What VM Message Groups give agents on a voicemail drop

The problem they solve

When a call rolls to a customer's voicemail box, an agent usually wants to leave a short pre-recorded message rather than improvise one each time. A VM Message Group is the menu that makes that possible. It is a named set of audio files that an agent can choose from on the agent screen when transferring a call to a voicemail message. Instead of a single canned line, the agent gets a small list and picks the one that fits.

This is closely related to a Voicemail drop, the act of leaving that message and moving on so the agent is free for the next live call. The group is the library; the drop is the action.

Setting one up

Each group needs an ID between 2 and 40 characters with no punctuation except an underscore, and a name of at least 5 characters. The Active flag controls whether the group shows up as an option when you edit a campaign, so you can build one quietly and switch it on later. Inside the group you attach your audio files and tune three things per file: Rank, Time Range, and Display.

• Rank sets the order the messages appear in on the agent screen, so the most common message can sit at the top.
• Time Range, in 2400-hour format, controls which part of the customer's day a given message is offered, so a morning greeting and an after-hours message can live in the same group.
• Display is the label the agent actually reads next to each file, so name them for humans, not for filenames.

flowchart TD
  A["Call reaches customer voicemail"] --> B["Agent opens VM message menu"]
  B --> C{"Within time range for message?"}
  C -->|No| D["Message hidden from list"]
  C -->|Yes| E["Message shown by rank"]
  E --> F["Agent selects display label"]
  F --> G["Selected audio drops to voicemail"]
  G --> H["Agent freed for next call"]

Where it fits in the agent's flow

On an outbound Campaign, the agent reaches a voicemail box, picks the right message from the group, drops it, and dispositions the call. The Time Range matters more than it looks: a message that greets someone with good morning at 7pm reads as careless, and the group quietly handles that for you. Pair the group with a tight Disposition so a dropped voicemail is logged consistently and your Agent script tells reps which message to choose in which situation. Note: the same audio can appear in more than one group, so build small focused groups per campaign rather than one giant catch-all.

Message groups are one of several team-shaped tools in VICIdial that decide what an agent can pick at the moment of the call. If you are organizing several teams, the VICIdial users and groups multi-team guide walks through how those pieces line up.

Dropping a voicemail is one kind of agent transfer; handing a live caller to another destination is another. If your reps also move live calls, read how the agent transfers permission works so the two behaviors do not collide.

Want voicemail drops, message groups, and recordings set up out of the box? Spin up a VICIfast dialer and you are live in under 40 seconds.