Voicemail and Answering Machine Detection

Answering Machine Detection (AMD)

DoctorConnect believes we have the strongest voice delivery engine in the industry – however, there are two questions regarding voicemail and answering machines that do arise occasionally:

  1. Inquires about silent voicemails.
  2. Reports that the message started in the middle or ended too soon.

While this can be frustrating, it only happens to a fraction of patients that utilize voicemail.  Today, most carriers report AMD detection rates are now in the high 90 percentile.  However, when you send out hundreds of thousands of messages a day, it is unavoidable that some patients may experience an irregularity.

The good news is, in 99% of those cases – the patient will also get a SMS message and/or an email with the same information – and there is no need for concern.  We also attempt to mitigate any issue by repeating the message in it’s entirely twice if we detect an answering machine.

For the few patients that cannot get text or email, and also happen to be the ones that run into this issue, we do have two suggestions.  Let the patient know it can happen occasionally and hopefully it will be corrected next time.   Also suggest that if they have not already – they should add texting or email to their reminder options.  Those methods are superior to phone calls, and provide the most reliable communication between your practice and your patients.

If you feel you are receiving an abnormal amount of complaints from your patients – please let us know and let us make sure there is not something wrong with the content of your message.   Also check to make sure that your % of voicemail confirmations are remaining constant on a day-to-day basis.  If you notice a sudden drop-off, then please do contact us for an immediate account review.

We continue to keep up with the latest advancements in AMD and constantly strive to make sure every message reaches every patient as accurately as possible.

Please contact us if you are experiencing patient voicemail complaints.

Please include the patients phone number and appointment time and date.  If at all possible, we would like 3-5 examples.  It is difficult to get the carriers to trace a single complaint.

Thank you so much, and we appreciate your business.