Call settings: voicemail, timing and routing
What happens when an answering machine picks up, how long a call can run, when the agent hangs up, where a call goes when the agent cannot finish it, and the two sliders that set its conversational timing.
11 min readUpdated 26 August 2026
This is the largest panel on the agent page and the one that decides how a call behaves rather than what it says. Four groups: voicemail, timing, routing and outbound.
Voicemail handling
Described on the page as how calls behave when they reach an answering machine or voicemail. It is off by default, and when on it screens outbound calls only unless you turn off Only run on outbound calls. It works on any model, is most reliable on a standard model with separate transcription, and native-audio models are supported too.
This matters most for campaigns. Without it, an agent cheerfully delivers a qualification conversation to a voicemail greeting and logs it as a call.
| Setting | What the page says |
|---|---|
| Detect voicemail / answering machine | When off, the agent greets immediately without screening for a machine |
| Only run on outbound calls | On by default: screen only on outbound. Off: also screen on inbound and web test calls, which adds a short pre-greeting delay while it classifies |
Underneath sit the decisions about what to do once a machine is detected: how fast to greet, whether to leave a message, whether that message is fixed, the message text itself, and an advanced field for tuning what counts as voicemail.
The speed choice is a real trade and the page states it: the fast option greets instantly, and the greeting may appear at the start of voicemail recordings. Screening properly takes a moment, and that moment is a pause a human caller notices.
Tip
The message you leave can carry a callback number, in the shape the placeholder shows. A voicemail that does not say how to reach you back is a wasted call.
Call Timing
Described as call length limits and background sounds during the call. Two of these are safety limits and two are about how the call feels.
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Background sound | A subtle ambient sound played behind the call so it feels less empty |
| Thinking sound | A short sound played while the agent prepares its reply, so the caller knows it is working |
| Max call length (seconds) | The call ends automatically once it reaches this length |
| Hang up after silence (seconds) | If the caller stays silent for this long, the agent ends the call |
The two sounds solve a specific problem. Complete silence on a phone line reads as a dropped call, and a caller who thinks the line died starts saying hello over your agent. A little ambient noise and a short sound while it thinks are worth more to perceived quality than most prompt edits.
The two timers are what stop a stuck call running forever. Max call length is a hard stop. Hang up after silence is the one that catches the common case: someone put the phone down without hanging up.
Careful
Both timers cost money while they run. A generous silence timeout on high volume is a bill nobody looks at until the end of the month.
Call Routing
Described as when the agent should end calls, forward them, or hand off to another agent. Three controls, and the difference between the last two matters.
- Let the agent end calls, which allows it to hang up automatically when the conversation is complete.
- Forwarding Phone Number, which sends the caller to a number.
- Hand off to another agent, which passes the call to a different agent on your account.
Forwarding is for reaching a person. Handing off is for reaching different expertise that is still automated: a reception agent passing a booking request to a booking agent.
Letting the agent end calls is worth thinking about rather than switching on by reflex. On, calls close cleanly instead of sitting open until a timer fires, which is cheaper and feels tidier. Off, the caller decides when the call is over, which is safer when the agent's judgement about being finished is not yet proven.
Outbound Calling
One field: the phone number your agent calls out from. The page adds that you can use the Test AI Agent drawer to place a test outbound call, which is the fastest way to hear what your number sounds like on the receiving end.
Conversation flow (advanced)
The last section on the panel is collapsed by default. Open it and you get two sliders, described on the page as fine-tuning how quickly the agent replies and how it handles being interrupted. Each has a slider and a number box beside it, so you can drag roughly or type an exact value.
These two decide whether the agent feels like it is talking with someone or over them. Nothing else on the agent page changes how a call feels this much for this little effort.
| Setting | What the page says | Range | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reply delay | How long the agent waits after the caller stops speaking before it replies | 0 to 3 on the slider | 2 |
| Interruption sensitivity | How quickly the agent stops talking when the caller starts speaking | 0.05 to 2, in steps of 0.05 | 0.4 |
Reply delay
This is the pause between the caller finishing and the agent starting. It is not a speed setting, it is a patience setting.
Low values make the agent quick, which sounds sharp until someone pauses mid-sentence to think. Then the agent talks over them, because it counted the pause as the end of their turn. High values make the agent unhurried, at the cost of a gap that reads as lag on a phone line.
Tip
If callers keep getting cut off mid-thought, raise this before you touch anything else. People reading a number off a card or recalling a date pause in the middle, not at the end.
Interruption sensitivity
This is the opposite direction: how easily the caller can stop the agent once it is already speaking. Lower means the agent holds its ground and keeps talking. Higher means it yields the moment it hears a voice.
The failure it exists to fix is an agent that ploughs through a long answer while the caller is trying to say they asked for something else. The failure it causes when set too high is an agent that stops for a cough, a door, or someone talking in the background, and then loses its place.
Careful
Noisy environments punish a high setting hardest. If your callers ring from cars, shop floors or building sites, a sensitive agent will keep stopping for noise that was never speech.
Change one at a time and place a real call after each change. These are the settings where two adjustments at once leave you unable to tell which one helped.
Common questions
- How do I stop my agent talking to voicemail?
- Turn on Detect voicemail / answering machine. It is off by default, and when on it screens outbound calls only unless you also turn off Only run on outbound calls.
- Why is there a pause before my agent greets people?
- If voicemail screening is set to run on inbound as well, the page warns it adds a short pre-greeting delay while it classifies the call.
- My calls run too long. What do I change?
- Max call length is the hard stop. Hang up after silence catches the more common case, where a caller has walked away without hanging up.
- What is the difference between forwarding and handing off?
- Forwarding sends the caller to a phone number, usually a person. Handing off passes them to another agent on your account.
- Should I let the agent end calls?
- It closes calls cleanly and saves the cost of a call sitting open. Leave it off while you are still learning whether the agent judges completion well.
- What does the thinking sound do?
- It plays a short sound while the agent prepares its reply, so silence does not read as a dropped call.
- My agent talks over callers. What do I change?
- Raise Reply delay in Conversation flow (advanced). It defaults to 2 and controls how long the agent waits after the caller stops speaking. Cutting people off usually means it is treating a thinking pause as the end of their turn.
- My agent will not let callers interrupt it.
- Raise Interruption sensitivity in the same section. It defaults to 0.4 and runs from 0.05 to 2 in steps of 0.05. Higher means the agent stops sooner when it hears a voice, so raise it in small steps and listen, because too high means it stops for background noise as well.
- Where do I find Reply delay and Interruption sensitivity?
- Open Call settings on the agent page and scroll to Conversation flow (advanced) at the bottom. The section is collapsed by default, so click it to open.
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