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Use the following guidelines to design the pace and speed of your applications.
When callers must wait
If you know callers will have to wait, it is a good idea to let them know. For example, the application could say:
"Please wait while your request is processed."
If you know that the caller may have to wait for longer than a few seconds for the application to continue (because of a database call or host connection, for example), it is a good idea to fill the gap during the wait. You could record a long phrase, perhaps music, and play it to the caller while the information is being located. Or, play a different phrase every seven to ten seconds to let callers know that work is being done. To do this, you must use an external function.
Allow time for caller responses
Pace the interaction so that callers have time to enter the required information and listen to the prompts and announcements. You can determine how comfortable callers are with the pace of the interaction by testing the application.
Do not let the application respond to caller actions too quickly. After callers are asked to make an entry, play a speech phrase consisting of about a half second of silence before the next prompt or error message. Since many telephones have the keypad built into the receiver, this pause leaves time for callers to lift the receiver back to their ears after pressing the keys. If your calling population includes senior citizens, this pause can give them more time to react.
Adjustable pacing
Write your application to allow pauses to be adjusted easily. You can include a pause as mentioned earlier, but you can also change the length of the pause during your application testing. In the beginning of your application, define a field called entry_pause. Assign to entry_pause the speech phrase number associated with one of the silence phrases.
Then, throughout the application, speak the field entry_pause before the prompts that follow caller entries. If you find during testing that the application responds too quickly, all you need to do is go to where you set the field value and use a longer silence phrase. With this method, you can make many changes in the application by changing only one line. You can do the same thing for other pauses in your application, such as pauses between menu items.
