My Contact Center Text-to-Speech (TTS) Voices Sound Different

Symptom

When listening to voice menu messages set via the Say object in your Contact Center IVR, voices sound different than when you originally configured them. (For TTS voices configured before mid-June 2020.)

Applies To

• Contact Center customers who use the Say object in their Contact Center IVR scripts

Cause

In mid-June 2020, the 8x8 TTS engine was updated to enhance voice quality and uptime availability, introducing new voice providers, and simultaneously retiring the Nuance-powered service in the 8x8 Contact Center product.

What does this mean for you?  Starting mid-June 2020, the voices you previously used may be slightly different since 8x8 added more providers. 8x8 has made an effort to match new and old voices as closely as possible.

What will you need to do?  Nothing at all. Updates were made on the back end to automatically map your text-to-speech recordings to the new voices.  When making changes, you can continue to configure TTS voices across your system in the same manner you do today. 

What does this mean for you long-term?   This update increases the availability and variety of TTS voices to choose from. 8x8 has created a more robust integration that utilizes multiple vendors, resulting in increased uptime and improved voice quality, and will be adding controls for text-to-speech prompts.