Let’s tackle a common issue in call handling: voicemail. If a lot of your calls end up in voicemail, it’s time to get a handle on how to detect and manage it efficiently.

What is Voicemail?

Voicemail is like a digital answering machine. When someone doesn’t pick up their phone, it gives callers a way to leave a recorded message instead of missing the call entirely. Convenient, right?

Why Do People Use Voicemail?

People enable voicemail for good reasons, including:

• Ensuring they don’t miss important calls when they’re unavailable.
• Avoiding endless back-and-forth (“phone tag”).
• Managing calls while in meetings, driving, or in areas with no signal.
• Adding a professional touch, especially for business users.
• It’s often enabled by default on phones.

Detecting Voicemail in Your VAPI Assistant

There are two main ways to detect voicemail in your VAPI assistant:

Option 1: Twilio Voicemail Detection

Twilio provides smart voicemail detection to recognize when your call reaches a voicemail system.

Configuration Example:

voicemailDetection: {
    provider: "twilio",
    voicemailDetectionTypes: [
        "machine_start",          
        "machine_end_beep",       
        "machine_end_silence",    
        "unknown",                
        "machine_end_other"       
    ],
    enabled: true,
    machineDetectionTimeout: 15,  
    machineDetectionSpeechThreshold: 2500, 
    machineDetectionSpeechEndThreshold: 2050, 
    machineDetectionSilenceTimeout: 2000    
}