Patenting a business process.  How patentable is a business process? 
For example, let's say we had a process that dialed a phone number and
then asked the called number to press 1 if they wanted to take part in
a survey, would that be patentable?  This isn't the process we want to
patent, but as an example only, would it be allowable?  Any Phone call
type processes like this would be great examples.  CLARIFICATION. I'm
not looking for attorneys or books, but any examples or case histories
of "buiness process" patents that have been succesful or not
succesful, in particular if they relate to phone calls.  Thanks!

The type of patent one would file for a business process is known as a
utility patent. You would first need to search the government database
of patents to make sure your idea isn't already patented or in the
application process.
Information on utility patents:
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/utility/utility.htm
The U.S. Patent & Trademark Office database:
http://www.uspto.gov/patft/index.html

Through searching the Patent Office database I found examples of the
kind of processes you describe. Here are a few you can use as case
studies (obviously these were all successful patents):

Telephone polling method
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=/netahtml/search-adv.htm&r=6&p=1&f=G&l=50&d=pall&S1=(telephone.ABST.+AND+survey.ABST.)&OS=abst/telephone+and+abst/survey&RS=(ABST/telephone+AND+ABST/survey)

Verbally interactive telephone interrogation system with selectible
variable decision tree
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=/netahtml/search-adv.htm&r=15&p=1&f=G&l=50&d=pall&S1=(telephone.ABST.+AND+survey.ABST.)&OS=abst/telephone+and+abst/survey&RS=(ABST/telephone+AND+ABST/survey)

Survey collection method with televisions and telephones
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=/netahtml/search-adv.htm&r=10&p=1&f=G&l=50&d=pall&S1=(telephone.ABST.+AND+survey.ABST.)&OS=abst/telephone+and+abst/survey&RS=(ABST/telephone+AND+ABST/survey)

You can search for more possible case sudies using the advanced search
system at the Patent Office. I searched with the command
"abst/telephone and abst/survey" (no need to keep the quotes when
searching) to get the above results, you can try it and use more
specific terms relevant to your process.
URL of the advanced patent search:
http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/search-adv.htm

The Patent Office's web site is very slow, but persist and it will
load up results and patents--sometimes I clicked two or three times on
a patent title to get it to display.

Best of Luck!
~mechante -ga

google search terms: patent office
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&q=patent+office

Thanks mechante. Great job.

With all due respect, I think the researcher missed the point of the
question.  The whole issue of the patentability of simple business
processes is a fairly new one.  Legally, the question involved is
whether the process being used is legally "new" or whether it is
merely an obvious variation of something that has been done before. 
The issue has been raised in recent years by Amazon.com's one-click
shopping method and Priceline's auctioning method -- are these obvious
ways of doing something, or are they new enough to be patentable?  It
seems obvious that the same legal questions raised in these cases
would apply in the plan the questioner is considering. You may find
this Google search useful:
://www.google.com/search?hl=es&q=patent+law+%22business+process%22+amazon.com&btnG=B%FAsqueda+en+Google&lr=

A device as described (asking to dial 1  or asking ANYTHING ELSE)
would not be
patentable as explained e.g.
here:http://www.webpatent.com/knowbase/evaluate/egs/exm11110.htm
namely: 
Why - Contrary to Public Order

    In all jurisdictions, patentability rules require that an
invention be "useful" to society in a broad sense of that word.

AND:The Telephone Consumer Protection Act

                       The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), a
federal law, imposes restrictions on the use of automatic telephone
dialing systems (also called
                       autodialers), artificial or prerecorded voice
messages, and fax machines to send unsolicited advertisements
see e.g.: http://www.the-dma.org/consumers/telephoneconsumerprotectionact.htm

  It may be easier to just get a job - see e.g:
http://www.gnmagazine.org/booklets/bk17/career.html

Thanks mvguy. I got what I wanted from the researcher, I also got some
bonus stuff from you that was useful too.  Appreciated.