Overview: Say workflow module (Console)
Console > Workflows > Workflow modules > Overview: Say workflow module (Console)
This article provides an overview of the Say module in workflows in Console.
In this article
Overview
The Say workflow module is a tool used for communicating messages to customers. It works for both phone and messaging (SMS and web chat) interactions.
For phone interactions, you can configure the Say module to recite text (through text-to-speech functionality) or play an audio file. For messaging and web chat interactions, you can configure the Say module to send a predefined message to the customer.
Below are some common use cases for using the Say module:
Greeting the customer: Configure the Say module to recite a message, like: “Hi! Thank you for calling. How can our team make you smile today?”
Workflow transition: Configure the Say module to announce to the customer when connecting to a queue user, like: “I’m now transferring you to one of our skilled agents.”
Communicating next steps: Configure the Say module to let the customer know what’s coming next, like: “Thanks for calling. We’re sending you a survey now so you can tell us about this experience.”
Continue reading this article to learn more about how the Say module works.
How it works
The Say module enables you to communicate information to customers for phone call, messaging, and web chat interactions.
When a workflow reaches the Say module, it detects the customer’s communication type and returns the appropriate prompt that you configured for the module (the phone prompt for phone interactions, the messaging prompt for messaging interactions, etc.).
For example, you might configure the greeting for a voice caller to be “Thank you for calling” while having the messaging greeting be “Thank you for messaging.”
It’s common to configure multiple prompt options to use when engaging with the customer. This tends to create a more welcoming, natural experience for the customer. For example, for voice interactions, one prompt could be “Hi there, thanks for calling,” while another prompt is “Greetings, thanks for calling our team.” One of the prompts will be randomly selected, so your customers that contact you often are less likely to experience the same prompt repeatedly.
Text to speech
The Say module can synthesize speech in 40+ languages and variants. With text to speech, you:
Write a message prompt in the language of your choice.
Define the language in the Language dropdown menu.
Define the voice that will be used to synthesize the text in the Voice dropdown menu.
In this example, the Say module is configured to recite a message (Good day. How can I help you?) in Italian with the voice option of “Male 1” via text-to-speech
Audio files
With phone calls, instead of using text-to-speech, you can opt to provide an audio file to play for the user. There are two types of audio files the Say module can play:
Static audio files (the same audio file plays every time)
Dynamic audio files (a certain audio file plays based on a predetermined condition)
Read more about static audio files and dynamic audio files in the visual breakdown section below.
Visual breakdown
Exterior structure
This is the exterior structure of a Say module. All modules share this same structure.
Reference the Overview: Workflow modules article to take a deeper dive into each of these components.
Interior structure
Below is the deep dive explanation for each interior area of the Say module.
General settings
Label: The Label field is where you define a custom name for the workflow module. This can make it easier to see what the module is doing from the workflow editor workspace and this is how the module is referred to in reporting.
Auto Progress: The Auto Progress toggle sets whether the workflow can ask multiple questions in one prompt to fill multiple variables. For example, if Say + Gather is set to auto progress while asking for a user’s email and phone number, the workflow will gather both pieces of information from a user’s response (if the user’s response contains both the email and phone number). This is a way of asking for more information more naturally.
Phone prompts
The Phone prompt section is where you define the prompts to be used for phone interactions. The fields available to you configure depend on which prompt type you select: Text, Audio, or Dynamic Audio.
Text: This option indicates that the workflow will recite the message to the customer using text-to-speech functionality.
Play button: The Play button lets you hear how the text to speech will sound to the customer.
Language: The Language menu lets you select the language of the prompt text. The language should match the actual language of the recited text. For example, text written in Italian should have the Language menu set to Italian.
Voice: The Voice menu lets you select the type of voice that will recite the text. Each language has a selection of “Male” (typically masculine, lower pitch) and “Female” (typically feminine, higher pitch) voices to choose from.
Audio: This option indicates that the workflow will play an audio file to the customer. You can add audio files in the Audio Upload workspace in Console (CX > Audio Upload).
Audio file selector: The Audio file selector menu is where you choose the audio file to use. This is a list of audio files uploaded in the Audio Upload workspace.
Play / Pause / Volume buttons: You can use the play, pause, and volume buttons to test playback of the audio file.
Note: You can combine different prompt types in the same module. In the annotated screenshot, there’s an Audio prompt combined with a text prompt. When the workflow runs, the system randomly selects one from the list to use. Don’t add more than one prompt if you only want the same prompt to run each time.
An example of a Say module with an audio prompt (annotated orange) and a text prompt (annotated green).
Dynamic Audio: This option indicates that the workflow will use dynamic audio. With the dynamic audio file option, you can choose audio files to play based on previous logic in the workflow (like from a Say + Gather module, Say + Intent module, or a Decision module).
For example, in the screenshot to the right, the Say + Gather module retrieves an account number from the customer. Then, a webhook module looks up an audio file via the API Platform. The webhook can return a variable or an advanced (soundFileId) value that you can provide to the Say module.
An example of a workflow using a webhook to play a Dynamic Audio file in the Say module.
In the Webhook module, you can create a variable for the sound file you want to use.
You can use the variable from the Webhook module to play the dynamic audio file.
Messaging prompts
For messaging interactions, the prompts provided by the Say module are comparably simpler than those for phone interactions. For messaging interactions, you can simply provide text that will be sent to the customer. You can also add multiple prompts that the system will randomly choose (the same way the phone prompts function). Note that whatever is typed into the messaging prompt is exactly what is sent to the customer.
Note: Though the Text prompt appears as a dropdown selector, the only option available is Text.
