Verizon Part 3

Verizon Part 3

I'd like to skip writing about VZ, but honestly, they make it too easy. I got to my desk at work this morning and found a voicemail message from VZ. They just wanted to confirm my installation appointment. The message itself was completely automated, a mix of pre-recorded messages and text-to-speech. Since that type of application is exactly what I work on day in and day out (although I concentrate on inbound calls), it was automatically a bit more interesting to me than it might have been to the average Joe. So the voice was telling me about the time frame and date and what not, when it got to my address. Now imagine for the purposes of this post that I live at 1234 Pleasant Drive. This is what I heard : ". . . at 1 2 3 4 Pleasant Doctor."

I'm pretty sure that somewhere in the rules of programming TTS applications, there is a line that says "make sure the output matches the type of input." Thus, when feeding an abbreviation (like, oh, say "Dr") to your TTS engine, tell it that it's working with an address. Or pre-process the input to eliminate ambiguity.

At least I don't live on Main Saint.



I wonder if they'd hire me? They obviously need help with their website, their inbound call centers, and their outbound calling application. Resume is over to the right there, VZ dudes...