Text To Speech (TTS)

Text To Speech

What is Text To Speech (TTS)?

Text To Speech (TTS) is a form of speech synthesis that converts text into a voice output.

When TTS was first introduced in the mid-1900's, the voice output sounded much more like a computer voice than a human voice.

After many years of development, TTS still does not sound 100% like a human speaking, but it has come a long way and it is now commonly used in voice broadcast applications.

Can fields be dynamically merged into a voice broadcast message?

Yes! This technique is commonly used by doctor offices.

In a voice broadcast, the TTS portion of the message can be dynamically merged from the phone number list.

Below is an example TTS voice broadcast message for an appointment reminder. The bold words are dynamically inserted from the phone number list.

Live Answer Example

Hello Robert. This is Dr. Smith's office calling regarding your upcoming appointment on February 10th at 10:30am. If for some reason, you need to cancel the appointment with Dr. Smith's office on February 10th at 10:30am please press 0 to be transferred to our office now. Otherwise we look forward to seeing you soon.

Because of Answering Machine Detection, a different message can be played when an answering machine or voicemail answers.

Answering Machine Example

Hello this is a message for Robert. This is Dr. Smith's office calling regarding your upcoming appointment on February 10th at 10:30am. If for some reason, you need to cancel the appointment with Dr. Smith's office on February 10th at 10:30am please call our office at 212-555-1212. Otherwise we look forward to seeing you soon.

What does the Text To Speech voice sound like?

Sigma Voice uses Kate NeoSpeech.

Can a human recording be dynamically merged instead of Text To Speech?

Sorry Kate, but people want to know!

Yes! A human voice can be used. Keep in mind that this requires human voice recordings for the merge data fields. For example, if the day of the week is in the message, there needs to be a human voice recording for each day of the week.

Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday & Saturday

The set up takes a few more minutes, but it can be worth it to have an all human voice message.