Using AWS Polly and PowerShell to Generate Multiple Auto Attendant Greetings via a CSV

When it comes to providing excellent customer service, your company's phone system plays a vital role. One way to achieve a professional and engaging phone experience is through using auto attendant greetings. These are pre-recorded messages that help direct callers to the right department or person. But what if your company has many greetings to record or update? In this post, we'll talk about how to use AWS Polly and PowerShell to automate the process of generating multiple auto attendant greetings via a CSV of text and options.

AWS Polly is a text-to-speech service that uses advanced deep learning technologies to synthesize speech that sounds like a human voice. Combining Polly and PowerShell allows for dynamic and rapid creation of audio files.

The first step is to create a CSV file that contains the text and options of the greetings you wish to record. Each line should contain the text of the greeting, your choice of voice and file format, and an appropriate file name for the audio file that will be created.

Text	Voice	Format	File
Hello, thank you for calling Bob's Trucking. To speak to sales, please press one. To speak to billing, please press two. For all other inquiries, please press three.	Ruth	mp3	Greeting1.mp3
Thank you for calling the Sales Department at Bob's Trucking. For new sales, please press one. For existing sales, please press two.	Ruth	mp3	Greeting2.mp3

Once you have your CSV file ready, you can use PowerShell to read in the file and generate the audio files. You will need to install the AWS Command Line Interface and configure your credentials, but once that step is done, you can use a simple script to loop through each line in the CSV file and use AWS Polly to synthesize the text into an audio file.

Import your CSV to a PowerShell variable

$polly = Import-Csv Greetings.csv

Generate files for each line in your CSV

foreach ($line in $polly) {aws polly synthesize-speech --output-format $line.Format --voice-id $line.Voice --text $line.Text $line.File --engine neural}

After the audio files have been generated, they can be uploaded to your phone system. This step will vary depending on the particular phone system you are using, but most systems will allow you to upload audio files using a web-based interface.

By using AWS Polly and PowerShell to automate the process of generating greetings, you can save time and provide a professional, consistent phone experience for your customers. This methodology is flexible, customizable, and most importantly, easy to use.