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Use the following guidelines to design your applications to encourage or discourage dial through and barge-in.
Using dial through and barge-in with error messages
For error messages, require callers to listen to at least part of each error message, so the interaction stops and the mistake can be corrected. For touchtone and WholeWord speech recognition input, turn off dial through or barge-in during the first part of each error message. For example:
Turn dial through or barge-in off and prompt:
"Sorry. Please enter..."
Turn dial through or barge-in on.
"...your customer number."
Using dial through and barge-in consistently
Callers expect and appreciate consistency. Therefore, it is a good idea to apply dial through and barge-in consistently in your applications. Allowing callers to barge-in during some prompts and not others in the same application could cause confusion. You may find, however, that your callers may want to barge-in during some prompts, and may be able to accept some inconsistency. During your design testing, determine what will work best for your calling population, and design your applications accordingly.
How to word prompts for dial through and barge-in
The wording, length, and structure of prompts can discourage callers from responding during a prompt. You want to ensure that the caller's responses are consistent with how you have implemented dial through and barge-in.
How to encourage dial through and barge-in
Experienced callers like to shorten the call by responding during the prompt, and thus save time because they know what to say or do. Therefore, if you have the dial through or barge-in capability enabled for a prompt, you should encourage callers to respond when they are ready, even during the prompt. To encourage dial through or barge-in for a menu, leave a pause after each option. Using the Prompt & Collect action, play an option, then play a series of silence phrases equal to 1.5 seconds. Silence is not needed after the final option. For example:
"For sales, say `1' {1.5 second pause}
For service, say `2' {1.5 second pause}
For an attendant, say `zero'."
Barge-in uses system resources also used by speech recognition. If resources are limited, you could disable barge-in until you have expanded your speech recognition resources.
How to discourage dial through and barge-in
If you have the dial through or barge-in capability disabled for a prompt, you want callers to respond only after the prompt is finished to optimize the recognition. To discourage dial through or barge-in for a menu, do not leave a long pause between options. For example:
"For sales, say `1' For service, say `2' For an attendant, say `zero'."
When barge-in is turned off or unavailable, make sure that your recorded prompts have no silence at the end. Callers may respond during the silence. When this happens, the recognizer will not hear part of the caller's response.
