Question:

How can I improve the response rate from my contacts when I send notifications to phones?

How can I ensure that messages are delivered in full to my contacts' voicemail system?

Answer:

Instruct your recipients to consider the following when receiving a voice notification from your organization:

1. Answer calls with a greeting (such as "hello") instead of being silent when answering the call. This improves the user experience because your message will be delivered as soon as a human recipient is detected.
   1. If contacts are receiving the voicemail message instead of the notification message, please see knowledge base article 000062560 - EBS: How to Bypass Voice Mail Detection in Everbridge Suite.
2. When prompted, press number keys on your phone only once. Multiple key presses for the same number may be interpreted as an invalid response. For instance, "1" and "11" are different responses for any automated phone system.
3. Do not keep your finger on the number keys for an extended time. On some mobile phones, pressing and keeping your finger on the keypad may send the signal more than once, which may be interpreted as an invalid response.

Optimal message delivery includes instances when your voice message must be delivered to a voicemail system. In this scenario, it is crucial that the entirety of your message is communicated to your contacts, and that the voicemail system fully records the message.

The following are recommendations message recipients can use to configure their voicemail greetings:

• Create a custom voicemail greeting instead of using a default greeting.
• When prompted to record the greeting, begin speaking immediately. Avoid pausing between the initial prompt and when leaving the greeting.
  • Recommended: "(beep) You have reached Anna's office. I am not currently available."
  • Avoid: "(beep)...[pause][pause] You have reached Anna's office..."
• When recording the greeting, speak naturally, and avoid long pauses.
  • Recommended: "Hi, this is Jim. I am not available to take your call."
  • Avoid: "Hi, this is Jim...[pause]...[pause]...I am not available."
  • Avoid: "Hi...[pause]...[pause]...this is Jim."
• Speak at a normal voice volume when recording the greeting. If the playback of the greeting is normally low, speak at a slightly louder volume.
• Record a greeting that is longer than two seconds.
  • Recommended: "Hi, this is Dana. I am not available to take your call, so please leave your message after the beep. Thanks."
  • Avoid: "Leave a message."

If any of your contacts are set up with an Extension Phone delivery path, please note that there is no way for our system to know when a call is answered after the extension is dialed. By default, our system will wait five seconds after dialing the last digit of the extension. Once this time has elapsed, the system will assume the call has been answered and will begin its processing phase (detecting voicemail or human, play greeting, play message, etc.). If five seconds is not sufficient time (e.g. your contacts' voicemail does not answer until eight seconds after the extension is dialed), then you can add additional time to the default five second wait time by denoting pause time in addition to the default five seconds. This can be done by adding one, or more, comma characters to the end of the extension field, where each comma represents a half-second pause. As an example, if a contact's extension is "4567" and you want to wait eight seconds before our system starts the call answered processing phase, then you would enter "4567,,,,,," in the extension field.