Through its interactive voice response (IVR) platform, Voxeo (News - Alert) has successfully implemented a means of tracking a caller’s location for voice, text and mobile web interactions. The caller’s exact location is determined by Voxeo’s location based services (LBS), making things like finding a specific store, requesting roadside assistance, or obtaining traffic information considerably more easy and safe – no need to enter data manually or download any apps.

Since Voxeo’s IVR infused location based services are compatible with all major wireless carriers across the U.S., 90 percent of the nation’s consumers will have access. Services like Yelp, Foursquare (News - Alert), and Matchbook will surely benefit from this new solution, but it also opens a whole new window of opportunity for advertising – location based advertising (LBA) to be exact. Once the user subscribes to a company’s LBA service, they will begin receiving specifically tailored advertisements on recommended products, etc. whenever they’re in the vicinity of said company. This could prove to be a superior method of advertising, considering the potential for extremely personalized marketing to subscribers based on previous purchases.

Additionally, this new solution will help out tremendously in the fight against identity fraud. Mobile devices are typically easier to hack than a PC, and manually entering information over WiFi (News - Alert) at the local coffee shop could be a theoretical open door to hackers.  

"Voxeo LBS brings safety and convenience by eliminating the need for mobile users to manually enter their exact locations to find their favorite restaurants, the nearest bank, or whatever they're looking for,” said Voxeo’s senior vice president of product management, John Amein.

Voxeo offers a secure LBS API for developers interested in embedding location-based intelligence to their applications. Like SMS and mobile Web applications, the API uses inbound and outbound IVR as well as multi-channel communications. Multiple levels of privacy are available in these applications, and regardless of the privacy setting, Voxeo only stores location-based information on its servers for troubleshooting purposes.