Answering machines, outcomes and retries
Answering machines (AMD)
| Synchronous AMD (default) | Asynchronous AMD (option) | |
|---|---|---|
| How it works | Twilio asks for TwiML only after it has decided whether a human or a machine answered | The customer is queued right away and a machine is dropped when the result arrives |
| Voicemail reaching agents | Never | A voicemail that takes longer to detect than the connect time reaches an agent, who then sees an "Answering machine detected" warning |
| Silence for a real person | About 2 s after "hello" | None |
AMD is enabled and tuned per campaign under Answering machine detection: on or off, Enable or DetectMessageEnd mode ("Enable" decides as soon as it can; "DetectMessageEnd" waits for the beep), speech and silence thresholds, and the detection timeout (8 s by default, after which the answer is treated as human). Twilio AMD is billed per call and adds a minute of billing on machine answers.
AMD is off in agent-first calls and for callbacks the agent dials personally: the agent hears the greeting and can leave a voicemail. Thresholds are not yet calibrated for Israeli carriers: the test account produced only human answers and no voicemail samples.
Outcomes
The dialer determines the technical outcome of a call from its status and AMD; the agent does not have to mark it. No answer, busy and voicemail never reach the agent. Agents pick a disposition only after talking to a person.
Default retry rules
| Outcome | Retry after | Max |
|---|---|---|
no_answer: rang out without an answer | 120 min | 3 |
busy: the line was busy | 30 min | 3 |
machine / fax: voicemail was detected | 240 min | 2 |
abandoned: answered, but never connected to an agent (hung up while waiting) | 15 min | 2 |
failed: the call could not be completed | 60 min | 1 |
On top of these, the overall maxAttemptsTotal is 6. An invalid number excludes the lead immediately. A retry that falls outside the calling window (or a closed calendar) moves to its next opening. Supervisors edit the rules per campaign under Retries.
Agent dispositions
| Outcome type | Effect on the lead |
|---|---|
| Success | Positive result. The lead is done and the campaign will not call it again. |
Closed (other) | The lead is done and the campaign will not call it again. |
Try again later (retry) | The lead goes back to the campaign and is dialed again after the code's delay, within the calling hours. |
| Callback | The agent picks a date and time and who calls back ("Me" or "Any agent"); the lead waits for that callback. |
Do not call (dnc) | The number goes on the internal do-not-call list: no campaign will dial it again. The lead is removed from the campaign. |
| Invalid number | The number is marked invalid and the lead is removed from the campaign. |
The default set is:
| Code | Label | Outcome type |
|---|---|---|
interested | Interested | Success |
not_interested | Not interested | Closed |
callback | Callback requested | Callback |
wrong_number | Wrong number | Invalid number |
do_not_call | Do not call | Do not call |
Managing disposition codes
Supervisors manage codes on the Dispositions tab of the Campaigns view:
- Global set and per-campaign codes. Campaign agents get the global codes unless the campaign changes them. A campaign can customize a global code (its own copy replaces the global one for that campaign) or add codes of its own.
- Fields. The code (lowercase English letters, digits and
_, starting with a letter; stored on every call and used in reports; cannot be changed later), English and Hebrew labels, the outcome type, the delay for "Try again later" codes, the order, and whether the code is offered to agents. - Turning off and deleting. Turned-off codes stay in call history and reports, but agents can no longer pick them. A code can be deleted only while no call has used it; global codes are never deleted. At least one code has to stay on, or agents cannot close their tasks.