephone or over the Internet, so that the messages are played to
callers in the user's voice. Additionally, the user may enter text, via a
PC or wireless device connected to the Internet, that is played back for
the caller, based on the caller's response, via text-to-speech conversion
using voice extensible markup language technology. Resulting actions,
such as call forwarding, distinctive ringing, or remote notification of
the incoming call may also be included.