VM Message Group: Let Agents Pick Which Voicemail to Drop

When an agent reaches a customer's voicemail box, sometimes one canned message is not enough. A first-touch message reads differently from a third-attempt message, and a sales pitch differs from a service callback. VM Message Group gives the agent a choice. Instead of dropping a single fixed prompt, it opens a panel of messages the agent can pick from for that call. This page covers what the setting does and when it earns its place.

What the setting does

VM Message Group is a campaign field that points at a group of voicemail messages. When it is set, the VM transfer panel button opens a new panel showing all of the messages in the selected group. The agent (Agent) chooses one, and that message is played to the customer's voicemail box when the call is transferred. The default is blank, which disables the panel and leaves the agent with the single default behavior.

This is an agent-driven cousin of automatic voicemail-drop (Voicemail drop). Automatic drops happen when answering machine detection (AMD (answering machine detection)) decides a machine answered. VM Message Group instead puts the decision in the agent's hands during a live transfer, which is useful when the agent has context the dialer does not.

How an agent uses it

flowchart TD
  A[Agent reaches a voicemail box] --> B{VM Message Group set}
  B -->|No| C[Single default voicemail drop]
  B -->|Yes| D[Agent clicks the VM transfer button]
  D --> E[Panel shows messages in the group]
  E --> F[Agent picks the right message]
  F --> G[Message plays to the voicemail box]

The flow is quick. The agent lands on a voicemail box, clicks the VM transfer button, and the panel appears with the group's messages listed. The agent picks the one that fits the call and confirms, and VICIdial plays it to the box. Because the agent chooses in the moment, you can stock the group with messages for different scenarios and trust the person on the call to match the message to the situation.

When to use it

Reach for VM Message Group when your campaign has more than one good message and the right choice depends on the call. A few examples:

• Separate first-attempt and follow-up messages for the same campaign.
• Different languages, picked by the agent after a brief live exchange.
• Sales versus service messages handled by the same blended team.

If your campaign (Campaign) only ever needs one message, leave the field blank and use the standard single drop. The panel adds a step, and a step with only one option is just friction. Save it for the cases where choice genuinely helps.

Whatever messages you load into the group, record each one twice in its file so a clipped start on a voicemail box still gets heard in full. The agent picks the message, but the same beginning-cut-off problem applies to every drop.

Where this fits

Agent-chosen voicemail is one of several ways to handle machines well. For the full picture, read our AMD and CPD guide. If you want the agent to stay on the call after dropping a message instead of jumping to disposition, see Leave VM No Dispo.

VICIfast sets up message groups and the audio store for you, so giving your agents a clean voicemail panel is configuration, not engineering. See VICIfast pricing to get a managed dialer running.