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On a voice call, callers can answer with their keypad as well as their voice. The agent recognizes the touch-tones (DTMF) a caller presses and treats those digits as input — the same way it treats spoken words. This is the right tool when a value is awkward to say out loud or must be exact: an account or order number, a numeric menu choice, a PIN, or a yes/no confirmation (“press 1 to confirm”).

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When to reach for the keypad

  • Exact numbers — account, order, member, or case IDs where a misheard digit is costly.
  • Quick choices — “press 1 for billing, 2 for support” style menus.
  • Confirmations — “press 1 to confirm, 2 to start over.”
  • Sensitive entry — values a caller would rather key in than speak aloud.

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How it works

Keypad input is a property of the voice channel — there is no separate setup to turn it on. During a call the agent listens for both speech and digits, so a caller can press a number when the agent asks for one. Those digits flow into the conversation just like spoken answers: when a skill needs a value (for example, an order number for a lookup, or a destination choice for a transfer), the caller can speak it or key it in, and the agent uses whichever it receives. Because digits become ordinary collected values, you don’t build a rigid phone-tree. You describe what the agent should collect — in the agent’s prompt and in each skill’s parameters — and the agent decides when keypad entry makes sense.
Phrase your prompts to invite it explicitly when precision matters: “Read me your order number, or type it on your keypad.” Callers default to the keypad for long digit strings, which improves accuracy.
What it controlsWhere
Which values a skill collects from the caller (spoken or keypad)POST /agents/{agentId}/skills (skills:write)
Idle / no-response handling while waiting for inputCallControl on the agent (agents:write)
Routing a keyed-in choice to a personTransfer rules — see Voice
What actually happened on a callGET /agents/{agentId}/calls (calls:read)
Keypad entry is only available on the Voice (PSTN) channel — text Chat has no tones to press. Build the same data-collection step into your skill parameters and it works across both: spoken in chat, spoken-or-keyed on a call.