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.
Outbound connect
before the offerThe line is handed to a free agent with the contact already open, so the first second is spent talking.
- voicemail_detectedflag on the callfalse
- voicemail_droppedflag on the callfalse
- call timelinestep writtenanswered
- wrap-up codedispositionset by the agent
How it works.
The judgement 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.
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.
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.
Both facts land on the call
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.
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.
- 01Number
the line it arrives on or leaves from
- 02Route
where the call is sent and to whom
- 03Dial
placing it, and how many at once
- 04Connect
the moment a person picks up
- 05Talk
while the conversation is happening
- 06Wrap
the code, the notes, the next step
- 07Record
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 behaviour
- What is kept
- The classification itself sits on the call, so a judgement can be read back against the audio rather than taken on trust
Where the call goes next.
A call is a chain of decisions, and this is one link in it. These are the ones either side.
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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.
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