How do AI voice agents say amounts and dates in South Indian languages?
They read figures in the spoken style of the language, and often in English, because that is how callers say them. A Telugu, Tamil, Kannada or Malayalam agent can say 'eighty lakh', a date or a time in the way people on a call do. Always have the agent repeat key amounts back to confirm.
Numbers are where voice agents slip
A wrong rupee amount or a wrong appointment time costs real trust. In Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam, numbers can be said in the native system, in English, or in a mix. A shopkeeper might say 'iravai aayiram' in Tamil, while a salaried caller says 'twenty thousand'. Both are normal on the same call.
How Outpero's agents handle figures
Outpero's agents are built for conversational speech in the live languages, including numbers said in English inside a regional sentence. They capture amounts, dates, times and phone numbers into the call summary and the custom fields you asked for. The agent can also say a figure back so the caller can correct it.
Practical rules for scripts
- —Say important amounts in the form your callers use. For Hyderabad real estate that is usually English numbers with 'lakh' and 'crore'.
- —Keep dates short: 'Saturday at 4 pm' is easier to catch than a full date.
- —Ask for a long number, such as a phone number or a policy number, in groups, and have the agent repeat them.
- —Avoid decimals in speech. Say 'twelve and a half lakh' rather than a long digit string.
A confirmation pattern that works
| Step | Example line (English gloss) |
|---|---|
| Capture | What budget range are you looking at? |
| Repeat | So that is around eighty lakh, correct? |
| Confirm | I have noted that and will pass it to our team. |
Use captured fields, not memory
After every call, the dashboard shows the recording, transcript, summary and the fields you asked it to capture, such as budget or appointment time. Compare the field to the transcript for the first 20 calls. If an amount is wrong, change the question wording or the repeat-back line.
For payment reminders and anything legal, do not let the agent read figures that are not already in your data. It should state the amount from the record you supply, and nothing else. No accuracy percentage is promised, so verification in the first week matters more than a claim.
Want to hear an AI voice agent handle this on a real call?
Follow-up questions
Can the agent confirm a phone number or order number reliably?
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It captures what the caller says and can read it back for confirmation, which is the safer pattern. Long digit strings are easy to mishear on any phone line, so ask in groups and have the agent repeat the number before saving it to a field.