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Answering-Machine Detection

One second decides the call. Something answers, and before a headset is involved the line is judged person or machine. A person is bridged, a machine takes a prepared message or nothing, and the record says which happened.

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Outbound connect

before the offer
Something answered
Answer
line held here
Classified
person or machine
Bridged
to an agent

The line is handed to a free agent with the contact already open, so the first second is spent talking.

What lands on the call record
  • voicemail_detectedflag on the callfalse
  • voicemail_droppedflag on the callfalse
  • call timelinestep writtenanswered
  • wrap-up codedispositionset by the agent
Classification is a judgement made on the opening of the answer. It is recorded on the call rather than guaranteed, which is why both the finding and what was done about it are kept.
The mechanism

How it works.

01

The judgment comes first

A connect is not yet a conversation. The opening of the answer is assessed while the line is still held on the platform side, so nothing is committed to an agent until the answer has been classified.

02

A machine never reaches a headset

When the answer is a machine the line is released rather than passed on. Nobody hears a greeting, a beep or a menu tree, and the seat stays free for an answer that can actually be talked to.

03

The message can be left for you

A machine answer can take a prepared message instead of silence. It plays with no agent on the line, which is why detection and drop are two outcomes rather than one: a machine can be found and left alone.

04

Which machines got your message, months later

Detected and dropped are stored separately on the call record, and the timeline carries its own step for each. A voicemail that got a message is distinguishable from one that did not, months later, without listening to anything.

Where it sits

One moment in every call.

Every call passes through the same seven. Answering-Machine Detection is the lit one, and everything either side of it is a different page in this category.

  1. 01
    Number

    the line it arrives on or leaves from

  2. 02
    Route

    where the call is sent and to whom

  3. 03
    Dial

    placing it, and how many at once

  4. 04
    Connect

    the moment a person picks up

  5. 05
    Talk

    while the conversation is happening

  6. 06
    Wrap

    the code, the notes, the next step

  7. 07
    Record

    what is kept, and where it is kept

The specifics.

7 facts
Where it runs
On the connect, before the call is offered to an agent
Outcomes
Person, machine with a message left, machine with none
Record
Machine detected and message dropped are separate flags on the call
Timeline
Voicemail detected, voicemail left and voicemail dropped are distinct steps
Call status
A dropped message is its own terminal status, not a generic failure
Wrap-up
The seeded voicemail code carries a log-voicemail behavior
What is kept
The classification itself sits on the call, so a judgment can be read back against the audio rather than taken on trust

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Contact Center

See answering-machine detection on your own floor.

Thirty minutes, your numbers and your data. We will set answering-machine detection up live and you can decide from the thing itself rather than from this page.

See pricing

14-day trial · no card · migration included