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Developers/Tutorials/Set up Smart Hold

Set up Smart Hold on phone calls

Smart Hold is the hero feature of message.com phones. When a caller is waiting on hold past your activation threshold, an AI introduces itself (always honestly as AI), offers to help, or keeps them company. When a human picks up, they get a full transcript plus a structured summary. People hate hold music. People do not mind talking to AI while they wait for a human.

Smart Hold is the AI-augments-the-wait pattern. Not AI-replaces-the-human. For straight AI handling, see AI Receptionist.

1. Pick a DID

  1. Open app.message.com.
  2. Go to Settings → Phones → Numbers.
  3. Pick the number you want Smart Hold on.

2. Enable Smart Hold and set the threshold

Toggle Smart Hold on. Set the activation threshold (default 5 minutes). Smart Hold engages only after the caller has waited that long. Low-volume teams should bump this higher (10 minutes); high-volume teams can drop it (90 seconds).

3. Pick a voice and personality

Two voice options:

  • Default. A neutral US English voice. Free to use.
  • Cloned brand voice. Your uploaded sample. See Clone brand voice.

Pick a personality: warm, professional, energetic, calm, or custom. The personality shapes pacing and word choice.

4. Decide what Smart Hold offers

Three modes:

  • Help if possible. Smart Hold tries to answer using your knowledge base. If it can resolve, the caller hangs up satisfied. If not, the conversation continues until a human is free.
  • Keep them company. Light conversation, no attempts to resolve. Useful when your business needs human handling for every call (medical, legal).
  • Hybrid. Offers help only for clearly bounded intents (order status, store hours, refund status). Everything else stays in queue.

5. Test

  1. Temporarily set the activation threshold to 30 seconds so you do not wait long.
  2. Call the DID. Stay on hold past the threshold.
  3. Smart Hold introduces itself. Confirm the voice and personality match.
  4. Have a short conversation. Hang up.
  5. In app.message.com, open the call. Confirm the transcript and structured summary.
  6. Restore the production threshold.

Agent handoff

When a human agent picks up the call, two things land on their screen:

  1. Full live transcript of the Smart Hold conversation so far.
  2. A structured summary: who is calling, what they want, what Smart Hold tried, what is unresolved.

The agent is instantly caught up. No "sorry, can you start over?" moments.

Common pitfalls

  • Threshold too low. Smart Hold engaging immediately feels like robo-answer (it is not, but the perception matters). Five minutes is the floor for most teams.
  • Knowledge base not ready. Help-if-possible mode without a populated KB falls back to keep-them-company. Populate Knowledge base before enabling help mode.
  • Voice sounds off. Default voice is neutral on purpose. Clone for brand-aligned audio.
  • Caller hangs up during Smart Hold. Treated like queue abandonment. Reported under /api/v1/reports/customers/queue-abandonment.
  • Compliance. Smart Hold always introduces itself as AI. This is non-negotiable and prevents most regulatory issues. See TCPA compliance.

Next steps