SpitFire Help Desk

All autodialers have to perform a detection process that determines whether a live person or an answering machine has answered the phone. No autodialer is 100% accurate at making that determination because it is not as intelligent as a human being.

1.First, make sure your script actually has an answering machine message and that it is working properly. Open the script in Scriptmaker, click on Dial-Answer (or Dial, depending on the type of script) and make sure that there is a wav file selected in the script. Click on the cassette icon to open the file in Wavemaker and click Play to hear it.  

2.Make sure that the Dial Rings is set to at least 5 rings. Most voice mail and answering machines do not pick up until at least 4 or 5 rings.

The AM sensitivity is another factor that can be changed in the Spitfire X software under Options/Preferences/Lines tab. The default setting is 3 and generally speaking, anything over 4 will have the effect of making Spitfire think every answered call is a live person. Typically the best setting when you want to make sure you are detecting the most amount of answering machines is 1.
 
Note: This setting is design to make adjustments because of the variability of phone lines and answering machines. It is only necessary to make an adjustment if the vast majority of calls are being detected as voice or AM. If the call dispositions are fairly evenly spread, then the detection sensitivity does not need to be adjusted.

See also How Answering Machine Detection works