In high-volume outbound calling, a significant number of calls go unanswered or are directed to voicemail. Earlier, agents either had to wait through voicemail prompts to leave a message or skip the process entirely. Then came Answering Machine Detection (AMD), where the system would either not offer the call to the agent when voicemail was detected (in the case of customer-first dialers) or would remove the agent from the call (in the case of agent-first dialers).

Now, agent productivity is managed through AMD. However, businesses also want to drop pre-recorded messages into customers' mailboxes, allowing them to maintain customer experience and brand presence/recall — even without a connected call.

This need gave rise to the voicemail drop functionality, where the system waits for the customer's voicemail message to finish. Once the beep tone is heard (or the message ends), the system automatically plays the pre-recorded message.

Voicemail Drop addresses this challenge by automatically leaving a pre-recorded voicemail when an answering machine is detected. The system uses AMD to determine whether a human or a machine has answered within the first few seconds of the call.

This automation improves efficiency, saves time, and ensures consistent outreach without requiring manual effort from agents.

Automated Voicemail Drop Workflow in Outbound Campaigns

1. Outbound Call Initiated – The system places the call as part of an outbound campaign.

2. Voicemail Detection – Using Answering Machine Detection (AMD), the system determines whether the call is answered by a human or a voicemail.

3. Call Flow Logic:

   1. If a human answers → The call is routed to either IVR or agent based on defined business objectives within the system (sales call or services call).

   2. If a voicemail is detected → If a voicemail message is detected, and there is no human; then the system does not route the call to any business workflow/agent and waits for some time to hear the beep tone or silence after message; in order to drop the pre-recorded voicemail message for the customer.

      1. This wait time/timeout can be set at backend and it is of 10 seconds by default in the system.

         Within this time, AI tries to detect beep tone, and once it does, the system starts playing voicemail message.

      2. If there is no beep, the system also has the capability to detect silence/message end, and then can play voicemail message for the customer.

      3. If neither of the above happens within the wait time duration, then at timeout, the message is played.

4. Automated Message Drop – The voicemail message is delivered without requiring any action from the agent.

5. Call Logging & Reporting – Each voicemail drop is tracked with key details such as timestamp, message name, and delivery status for reporting and performance analysis.

Reporting Metrics

1. Metric Name - Voice Mail Dropped.

2. Voicemail Dropped – True/NA.

3. Voice Mail IVR – Name of message played.

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Key Considerations for Voicemail Drop

• Detection Delay – Voicemail detection typically takes 3–4 seconds. As a result, the customer may experience a brief moment of silence before the call proceeds.

• Message Cutoff Risk – If the voicemail greeting is longer than the configured voicemail drop timeout, the pre-recorded message may be cut off. To ensure the full message is delivered, it's recommended to loop the message two or three times within the IVR.

• Call Recording – These calls are classified as voicemail and treated as non-connected. Therefore, no call recordings are generated for voicemail drops.

  Note: The Voicemail Drop is a feature with limited availability and is only available for Signalwire CPaaS provider.