Written by Allison smith. Edited by Omar shaikh
Without a doubt, being ill — even with something as routine as the common cold or a basic case of the flu — is a serious setback in productivity and makes even the simplest tasks difficult. Feeling the pressures of work and the need to keep soldiering forward [...]

Written by Allison Smith. Edited by Omar shaikh.
I do voice-over jobs which are one-offs — the customer needs literally one recording — ever — and that’s the last they need of my services. I have many, many customers who need me to voice for them on a regular basis — several times a month, let’s say. [...]

Written by Allison Smith. Edited by Omar shaikh
I have a few years under my belt voicing telephony platforms, and I can tell you that there are some universal mistakes that I see on a consistent basis  — and most make sense if you simply think back to the last frustrating IVR you found yourself trying to [...]

September 21, 2009 @ 4:45 pm
Written by Allison Smith. Edited by Hina Iqbal Siddiqui.
My name is Allison Smith, and I have — to say the least — an unusual job.
Most people listen to automated voices on telephone systems on a daily basis and never really give much thought as to just *who* does those recordings [...]

Written by Allison Smith. Edited by Omar shaikh
She set the standard for all of us in the IVR Voicing business — best known as the “Time Lady”; for recordings she made for Bell, and for voicing some of the earliest voice mail systems. Jane Barbe was truly a pioneer in the area of IVR voicing, [...]

Written by Allison Smith. Edited by Omar shaikh.
It was pretty early, and I was very groggy, but there was no mistaking it:  it was me on the phone. I was in Dallas, and scheduled a hotel wake-up call for 7:00 AM. When I picked up the receiver it was….me. Waking me up. About a year before [...]

Written by Allison Smith. Edited by Omar shaikh.
In a mere four days, developers and code gurus from around the world who have discovered the unlimited potential and versatility of Asterisk — the fastest-growing telephony platform in the world today — will gather in beautiful Glendale, Arizona October 13-15 for a concentrated three days of amazing talks, [...]

Written by Allison Smith. Edited by Omar shaikh.
I was fully intending to blog from Phoenix during Astricon (The Open Source Telephony Conference and Exhibition — Oct 13-15) but found myself on such a social whirlwind and marketing juggernaut that time did not permit. Suffice it to say: it was an amazing event — a huge [...]

Written by Allison Smith. Edited by Omar shaikh.
I recently stumbled upon a great article on the Destination CRM website by Natalee Dyke entitled: “IVR Hell” which definitely encapsulates everything amiss with mis-designed, mis-written, and just generally frustrating phone trees — give it a read at: http://bit.ly/1XQaoM and meet me back here.
She really brings a lot [...]

Written by Allison Smith. Edited by Omar shaikh.
It’s generally well known — by clients of mine whom I’ve worked with for awhile — that I am game to voice pretty much anything. In fact, I encourage offbeat, parody, and “joke” prompts — they provide a welcome respite from the run-of-the-mill (but highly necessary) IVR stock prompts. [...]