IVR for account verification

I have started trialing your service to see if it is what we need for our web sites auto dialout. Our requirement is to have new users on our site verified at their landline number. The process is:
1) They sign up via our web form
2) We dial their specified number and have a message played with a unique code in. Ideally they press 1 to confirm they have written down the code or 2 to hear it again.
3) They enter the code into our web form and they are verified as owning that number.

Yes, this is one common use of the IVR technology and the web, mainly for user signup verification and credit card phone number verification. Several major web companies use this kind IVR applications. It should be relatively easy to use Voicent gateway and IVR Studio to create such apps.

Today I setup the gateway and a Call Centric account. I used the Python API (v.callText(’0061410538190′, ‘This is a test message, see what it sounds like’, “1″)) to make a call via the Call Centric SIP. The call was made Ok. Here are my questions:

1) The call quality had a lot of background noise. Is that a Call Centric problem? I went through your audio troubleshooting guide. I used speedtest to check my bandwidth. I have .5mb upload speed and 2mb download so I think my bandwidth is OK. I changed to basic codec pcmu. It was possibly a little better but still loads of background noise. Can you give me a clue as to where to look.

When using VOIP service like Callcentric, the audio quality is determined by:

a) Original audio file quality. The best will be audio created by professional recording studio. If you are using text-to-speech, then this should not be a problem. For more info, please see Audio FAQ

b) Internet connection speed. 128Kbps per line for both upload and download speed

c) network connection speed and quality. Usually this is not a problem, but if you are using a wireless connection, then this maybe an issue. Try to use physical connection.

d) Voice Codec used. Try to use only PCMU. Go to the gateway SIP setup page and remove all other codecs except PCMU on the selected list.

e) VOIP service quality. This is usually not an issue. But some connections, especially to rural area, may have audio quality issue. To verify, you can switch to a different VOIP provider (such as using SkypeConnect

f) Other factors. a-e are the major factors, there are not many other factors affecting the audio quality. If you call to a cell phone, maybe your cell phone reception is not good. You could use a really slow computer to text to speech.

2) The voice saying about licensing was speeding up and slowing down in places to the point where I could not hear it. What causes that?

It is related to the above question.

3) I put a message into my callText. I am not sure if it was played or not. It said something about not having a license for text to speech. Does that mean I can not test it? I need to know what it sounds like before I pay your license fee.

You should be able to test it before getting your license key. After the message about the TTS license, it should say your text

4) When our website gets busy and we have many signups to verify, does that mean we need multiple line licenses from you? If so how do we know when to upgrade, is there a queue we can see anywhere to know we are not getting through the verification calls quickly enough?

Yes, you have to add more lines to have more simultaneous calls. All the call requests are listed under C:\Program Files\Voicent\Gateway\outcall\reqs.

5) If we remove interactivity from the call so they have to write down the code or else we call themn again with a new one, does that mean the calls get queued at call centric thus alleviating the need for multiple line licenses?

Callcentric will not queue or reschedule your call. The scheduler is a function of Voicent Gateway.

5) How do I make it interactive? The Python interface doesn’t seem to provide that feature. I hope you can answer these questions for me so we can make a purchasing decision. All the best

The Simple Call Interface (Python interface) is used to deliver an audio file or a simple text-to-speech message. It does not offer interactivity. To add interactive feature, you can either manually create VoiceXML file to use with Voicent Gateway, or use Voicent IVR Studio to create the interactive application. If you are new to both, we recommend you start with IVR Studio, create a simple interactive app to see how it works. You can start with the IVR Studio Tutorial (Program Help menu > Product Walkthrough). If you want to learn more about the lower level VoiceXML technology, you can take a look at Voicent Gateway tutorial and Outbound call tutorial.