What to voice
- The main menu: "For sales, press one. For support, press two."
- Opening hours, holiday closures and out-of-hours messages.
- Voicemail greetings for teams and individuals.
- On-hold messages between music: services, tips, "your call is important to us", done well.
- Queue announcements and transfers.
How to set it up
- One project for the phone system, with a script per menu or message group.
- The company voice: a staff member who agrees to have their voice cloned, or a licensed performer. A friendly, clear sample recorded slowly works best on the phone.
- One prompt per line, named in your own list with the system's prompt names.
- The Calm style gives a clear, steady read that survives phone-line quality.
- Generate, listen on a phone, save.
- Convert and upload to your phone system.
Writing prompts that work on the phone
- Option first, then key: "For billing, press three", so callers hear what they want before the number.
- No more than four or five options per menu.
- Numbers as words: "We're open nine a.m. to five thirty p.m., Monday to Friday."
- Web addresses spelled out: "example dot com slash support".
- Short prompts: under about 15 seconds each.
Converting for your phone system
abcVoiceover's takes are 24 kHz mono WAV files. Phone systems often want something narrower: commonly 8 kHz mono, as 16-bit PCM or as G.711 (mu-law or A-law). Check your system's documentation, then convert with ffmpeg, for example:
ffmpeg -i "003 Reception.wav" -ar 8000 -ac 1 -acodec pcm_s16le main-menu.wav
ffmpeg -i "003 Reception.wav" -ar 8000 -ac 1 -acodec pcm_mulaw main-menu-ulaw.wavHosted phone services usually accept ordinary WAV or MP3 uploads and convert them for you. Rename each file to the prompt it replaces as you go.
Updating
When the hours change, edit that line, generate it again and upload one file. The voice stays the same as every other prompt, even years later, as long as you keep the voice's sample and settings unchanged.
Callers deserve honesty too
A synthetic voice reading menu options is unremarkable. Using a cloned voice to make outgoing calls that pretend to be a real person is not: that's deception the terms of service rule out, and automated calls with artificial voices are regulated in many countries. abcVoiceover is for recorded prompts and messages, not for calling people.