Contact centers and unified communications (UC) services often rely on dual tone multi frequency (DTMF) for customer communications. As such, they need to know their calls are connecting properly and that customers can reach the correct departments.
Cyara helps businesses reduce DTMF errors with proactive monitoring solutions.
The most effective and efficient way to verify that your DTMF transmission is working as it should is through comprehensive number testing. But first, let’s revisit the basics of DTMFs.
What is DTMF?
Dual tone multi frequency tones, or DTMFs, have a history spanning over 60 years. They are a fundamental feature in telecommunications, recognized worldwide. They’re also often referred to by their commercial name from the 1963 Bell System—’touch tone.’ Callers can easily engage with DTMFs through selecting a number on their keypad, for example, ‘press 1 for sales.’
DTMF tones are produced when someone presses the numbers of a telephone keypad. Each number key has two tones—one high and one low frequency. The keypad columns generate the high-frequency signals, while the rows produce the low-frequency signals. The system combines these in-band signals to form a unique signal pair that is then transmitted through the voice channel.
DTMFs are utilized across a wide array of services and facilities, from telephone banking and bill payment services. They are also used in interactive voice response (IVR) menus and online conferencing.
What Can Go Wrong?
Like many other information-transmitting technologies, packet loss and jitter commonly affect DTMF fidelity. These issues, often stemming from poorly terminated physical connections or overloaded equipment, can lead to clipped speech, disconnections, and may even prevent successful call connections. Any disruption to the sequencing or distortion of the tones has the potential to render calls completely unintelligible. Additionally, since DTMF tones utilize analog audio signals, any other interference on your voice channels can also lead to significant issues.
Despite the emergence of newer technologies, the majority of businesses still rely to some extent on touch-tone interactions. Therefore, any transmission problems or distortion carries cost implications and can negatively impact customer experience (CX) and brand loyalty.
So, let’s see how proactive testing and monitoring can help to remedy the problem.
Tackling The Issues
The most effective approach to guaranteeing the correct transmission of your customers’ calls is by replicating their call journey. This is where toll-free number testing and local number testing come in. At Cyara, we generate in-country calls that connect to your IVR menu. From here, you can enter a conference call or connect to a contact center, just as your customers would. Replicating call flows like these exposes DTMF transmission issues and enables you to isolate areas for improvement.
Cyara’s Voice Assure helps to ensure that all of your outbound calls and inbound toll and toll-free services connect as they are meant to. Additionally, Voice Assure helps to establish acceptable levels of post-dial delay (PDD), along with the correct transmission of DTMFs. It does all of this while proactively monitoring your voice channel quality.
The End of The Line for DTMF Problems
Cyara’s Voice Assure ensures the end of the line for your DTMF problems. Best of all, Voice Assure doesn’t just test DTMF in isolation, it measures all of your telecommunications key performance indicators (KPIs). These include connection success or failure, audio quality, latency, PDD, CLI presentation and much more.
With both always-on and on-demand DTMF functionality verification, you have the capability to ensure that your DTMF functionality aligns with your standards. And in the case of issues, you can promptly address them before they impact your customers’ experience, thanks to our automatic alerting system.
Regardless of what the future holds, customer experience remains paramount for a thriving business. Increasingly, business leaders and managers are turning to Cyara for assistance in maintaining optimal customer experience through proactive testing and monitoring. Contact us today and learn how we can help.