We often get asked about what are good examples of web sites implementing text to speech online. Not all but many follow our guidelines on how to place the listen button. That is paramount in making sure that the user immediately recognizes what the listen button on the web page is meant for. Here is a selection of a couple of web sites that display ReadSpeaker in a way that ensures a good user experience.

Preston City Council

Preston City Council uses one of the many versions of our listen button to specify that the button will read the page (we also have buttons in many sizes and colors that specify that the user will Listen to text, Listen to post, Listen to article, or just the listen icon on its own). The Listen button is placed near the text that it reads out.

Australian Government

The Australian Government’s web site concerning disability, housing and community services implemented our reading service with embedded highlighting with the listen link next to the title of the page.

They also have a page for their web site visitors explaining how the listen function works.

WhoAWee Knowledge Center

This is an elearning site for kids. The listen button sits very visibly just above the text that it reads out.

Upplands-Bro Kommun

The Swedish web site Upplands-Bro Kommun has the listen button (Lyssna) sitting just under the title so that users can immediately identify the purpose that the button serves. This townhall also has an explanatory page for its users on how to use the listen feature.

Annecy Townhall

The French town of Annecy is one of the 3 contenders for the Winter Olypics in 2018. They have placed a big listen button (Ecouter la page) next to the title.

As with all our implementations, once the user clicks on these listen button, the speech starts automatically without having to download any software or plugin.

We can make demos of how a listen button would look on your web site and advise you on the best practices so that your users can get the most out of an audio version of your text content.

Being in contact with thousands of prospects and customers, we compiled some of the most frequent questions we get on speech as a service.

How does ReadSpeaker work?

This is a generic question that has multiple answers since ReadSpeaker has a variety of different online text to speech reading solutions. For our most used solutions which are for reading web pages out loud, ReadSpeaker is a hosted service which enables web site owners to tag their web site with our code. This is similar to tagging a web site with tracking code such as Google Analytics for example. Once our code has been implemented, end users simply click on the listen button to start enjoying the speech-enabled version of your web site or mobile app. ReadSpeaker uses the latest text to speech technologies to achieve this.

Do my users have to download anything to get ReadSpeaker to work?

No, your users do not have to download anything to be able to use ReadSpeaker. What the user needs is a computer or another device such as a smartphone with Internet connection to be able to listen to your content. The user simply clicks and listens to hear what you have to say.

Does ReadSpeaker work on HTTPS sites and password protected sites?

Yes, ReadSpeaker can be set up in such a way as to speech-enable secure sites and password protected sites.

I have a Content Management System (CMS). Can ReadSpeaker easily be integrated into our CMS?

Our customers work with dozens of different content management systems and have never encountered any particular problems integrating our code within their templates. For certain content management systems we have even developed plugins to facilitate even further the ease of implementation.

How many languages can I have my web site read in?

ReadSpeaker to date can speech-enable web sites and mobile apps in 35 languages and 88 voices since we have several female and male voices for most of the 35 languages. The underlying text of your web site must be in the language that you want to have it read out loud in.

What happens if some of my content is not well pronounced?

We can create customized dictionaries (some of our solutions have that per default) so as to take into account some words that are specific to your industry jargon and that are not well read. This sometimes happens with acronyms and abbreviations for example. We can then work on your customized dictionary to have your words pronounced correctly.

How do I know how many times users have listened to my web site or mobile app?

ReadSpeaker keeps track of how many times the listen button has been clicked on per day and on which pages of your web site or mobile app. You can view your statistics in your customer portal account on a per day or month basis.

Where do you suggest we put the listen button?

We recommend that our listen button should be close to the content and the heading so that there is an immediate mental link between the content that is read out and the listen button that is displayed.

Do we have to use your listen button?

For usability and awareness reasons we introduced a unified icon to identify that a web site is equipped with a ReadSpeaker web reading service. When website visitors see this icon, they learn what happens if the icon is clicked; the page will be read out loud to them. We propose a variety of buttons in the different languages we support and with many color and size options.  Of course you can also design and use your own button if ours doesn’t fit in with the look and feel of your site.

If you want to find out more about our speech as a service solutions, you can also contact us directly.

The Financial Times Deutschland (FTD) has just upgraded its new iPhone app. Amongst the new features is the capacity for users to now listen to the content. FTD used our ReadSpeaker® audioMobile™ API solution to this effect. The online text to speech feature is available for the subscription version of FTD’s iPhone app.

As you see in the screenshot hereunder the listen button (Artikel vorlesen) is placed prominently above the article so as to facilitate ease of use by simply tapping on it to start listening to it.

When prospects first get to know about online text to speech and how it can help them, we often get asked by them how difficult it is to speech-enable a web site or mobile app. That is a normal and healthy (!) question to ask and the underlying reasons for asking it are essentially what kind of support will you give me if things go wrong, or I don’t understand how your solutions work, or how long will it take or any kind of question that might arise  when dealing with a new product or service. We want every single one of our customers to feel that they can rely 100% on our Support capabilities so that they don’t need to worry about any questions they might have.

Our support team is based in Uppsala in Sweden and they support by email and phone our customers based in over 30 countries ranging from Oman to Singapore, Tunisia to Sweden, Brazil to Canada, Mexico to Switzerland, US to France and more!

We have 5 different kinds of support:

• Pre-sales support
• Implementation support
• Linguistic support
• Development support
• Internal support

Here is how each typically works:

• Pre-sales support: First level of support is carried out by our Sales teams answering questions like how do you implement ReadSpeaker  and how long does it take. This also often includes creating demos on a web page of the prospect so that he/she can see how it works and share it internally with other colleagues involved in the buying process. When needed, our Sales team gets help from our Support team to create these demos as well.
• Implementation support: Once the prospect is interested in going further, our Support team will then take over and either create a test account or, if an order has been signed, by setting up the definite account according to the customer’s requests and giving access to our online implementation instructions. During the implementation phase, our Support is there to answer any questions that might arise and get back to the customer with timely answers and solutions until the implementation has gone live. Support is also there to assist customers in any maintenance or any evolutions (like upgrades, additional implementations) on a constant basis.
• Linguistic support: One of the useful features of ReadSpeaker is that each customer has its own dictionary. That concretely means that we can adapt the pronunciation of words, acronyms, abbreviations for each one of our customers thereby providing them with as close as perfect reading of their industry specific jargon (think pharmaceutical terms here!). This is where our linguists come in to help our customers when needed.
• Development support: When the customer asks for something out-of-the-box solutions we offer, then our development team will be involved to tweak our existing services or in some cases come up with new ways in implementing online text to speech on our customers’ web sites and mobile apps.
• Internal support: There is a lot of internal communication between the Sales team and Support on technical or linguistic related questions which involves constant internal support.

We recently asked a panel of our customers in Europe, the US and the rest of the world some questions on support and technical related elements. Here are the main findings:

• How was it to understand the implementation instructions (very difficult, difficult, ok, easy, very easy): overall we had a majority of ok to very easy in terms of comprehension of our implementation instructions by our customers.
• How was the product to implement (very difficult, difficult, ok, easy, very easy): here we had a majority of easy to very easy
• How was the response time from the support staff (very slow, slow, ok, fast, very fast): We got rated mostly fast on this question.
• How was the quality of the assistance you received from the support staff (very bad, bad, ok, good, very good): good to very good

We really value the level of support we give to our prospects and customers. When things go wrong, we just don’t say “we’re sorry” but we act on it as soon as we can to get to a satisfactory solution. Our best viral marketing is how well our customers think of our Support and that is why it is so central to ReadSpeaker.

When we deliver our implementation instructions to our customers, we include documentation on tips of how and where to best place our Listen Button.

As our service differs substantially from traditional tools for text content on websites (such as print, email and/or share options), it is essential to implement ReadSpeaker in web pages in such a way that it is clearly noticeable as an option to use. Yet it should blend in with the overall look and feel of the site. In other words, the implementation should be just right, not overbearing, but also not hidden away so that users can immediately activate the ReadSpeaker listen function.

Over the years we have been able to measure, by usage statistics, which sites are successful with ReadSpeaker and which are not. By taking a closer look at both successful and unsuccessful sites, we have been able to come up with some best practices regarding the Dos and Don’ts when implementing ReadSpeaker Listen Buttons.

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Nestlé have launched our latest product, ReadSpeaker docReader on the About Us page of their web site. Now, Nestlé web site users can have access to a speaking version of these PDFs. When users click on the above Listen links on the About Us page, this is what they can see:

The toolbar enables users to easily navigate between pages either with the previous / next buttons or by going directly to a specific page. The layout mode preserves the original layout but you can also opt for the text mode to choose specific text mode settings such as text appearance, font size and font face. Our highlighting feature which works both in the layout and text modes helps users better understand the text which is being read by dynamically highlighting words and/or sentences:

Other settings are also available such as selecting reading speed and choosing the word and sentence highlighting colours when you click on the Settings button of the ReadSpeaker docReader toolbar:

We are very proud to welcome KidsHealth as one of our newest customers. KidsHealth is a kind of “3 in 1″ web site since it has sections specifically dedicated for parents, kids and teens. In the words of KidsHealth; “If you’re looking for information you can trust about kids and teens that’s free of “doctor speak,” you’ve come to the right place. KidsHealth is the most-visited site on the Web for information about health, behavior, and development from before birth through the teen years.”

On a typical weekday, more than 500,000 people visit KidsHealth.

KidsHealth is more than just the facts about health. As part of The Nemours Foundation’s Center for Children’s Health Media, KidsHealth also provides families with perspective, advice, and comfort about a wide range of physical, emotional, and behavioral issues that affect children and teens.

Italy’s leading newspaper has added some of our ReadSpeaker products to its web site and iPhone app.

Corriere della Sera’s web site is speech-enabled using our ReadSpeaker Expanding Player with the Embedded Highlighting add-on. The embedded highlighting feature reinforces a better understanding of the text being read. This is done without the need for downloading and installing additional programs.

For their iPhone app, Corriere della Sera used our ReadSpeaker audioMob product to easily add a speech function to its articles (see the headphone icon on the screenshot).

For people that are on the go such as commuting to work or travelling, that don’t have enough time to read, or prefer to listen to an article rather than reading it, the iPhone app listen function is a new, useful way to access information. It overcomes the problem of reading from a small screen.

We are very excited at VoiceCorp about this new addition to our customer base.

United Press International has just added our ReadSpeaker Enterprise Expanding Player to their articles. We are thrilled to work with such a well known brand as UPI. The Listen feature is activated on all English text articles and will soon also be implemented on the Spanish language version of the site. UPI will shortly be adding ads within the player area in context with the written content of the article being speech-enabled.

I often use Thalys to go from our Paris office to our management meetings in our Dutch office in Huis ter Heide. So far, apart from the train being much slower on the Belgian and Dutch side and the occasional delays, the service was good but not excellent.

Yesterday I was coming back on the train that leaves Rotterdam at 19h26 and is supposed to arrive in Paris at 22h35. Due to a power failure (that was known to Thalys since 18h), the train could not go to Paris and dropped us off at Breda. From there we took buses – that took 2 hours to arrive – that drove us to the Bruxelles train station. On the way, we had been promised that hotel rooms would be reserved for the 300 to 400 of us approximately. Upon arrival, we were dismayed that the not too experienced looking Thalys team told us that they were unable to find any rooms. The only plan B they had was to have us sleep in the standstill fully lit train at the station from 1 am to the first departure this morning at 6h45. I finally got to Paris at 8h10 so 9h35 late. When arriving in Paris, the local Thalys team seemed surprised about the whole situation…

I think this is a good example of all the wrong steps a company takes when it comes to one, if not the most important, part of the building blocks of an organization namely customer support.

Error #1 : the personnel on board Thalys was uninformed on what was really going on. Companies should ensure that the employees that are in direct contact with their customers should know as much as possible in real time. Is that so difficult in 2009?

Error #2 : it shows real fast when customer support hasn’t done its uttermost to help out. I just can’t believe that it is impossible to find a couple hundred rooms in a hotel rich city like Brussels.

Error #3 : it was obvious that no real contingency planning had been carried out. This seems really strange since you would imagine that this kind of incident must be planned for. There was little or no coordination between Thalys personnel and the staff at the different train stations involved. Customer support teams need to live and breathe these worst-case scenario plans so that the day they are needed actions run more or less smoothly.

Error #4 : not listening to your customers. One traveller told the Thalys staff at the Brussels station that in these difficult economic times there must have been a bus company that would have jumped on the opportunity of bringing us all to Paris and prove to Thalys that they could cope with these kind of emergencies. The Thalys staff just discarded that option without any explanation.

Error # 5 : not escalating the decision process. The somewhat junior staff at the Brussels station didn’t “call the boss”. That would have calmed down some of the travelers and could have perhaps brought about a more experienced view on how to find a reasonable solution (since staying in a standstill train for almost 6 hours is not an option).

Error #6 : not to give more than the damage is worth on paper. Thalys’s reimbursing policy is to give compensation of 20,50 or 100% in case of delays above 30, 60 or 120 minutes. Rules are nice to have, but in some extreme cases companies need to be much better than the rules. You need to build a memorable support experience where the customer really thinks that the company has gone way beyond its duty to solve the problem at hand.

I think that Thalys could have a look at how a company like Zappos goes about customer suppport. It’s not rocket science, it is about caring as much as possible for the human beings that buy your products and services and not treating them as a somewhat abstract vision of the customer.