I thought that Retell would be able to reliably de...
# ❓・ai-evy-supporta
Alexander
08/20/2026, 12:01 PM@AI Evy I thought that Retell would be able to reliably detect voicemails, but it is very, very bad at it. I'm wondering whether there is a workaround that we can implement. I'm wondering whether there has been any talk about this in the community and how people actually deal with this. We are spending a lot of money on minute costs on calls that are just between the AI and no one on the other end, just because the call reached voicemail.
This means that also people who actually play back their voicemails might get a voicemail where they suddenly hear an AI who's 30 seconds into a script, and it's just very, very weird. How do we solve this issue? We don't want to be paying for people. We don't want to be paying for Retell to call while people are on voicemail, so how can we reliably fix this ourselves?
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AI Evy
08/20/2026, 12:01 PMThanks for tagging me @Alexander. I'll look through relevant sources and get back to you shortly.
AI Evy
08/20/2026, 12:01 PM### Answer
A few community-sourced workarounds have come up around this exact issue:
One approach is adding a global node/prompt instructions that check for common voicemail-indicating phrases so the agent can trigger end call when it detects them. One user's list of trigger keywords included: "please press 1", "after the tone", "please enter verification code", "Google Virtual Calling Assistant", "Is Not Available", "Google Voice", "leave a msg after the tone" [(1) ]() .
Another suggestion was reducing interruption sensitivity so the agent can cut off and correctly identify voicemail greetings before continuing its script, though this comes with the tradeoff of potentially talking over real users .
For a similar case where an agent wasn't reliably detecting voicemail during a warm transfer, the recommendation was to train silence/beep detection and add a voicemail-specific prompt, and if detection still fails, to contact support@retellai.com directly with specific call examples for investigation — since voicemail greetings can sound conversational enough to confuse detection logic [(2) ]() .
On the official side, Retell AI's dashboard lets you enable voicemail detection on your agent's settings, choose the behavior (hang up or leave a message) , and configure a detection duration timeout — starting around 30 seconds is recommended, adjusted based on when voicemail typically triggers in your calls [(3) ]() .
If you want, I can point you toward the feature-requests channel process one user followed when raising this same concern, or you can reach out to support@retellai.com with specific failed call IDs (as suggested in the community threads) for
AI Evy
08/20/2026, 12:01 PM
To learn more, see the sources I considered:
[[1] Voicemail Detection Improvement](https://discord.com/channels/1186424376300679209/1364655026697539594)
[[2] HELP - I need the agent to take messages from the user.](https://discord.com/channels/1186424376300679209/1367760084481998848)
[[3] Best Voicemail Practices for AI Voice Agents | Retell AI](https://www.retellai.com/blog/5-best-voicemail-practices-when-using-ai-voice-agents)
AI Evy
08/20/2026, 12:01 PMFeel free to tag @AI Evy with additional questions. I also appreciate feedback, it helps me improve.