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Speech controls are text the agent writes into its response to change how that part is spoken. You add them by prompting the agent to write them: To have the agent say nothing at all, for example when the caller asks it to wait, see Make the agent stay silent.

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Add a pause

Prompt the agent to put a dash with a space on each side where it should pause. The spaces are required; a dash without them isn’t treated as a pause.
To slow down the agent’s speech everywhere instead of at specific points, change the voice speed.

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Spell out codes and numbers

To have the agent read a value one character at a time, such as a confirmation code, an account number, or the spelling of a name, wrap it in <spell> tags. Don’t use dashes for this.
Each voice provider reads spelled values best in a different format, so Retell converts the tag to the format that works best for your agent’s voice.
  • Only letters and digits. The value can contain Latin letters, including accented letters like ñ, and the digits 0–9. If it contains anything else, such as a space, punctuation, or a symbol, the tags are ignored and the value is read normally.
  • For a value with punctuation, tag each part. For an email address, spell the parts and say the symbols as words: