Almost 1 in 5 outbound calls is answered by a machine first. Ours knows.

When you call customers, the first thing you often hear is a call screener, voicemail, an automated menu, or a "number switched off" message. In our own test of about 2,700 real calls, that was nearly 18%.

An agent who doesn't notice starts talking to a machine, wasting money and sounding silly.

Now it recognises what it is talking to and reacts:

- Call screener: introduces itself, then waits for the person.

- Voicemail: hangs up, or leaves your message.

- Automated menu or network message: hangs up.

- A real person: greets them properly.

It is off until you turn it on, and you choose what it does in each case.

How does your team handle voicemail on outbound calls?