TTS Engine Reads last name as a US State

[sallen@healthcall.com]

We have a call flow for appointment reminder outbound calls that reads the person's name as part of the call. The name is spoken with TTS and we have the Cepstral engine. A customer complained that the name "William Conn" was pronounced as "William Connecticut". How can we keep this from happening?

We would expect that the default would be to not try to interpret potential address abbreviations when using TTS. It doesn't seem to work this way however.

[support]

Hi,

Could you please provide us with the context of IVR code where you are experiencing this IVR issue? This would help us better in assisting you.

Regards,
Plum Support

[sallen@healthcall.com]

Here is what my developer gave me. Does this help?

<audio src='/audio/hello.mp3'>
<voice name='Diane'>
<s>Hello, this is so and so</s>
We are calling to remind
</voice>
</audio>
<voice name='Diane'>
insert name here
</voice>
<audio src='/audio/message.mp3'>
<voice name='Diane'>, that you will need to do such and such </voice>
</audio>

[support]

Hi,

We have tested the following IVR code and confirmed that William Conn is being said as William Conn by the Cepstral speech engine:

williamconn.php

Code: Select all

<?php
header("Content-type: text/xml");
echo("<?xml version=\"1.0\"?>\n");
?>
<vxml version="2.0">

<form id="name">
<field name="lastname">
     <grammar src="http://vxml.plumgroup.com/grammars/lastname.php" root="lastname"
     type="application/srgs+xml" mode="voice"/>
     <prompt bargein="false">
          Say your last name and spell it.
     </prompt>
</field>

<field name="firstname">
     <grammar src="http://vxml.plumgroup.com/grammars/firstname.php" root="firstname"
     type="application/srgs+xml" mode="voice"/>
     <prompt bargein="false">
          Say your first name and spell it.
     </prompt>
</field>

<block>
     <prompt bargein="false">
          Your first name is <value expr="firstname"/>
          and your last name is <value expr="lastname"/>.
          Your name is <voice name="Diane">William Conn.</voice>
          Your name is <voice name="Diane">William Conn</voice>
     </prompt>
</block>

<block>
<prompt>
<audio src='/audio/hello.mp3'>
<voice name='Diane'>
<s>Hello, this is so and so</s>
We are calling to remind
</voice>
</audio>
<voice name='Diane'>
William Conn.
</voice>
<audio src='/audio/message.mp3'>
<voice name='Diane'>, that you will need to do such and such </voice>
</audio>
</prompt>
</block>

</form>
</vxml>

We are unable to reproduce the IVR issue that your customer is experiencing for the IVR. If you need further assistance with this IVR issue, please provide us with more details as to how this problem can be reproduced reliably.

Regards,
Plum Support

[sallen@healthcall.com]

Thanks for your help! I'll take this back to my developer.