Voicemail

Create a voicemail drop

A voicemail drop is a pre-recorded message the dialer leaves when it reaches an answering machine, so the rep never sits through the beep. Manage them under Voicemail. There are two kinds. Standard recording An audio file. Record it in the browser or upload one you already have, give it a name, and it appears in the voicemail list and in the dialer's voicemail selector. This is the right choice for most teams: it is your actual voice, it takes two minutes, and there is nothing to go wrong. AI voicemail A script, spoken in a cloned voice. 1. Clone your voice. Under Custom Voicemail, either Record Voice Sample in the browser or Upload a voice sample, then Name your voice and save it. Cloned voices are listed under Cloned voices. 2. Create the voicemail. Give it a name, choose one of your cloned voices, and write the script. 3. Edit it later with Edit AI Voicemail — name, voice and script are all changeable. You cannot create an AI voicemail before cloning a voice; the dialog will tell you "No voices available. Clone a voice first." The advantage over a standard recording is that you can change the wording without re-recording, and keep several scripts in the same voice for different campaigns. Only clone a voice you have the right to use. It is your voice, or someone who has agreed to it — and several jurisdictions treat a synthetic voice in an outbound sales call as something that must be disclosed. Check what applies to you before you use one at volume. Use it in a session In Power dialing configs, tick Voicemail → Enable and pick the recording. From then on, machines get the message automatically. Drop one by hand If you land on a machine without automatic voicemail enabled, Drop Voicemail on the live call plays a recording you choose into the call and moves you on. If the dialog says "No voicemails found. Create one in Settings first", you have not made one yet. Writing one that works - Under 20 seconds. Longer and it is deleted before the point. - Say your number twice, slowly, once early and once at the end. - Say why you called in one sentence. No pitch — the only job of a voicemail is to make a callback plausible. - Use a different message for the second attempt. The same message twice reads as automation, which it is.

What happens when a machine answers

PowerDialer detects whether a human or an answering machine picked up. What happens next is decided by two settings in Power dialing configs. The three outcomes 1. You have a voicemail enabled. The recording is played into the machine and the line is released. The call is logged so you can disposition it as Left Voicemail. 2. Skip machine calls is ticked. The line is hung up as soon as a machine is detected and the dialer moves to the next contact. Nothing is left behind. 3. Neither. The call plays 45 seconds of silence and then ends. That third case is the system's fallback, not a feature. The app warns you about it in the settings panel: Calls to voicemail will play 45s of silence (carrier compliance). Upload a voicemail for a better lead experience. The silence exists because the call has been answered and something has to be on the line; a call that connects and immediately drops is exactly the pattern carriers score as spam. But from the contact's side it is a silent call from an unknown number, which is the worst possible impression, and it costs you 45 seconds of minutes per machine. Pick one of the other two. Always. Which to pick | Situation | Choose | | --- | --- | | Cold outbound where a callback is plausible | Voicemail drop | | Very large cold list, low-value contacts | Skip machine calls | | Re-engaging people who know you | Voicemail drop, with a different script for each attempt | | You are dialing at 4 or 5 parallel lines | Voicemail drop — you will hit a lot of machines | The two settings are mutually exclusive: ticking Skip machine calls is disabled while voicemail is enabled. Detection is not perfect Answering machine detection listens to the first moments of the call. A human who answers with a long scripted greeting can be classified as a machine, and a short machine greeting can be classified as a human. If reps report being connected to voicemails, or contacts report receiving a voicemail when they answered in person, raise it — the detection tuning is a platform setting, not something you change per account. Dispositioning machines Use Left Voicemail when you left a message, and Answering Machine when you reached one and did not. Both sync to the CRM as an attempted contact and keep the contact in the queue, but they mean different things in your reports — the voicemail rate is how you find out whether your drops are worth anything.