Outbound calls say voicemail was left when it wasn't

[chad]

Hello Support,

I have an issue where some of our recipients are not getting voicemails when in fact your logs say that they received them (and it happens when I test it on my cell phone's voicemail - I have Verizon); when I try with my vonage phone it leaves a voicemail fine. Basically it will call the phone, and it says the callee type is "answeringmachine" (and the call continues for 40 or so seconds - according to your log), but no voicemail is left. Any idea why the call just doesn't terminate instead of going through the whole message? My voicemail definitely doesn't take 40+ seconds before it gets to the beep for a person to leave a message - so it should at least leave part of a message if its starting before the beep. According to the logs, the whole message is played and then disconnected just as if it successfully left a VM.

Thanks!

Chad

The relevant vxml is here:

Code: Select all

<vxml version="2.0" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2001/vxml">
	<property name="bargein" value="false" />
	<property name="inputmodes" value="dtmf"/>
	<var name="whatIsAnswering" expr="'P{callee_type}'" />
	<form id="entry">
		<record cond="whatIsAnswering == 'answeringmachine'" finalsilence="3000ms"/>
		<block name="main">
			<if cond="whatIsAnswering == 'answeringmachine'">
				<prompt>
					This is a reminder from some office,
					<break time="300ms" />
					of your appointment,
					<break time="300ms" />
					on Monday,
					<break time="300ms" />
					February 15th,
					<break time="300ms" />
					at 10:50 AM.
					<break time="300ms" />
					Please call us at:
					<break time="300ms" />
					111-222-3333,
					<break time="300ms" />
					to confirm your appointment,
					<break time="300ms" />
					or if you have any questions.
					<break time="300ms" />
					Thank you.
					<break time="300ms" />
				</prompt>
				<disconnect />
				<else />
				<prompt>
					This is a reminder from some office,
					<break time="300ms" />
					of the appointment for Tyler,
					<break time="300ms" />
					on Monday,
					<break time="300ms" />
					February 15th,
					<break time="300ms" />
					at 10:50 AM.
					<break time="300ms" />
				</prompt>
			</if>
		</block>
	</form>
</vxml>

[chad]

Any ideas?

[support]

Hi Chad,

Sorry for the slight delay. We have been testing your IVR code example as well as a few changes.

We found that we would not receive any voicemails on cell phones from Verizon, T-Mobile, or AT&T from your test code. Dropping the finalsilence within the <record> tag to 2000ms did fix this situation.

What occurred during the IVR logs where you received an "answeringmachine" callee type but did not successfully leave a message was most likely that the voicemail either had hung up or was not in a listening state when the prompt had attempted to play.

Hope this helps!

Regards,
Plum Support

[chad]

Thanks Support! When I changed it to 2000ms, it worked as well, however we've had reports of other users not receiving voice mails and the log still indicates that they are (like what was happening to me on my cellphone when I had 3000ms).

What concerns me is the incorrect reporting of these calls (since we let our clients know the result of the call - and the fact we're getting charged for minutes when the call seems to not have even gone through), do you have any suggestions to help indicate that the call didn't actually leave a voice mail or to get the call to terminate instead of going for the length of the call?

And another question: I know the record tag checks for a length of silence before allowing the script to continue, but is there anyway in my vxml to wait for a beep of the voicemail/answering machine before it tries to leave a message? (seems like that would be something to check for since the beep is common among voicemail systems)

Is the only 100% way to be sure the call was left on voicemail, to have it repeat the VM message at the beginning of the call for a length of time - and allow input if a person, as referenced in this post?: http://support.plumgroup.com/viewtopic. ... email+beep

Thanks again,

Chad

[support]

Hi Chad,

Yes, due to the accuracy of callee type detection not being 100%, the voicemail message would have to be repeated at the beginning of the IVR outbound call for a certain length of time.

Regards,
Plum Support