Dialed Number Identification Service
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dialed Number Identification Service (DNIS) is a service sold by telecommunications companies to corporate clients that lets them determine which toll-free telephone number was dialed by a customer. This is useful in determining how to answer an inbound call.
For example, a company may have a different toll free 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 examine the DNIS, then play the appropriate recorded greeting.
Another example of multiple toll free numbers might be used for multi-lingual identification. A dedicated toll free number might be set up for Spanish speaking customers.
In UK, certainly, DNIS is not restricted to toll-free numbers and by extension it is misleading to presume this is actually the case anywhere else in the world. With IVR systems, DNIS is used for dispatching purposes by using it as routing information to determine which script or service should be played based on the number that was dialled to reach the IVR platform. e.g. 0906 123 4567 and 0906 123 4568 may well 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 that this is irrelevant what service to provide to the caller.
