Letters in DTMF | GRXML | Multiple Keypress on same number

Question

Hi i need to know whether we can use letters(alphabets) in dtmf or touchtone in ivr application(genesys).if possible how can we use it? FYI., i came to know after reading several forums,i can use the code which is given below.i need to know whether it is correct.if wrong let me know the grammar code I need the scenario like if press '2' one time,i need 'a' and if press '2' two times i need 'b',etc..,

[(dtmf-2)] = 'a' 
[(dtmf-2 dtmf-2)] = 'b' 
[(dtmf-2 dtmf-2 dtmf-2)] = 'c' 

In the following link,we have ABCD separate.whether it is available in all phones? http://nemesis.lonestar.org/reference/telecom/signaling/dtmf.html

Answer 1

This is an old technique for spelling things out to an IVR application using DTMF. All phones use DTMF to transmit what keys are pressed. It will work on any IVR but it is up to the application developer of the IVR application to translate what the digits mean, and you need to give the user some direction on how to do this in the voice prompts. It is a very error prone method and it is best to give the user feedback on what you think they are trying to enter. But this is all we had before speech recognition came along.

Basically this is just using the letters on telephone keys as the guide. The letters "A", "B" and "C" are on key "2". You are telling them to press "2" the number of times that the letter appears in sequence on the key (i.e. "A" is first, "B" is second, and "C" is third). This method works fine for getting a single letter but it does not work so well for multiple letters unless you have the user pause for certain length of time to indicate they are finished. The IVR takes the length of silence as the ending of inputting a letter.

Another technique is to use two key presses for each letter, again using the sequence the letters appear on the number key as the guide. So the letter "A" would be 21, "B" is 22, "C" is 23, "D" is 31, etc... This technique does not require long pauses between entering a letter because the IVR knows there will be two key presses for each letter.