TELEPHONE CENTRAL OFFICE BASED METHOD OF AND SYSTEM FOR PROCESSING CUSTOMER ORDERS

A telephone central office switch based system for forwarding customer requests to a vendor site and processing orders comprises, in addition to the standard central office switch, a voice response unit (VRU) controlled by an adjunct computer for sending to the telephone of a customer an audible instruction message followed by audible response messages in reply to customer prompts entered by telephone. The VRU/adjunct includes not only data storage for voice messages but also has a separate data storage capacity for storing a data base of customer identification and vendor inventory information. The adjunct computer is in communication with a host computer at each vendor site. The host downloads inventory and customer identification information to the adjunct, and the adjunct uploads information to create and activate an order at the host. To complete the transaction, the host updates inventory information and downloads back to the adjunct.