SpitFire Help Desk :: How Does Answering Machine Detection work?

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How Does Answering Machine Detection work?

We use the connect length property given to us by the Dialogic board which returns the greeting length after a party answers an outbound call. In other words, when someone says, "Hello?", the Dialogic cards measure the length of this burst of sound.
This property is then compared the AM= value set in the Campaign's ini file. If connect length value is less then AM value then it's a live voice, but if the connect length is greater then AM value then it's an answering machine.

Why Does Miss-detection Sometimes Occur?
If someone answers there phone like this, "Hi this is John, how can I help you?" The Dialer may think that this is a pre-recorded message because there was a burst of sound that was longer than 1 or 2 seconds. However, if he immediately says, "Hello?" during the waiting period, the Dialer might decide a live person answered and would go ahead and play the part of the script for a live person.

Conversely, if someone has an answering machine message or voicemail message that sounds something like, "Hello....This is John....I am not here right now..." etc, this might sound to the Dialer like a live person answered and it would go ahead and play the message for a live voice response. The result of this is that their answering machine may only get part of the message because it would beep somewhere in the middle of the script playing.

Line noise and background noise in the room can also affect the detection process. Because of these factors, you should not expect Answering Machine detection to be 100% accurate. A Dialer is never going to be as good as a human at detecting the difference between live people and pre-recorded voices. However, the sensitivity setting used in the AM= value is very good when set to a proper number.
Usually setting it to 1 second is the best setting and the higher you set it, the more often it will think an answering machine message is a live person.