Play Now, Wait, or Wait for Silence: Three Message Methods

When you run an agentless campaign that plays a recording, the single biggest choice is timing: when does the message start after the customer answers? VICIdial gives you three practical methods, and each one trades simplicity for how natural the call feels. Picking the right one keeps fewer customers hanging up and clips fewer answering machine recordings.

Method 1: Play immediately

This is the easiest to set up and needs no dialplan (Dialplan) editing. You record an easy-prompt and point the remote agent's External Extension field at it; the call hangs up when the recording finishes. The downside is timing. The message starts before the person even says hello, so the opening feels abrupt, and on answering machines the beginning gets cut off because the recording is already running.

There is one more thing to know: with this method the lead gets no real status change when the full message plays. You will only see a small set of outcomes on the list, so it is the least informative option for reporting. To soften the abrupt start, wait two to three seconds before speaking on the recording and record the message twice so any clipped opening still plays once in full.

Method 2: Wait a set number of seconds

This method waits a fixed amount of time before the message starts. Because it pauses, it usually holds off until after a person has said hello, which feels more natural than playing immediately. The cost is a small dialplan edit to your extensions.conf, where you set the wait and add the playback line for your prompt.

The trade-off is that any delay gives some customers time to hang up, and you will still probably miss part of the beginning on answering machines. Recording the message twice, or entering the playback of your prompt twice, covers that gap. Here you do not need the two-to-three-second lead-in on the recording, since the wait already provides it.

Method 3: Wait for silence on the line

This one also needs an extensions.conf edit, but instead of a fixed timer it waits for a stretch of silence before playing. That silence check gives you some answering machine detection (AMD (answering machine detection)) for free, because a machine greeting is followed by a pause the recording can wait out. Like the timed method, it usually waits until after a hello, so it sounds natural to a live person.

The downsides are the same shape as method two: a delay can cost you a few impatient hangups, and machine recordings may still lose part of the start. Record twice to cover it. The added silence intelligence is what makes this method a good middle ground when you want some Beep detection behavior without committing to full detection.

flowchart TD
  A[Customer answers] --> B{Method}
  B -->|Play immediately| C[Message starts at once]
  B -->|Wait set seconds| D[Pause fixed time then play]
  B -->|Wait for silence| E[Listen for silence then play]
  C --> F[Simple no dialplan edit]
  D --> G[Needs extensions conf edit]
  E --> H[Needs edit gives some detection]

And the fourth option

There is a fourth method, full answering machine detection, set up entirely from the admin web interface with no manual dialplan editing. It leaves messages on machines more accurately, though it is still not an exact science and may need its settings tuned. Because detection runs on every answered call, it is the heaviest of the four; the trade-offs are covered in our note on the hidden cost of AMD.

Picking your method

If you only need speed and do not care about per-lead Status (lead status) detail, play immediately. If you want a natural opening, use the set-wait method. If you also want light machine handling, wait for silence. For the broader setup and how these fit a no-agent campaign, read the AMD and CPD complete guide.

Want the dialplan edits and recordings handled for you? See VICIfast pricing and we will set up the method that fits your campaign.