Who speaks first
On outbound calls the agent lets the person say hello first, then replies. How long it waits, what it says first, and which calls this applies to.
When someone answers the phone, they usually say hello before anything else. On outbound calls the agent lets the person say hello first. It listens from the moment the call is answered and speaks once the person has finished, so its opening does not land on top of their greeting and they do not have to say hello twice.
Before the call is answered
On every outbound call, whatever the conversation engine, the agent neither hears the line nor speaks until the person answers. Ringback, carrier announcements and any other sound the line carries while it is still ringing never reach the agent, so it cannot mistake them for the person or talk over them.
What the agent waits for
- The person speaks. The agent waits until they have finished, then replies. There is no time limit on a person: a long greeting such as "Good afternoon, Harbour Street Pharmacy, Sam speaking, how can I help?" is heard to the end. A short pause between sentences does not end their turn; a pause of about 0.6 seconds or more does.
- Nobody speaks. If the line stays silent for two seconds after the call is answered, the agent speaks its opening.
- The line plays sound that is not a voice. Hold music, a tone or other continuous sound is not silence, so the two-second rule does not apply to it. After six seconds of it, the agent speaks its opening once. Recognising an answering machine or a looping recording is a separate matter, covered in Answer detection and Voicemail detection.
- The person carries on. If the person pauses and then keeps talking before the agent has started its reply, the agent waits for them to finish again.
What the agent says first
- If the person only greeted the agent or asked who is calling, the agent replies with your opening line as written.
- If they said something else, such as "wrong number", "can you call me back later?" or a question, the agent answers that first and then carries on toward the purpose of the call. It does not read its opening over what it has just heard.
- If your agent's opening is generated rather than a fixed line, it is written with what the person said in view.
The opening is an ordinary reply. The person can interrupt it, and the agent stops and listens, as it would at any other point in the call.
Which calls this applies to
| Call | Who speaks first |
|---|---|
| Outbound phone call, Standard conversation engine | The person, as described on this page |
| Inbound phone call | The agent, as soon as the call connects: the caller dialled and expects to be greeted |
| Outbound call on GPT-Live 1 or Gemini Live | The agent, when the call is answered. These engines cannot yet be held to a single reply after hearing a greeting (Conversation engines) |
| Outbound call bound to an agent workflow | The agent, when the call is answered, with the workflow's first step |
| Browser test call | The agent |
There is no setting for who speaks first and no per-agent override: the call's direction, engine and workflow decide it as shown above.
Time on the call
The time the agent spends listening is part of the call. Outbound time is billed from the moment the call is placed, as described in Billing. The rules that end a call nobody speaks on are unchanged: a person who answers and says nothing hears the opening after two seconds, and the call then ends as described in Answer detection if they never reply.