A system and method for extracting demographic information from a contact is disclosed. The method discloses: initiating a dialog between a contact and a call handling system; selecting a set of demographic characteristics; assigning a set of acoustic confidence scores; assigning a set of substantive confidence scores; combining the acoustic and substantive confidence scores; and tailoring information presented to the contact using the set of combined confidence scores. The system discloses: an Interactive Voice Response module for initiating a dialog between a contact and a call handling system, and selecting a set of demographic characteristics; an acoustic classifier for assigning a set of acoustic confidence scores; a substantive classifier for assigning a set of substantive confidence scores; and a data combiner for combining the acoustic and substantive confidence scores. The Interactive Voice Response module also tailors information presented to the contact using the set of combined confidence scores.