im not talking about answering machine please help ik you will ask about call id bbut all my calls are like this you can check any call for that ill add my last call id 0199a18f-a6ac-7882-99a0-eff2d591cab2

To ensure your assistant only starts speaking after the client answers (not before), set the

firstMessageMode

to

"assistant-waits-for-user"

in your assistant configuration. Here’s an example:

json
{
  "firstMessageMode": "assistant-waits-for-user"
}

Update this setting via the API or dashboard, and your assistant will wait for the user to speak before responding. Source: - [Outbound sales example (see

firstMessageMode

)](https://docs.vapi.ai/examples/outbound-sales)

no i always want the assistant to speak first

Could you please specify what exactly you would like the assistant to do for outbound calling? The call recording sounds like the assistant is speaking first

from call recording it always shows assistant is speaking first but when i pickup phone i dont hear the message the assistant starts speaking as soon as phone starts ringing not when connected

Hi aliameen, If you're having issues with the assistant speaking before the call is answered on outbound calls, you can control when your assistant starts speaking using the "Start Speaking Plan." Adjust the Wait Time Before Speaking in your configuration to delay the assistant's speech appropriately. By default, this is set to 0.4 seconds, but you might want to increase it to give the customer time to answer the call. For more detailed configuration, you can refer to our [Speech Configuration documentation](https://docs.vapi.ai/customization/speech-configuration).

Thats not a reliable solution after what if client doesnt pick call immediately then what?

We apologize for the delay in responses lately. We are in process of making some changes to our workflow in how we handle support requests. The good news is that we are starting to get back on track of having a 48 hour response time and we would like to start cleaning up anything old. With that being said, just wanted to check in with you to see if you have made any progress or changes to your project since support has last reached out.