The Advanced tab controls the rhythm of a conversation: the split-second timing that makes an AI feel natural or awkward. Open it at Receptionist → AI Voice → Advanced.
Read this first: the defaults are tuned to sound natural for healthcare front desks. Change these only if calls feel off. When in doubt, adjust the simple Patience control and leave the rest alone. Everything can be restored with Reset to defaults at the bottom.
Changes are applied when you click Save changes in the bar at the bottom of the tab (Discard undoes unsaved edits).
Pacing
Controls when the AI speaks and how quickly it responds.
Who speaks first
| Option | Behavior |
|---|---|
| Assistant greets (default) | The AI opens with your greeting the moment the call connects. |
| Caller first | The AI stays silent and waits for the caller to speak before responding. |
Most inbound lines should use Assistant greets so callers immediately know they've reached you.
Patience
A one-click preset for how long the AI waits before it starts replying:
| Preset | Feel | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| Snappy | Responds quickly, shorter pauses | Fast talkers, simple calls |
| Balanced (default) | Natural pauses | Most practices |
| Relaxed | Waits longer before jumping in | Older callers, slower speech, patients who pause mid-sentence |
Each preset sets the underlying timing values below. If you hand-edit those numbers, the preset shows Custom.
Fine-tune the exact timing
Click Fine-tune the exact timing to expose the raw controls behind Patience. You rarely need these.
| Control | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Wait before responding (sec) | 0.4 | How long the AI waits after the caller stops before it starts speaking. Higher = more polite pauses; lower = snappier. |
| Smart endpointing | LiveKit | The engine that decides when the caller has actually finished talking (vs. just pausing). Options: Off (legacy heuristic), LiveKit, Vapi, Krisp. |
| Pause after a sentence (sec) | 0.1 | Extra wait when the caller ends on clear punctuation, since they probably finished. |
| Pause mid-thought (sec) | 1.5 | Wait when the caller trails off without finishing, to give them room to continue. |
| Extra pause after a number (sec) | 0.5 | Added wait after the caller says digits (phone number, date), which often come in bursts. |
| Words before caller can interrupt | 2 | How many words the caller must say before the AI treats it as a real interruption and stops. |
| Voice before interrupt (sec) | 0.2 | How long the caller must be speaking before the AI yields. |
| Cooldown after interrupt (sec) | 1 | How long the AI stays quiet after being interrupted before resuming. |
| Wait function (LiveKit only) | (blank) | An optional math expression for advanced dynamic timing. Leave blank to use defaults. |
| Ambient background sound | Off | Plays subtle ambience under the call. Options: Off (silence) or Office ambience. Some callers find a faint office hum more natural than dead silence. |
Hang up after silence
Ends the call automatically when nobody has spoken for this long. Default 30 seconds (range 5–120). Prevents dead lines from staying open indefinitely.
When callers interrupt
Fine control over what counts as an interruption.
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Keep talking through | Phrases the AI should ignore as interruptions: filler like "uh-huh," "okay," "right." The AI keeps talking instead of stopping for these. |
| Stop immediately on | Phrases that make the AI go quiet instantly, e.g. "stop," "wait," "hold on." |
Type a phrase and press Enter to add it as a chip; click the ✕ to remove it. Use Keep talking through if your AI keeps stopping every time a caller says "mm-hm," and Stop immediately on if you want hard stop words to always cut it off.
When callers go quiet
Nudge quiet callers
When ON, the AI speaks up after a stretch of silence instead of waiting indefinitely. Turning it on reveals:
| Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| What to say | Empty | The nudge line(s), e.g. "Are you still there?" Add multiple; one is chosen per nudge. |
| Wait before speaking up (sec) | 10 | Silence to allow before the first nudge. |
| Max times per call | 2 | How many times the AI will nudge before giving up. |
| Reset the timer when the caller speaks | On | Restarts the silence timer whenever the caller talks, so nudges only fire on fresh silence. |
| Send a stronger nudge if still quiet | Off | Adds a second, firmer nudge (with its own message and timeout) if the first is ignored. The escalation timeout must be at least 5s after the first nudge. |
| Hang up if the caller stays silent | Off | Ends the call with a goodbye message if silence continues. Its timeout must be at least 5s after the previous prompt. |
The staged timers are cumulative: each stage must fire at least 5 seconds after the one before it, so nudges never overlap.
Recovery & sign-off
How the AI handles voicemail, noise, errors, and ending the call.
Detect voicemail
When ON, the AI recognizes when it has reached an answering machine instead of a live person (this matters most on outbound calls). When OFF, a voicemail is treated as if a person picked up.
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Detection provider | The engine used to detect voicemail: Vapi (default), Google, OpenAI, or Twilio. |
| When voicemail is reached | Hang up (default) or Leave a message. |
| Voicemail message | Shown only when "Leave a message" is chosen. The message spoken after the beep. Personalize with {{patientName}} and {{practiceName}}. |
Filter background noise
When ON (default), suppresses noise on the caller's side so the AI hears them more clearly. Leave on unless you have a specific reason not to.
Acknowledge interruptions
When ON, the AI says a quick line (e.g. "Go ahead") when a caller cuts it off, so the hand-off feels natural instead of abrupt. Add the phrases under What to say.
Ask callers to repeat when unclear
When ON, the AI asks the caller to repeat themselves instead of guessing when the audio is hard to make out.
| Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Clarification message | "Sorry, could you repeat that?" | What the AI says when it's unsure. |
| Confidence min / max | 0.2 / 0.4 | The transcription-confidence band that triggers a clarification. Below the range the audio is too poor to act on; above it the AI is confident enough to proceed. |
Apologize on technical errors
When ON, the AI speaks a fallback line if something breaks mid-call, and can optionally transfer.
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Fallback message | e.g. "I apologize for the technical difficulty…" |
| Transfer to (optional) | A phone number in E.164 format (e.g. +15551234567) to send the caller to on error. Leave blank to skip transferring. |
Sign-offs
How the AI ends calls:
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Sign-offs | A set of closing lines; one is picked at random per call for natural variety. Keep a single chip for a fixed sign-off. Avoid exclamation marks, since the voice engine reads them as high energy. |
| Fallback sign-off | Used only when no sign-off chips are set above. |
| Caller phrases that end the call | Phrases from the caller that tell the AI to wrap up (e.g. "that's all," "goodbye"). |
What it says while it works
Short fillers the AI speaks while it runs an action, so the line isn't silent.
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Speak a filler during actions | When on, the AI plays a brief line (e.g. "Let me check that") while an action runs. One phrase is picked at random per call. |
| Per-action phrases | With the switch on, each action has its own row: Checking availability, Booking an appointment, Booking multiple appointments, Rescheduling an appointment, Cancelling an appointment, Looking something up, Checking a balance, Sending a payment link, Finding an appointment, Looking up your medications and Transferring to a person. A row shows the default it uses; add your own phrases to replace it. Suggest phrases offers ready-made lines you can add with one click. |
Reset to defaults
At the bottom, Reset to defaults (confirm with Reset) clears all your advanced tuning, including your filler phrases, and reverts to the platform defaults. Use it any time an experiment doesn't pan out. Your voice, greeting, and capabilities on the other tabs are untouched.
Troubleshooting quick reference
| Symptom | Try this |
|---|---|
| AI jumps in before callers finish | Set Patience → Relaxed, or raise Pause mid-thought. |
| AI keeps talking when callers try to speak | Lower Words before caller can interrupt or Voice before interrupt, or add words to Stop immediately on. |
| AI feels slow/laggy | Patience → Snappy, or lower Wait before responding. |
| AI stops every time I say "uh-huh" | Add those fillers to Keep talking through. |
| Awkward silence on calls | Turn on Nudge quiet callers. |
| Outbound calls talk to answering machines | Turn on Detect voicemail and choose Hang up or Leave a message. |
| Sign-off sounds over-excited | Remove exclamation marks from your Sign-offs. |
| Silence while the AI checks the calendar | Turn on Speak a filler during actions. |