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. [...]
Written by Allison Smith. Edited by Omar shaikh.
A few times a month, I’m e-mailed by people who are toying with the idea of getting into voice-over — they may have been told they have a great voice, or have become enamored with the idea of being the next Simpson-scale animation voice.
There’s no question that it’s a [...]
Written by Allison Smith. Edited by Suzanne Bowen.
Despite me recording prompts in Spanish almost every day, I don’t technically speak Spanish. Or Hebrew, Tagalog (an Austranesian language spoken in the Philippines) or a host of other languages which I’m urged, cajoled, or persuaded into voicing.
I studied Spanish for two years at the University of Calgary, out [...]
Written by Allison Smith. Edited by Suzanne Bowen.
Quite often, I get Asterisk prompt orders through the Digium site in which the client has written something like: “….this phrase comes after ‘Please enter your..’ and before ‘followed by pound.’” It’s a lot of effort to explain where the prompt will occur — especially when I have [...]
Written by Allison Smith. Edited by Suzanne Bowen.
My very first contract voicing telephone prompts was with Telus — the telco conglomerate in Alberta — who hired me to voice their mobility platform. I attended a meeting where they were discussing which prompts were needed, and what time committment would be required of me (in the [...]
Written by Allison Smith. Edited by Suzanne Bowen.
In my career as a professional telephone voice, I can tell you that the work is fairly formulaic — almost everybody requires a front-end (“greeting”) message, a message once people get to their various department selections, an after-hours greeting, and occasionally, an extended absence greeting. That’s it. Sometimes, [...]
But Allison is more than the Voice of Asterisk. She’s also a heated yoga enthusiast and great story teller. Listen to her anecdotes of voiceovers for a prison system, collection agency and one request for a special 1800 service.
We met at Astricon 2008 in Glendale where DIDXchange was the Asterisk Developer Area Room Sponsor. Right after [...]
