Understanding Whispertext

Whispertext is the message your users hear when they pick up a Callingly call. In other telephony services, this is often called a whisper message or a call whisper. 
Whispertext shares details about the Lead your user is about to connect with. It also includes instructions that might be necessary — such as pressing 1 to start the call.

supervisor_account Owners and Admins can manage Whispertext. Approx. reading time 6 min.

Whispertext For Outbound Calls

Whispertext is part of the outbound call flow, both before the call begins and after it ends. You can also optionally turn on Deal Whispertext, asking for a result of the deal after labeling a Lead as Contacted.

Types of Whispertext in outbound calls

Pre-Call Whispertext

When a user picks up a call, they'll hear an automated message providing instructions and the Lead's basic info before they start the call. This message is called Whispertext. The Whispertext will repeat five times before the call ends and is marked Missed.

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Note: We understand that some situations may need this message to repeat more than five times to avoid missed calls. Let us know if that's the case for you so we can extend it.

Below we show the pre-call Whispertext, but you can customize this as you'd like in the Team settings.

Please press 1 to connect to {{first_name}} {{last_name}} {{company}} {{category}}
Pre-call menu options

When customizing the text, you'll have two numerical options for actions your users can take.

  • Press 1: The user must press 1 when ready for Callingly to call the Lead.
  • Press 9: If the user feels the lead is not qualified, they can press 9 to reject it. The call will end, and the lead will not receive further calls.

Post-Call Whispertext

Post-Call Whispertext comes after the call ends. It allows the user to enter the result of the call, and scheduling follow-up calls if they cannot connect. 

This Whispertext will be presented to the User under two circumstances:

  1. The Lead ends the call on their side
  2. The User presses emergency to end the call
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Note: The Post-Call Whispertext will only repeat once. If the User hangs up instead of taking actions from the Whispertext, by default, Callingly will label the result of the call as Unknown. 

Alternatively, you can turn on the  Autodetect Contacted vs. Voicemail feature in the Callingly Settings menu. This will cause Callingly to attempt to automatically detect if live contact was made or if a voicemail was left. The result of the call will be labeled accordingly.

Below we show the default Post-Call Whispertext, but you can customize this as you'd like in the Team settings.

Your call has been completed. Press 1 if you were able to reach the lead. Press 2 if you left a voicemail. Press 3 otherwise to reschedule the call.
Post-call menu options

The Post-Call Whispertext menu has four options, which save the result of the call and update the Lead's status and their follow-up calls.

  • Press 1: The User was in contact with the Lead and had a live conversation. Pressing 1 will mark the Lead as Contacted in the system so that no follow-up calls will be scheduled.
  • Press 2: The User could not contact the Lead, but a voicemail was left. Pressing 2 will mark the lead as Voicemail in the system, and a follow-up call will be scheduled by default. If you do not want to schedule these follow-ups, please follow the instructions found in our article Handling Retries & Followups.
  • Press 3: The User could not reach the Lead nor leave a voicemail. Pressing 3 will mark the lead as Missed in the system, and a follow-up call will be scheduled based on the Team's Lead Retry settings.
  • Press 9: The Lead's phone number is not reachable, or the Lead is otherwise invalid. Pressing 9 will mark the lead as Remove in the system and will prevent any follow-up calls from being scheduled.

Deal Whispertext

Deal Whispertext is an optional function that is turned off by default. Turning it on will prompt the user to indicate a deal result after the Lead has been labeled Contacted by the Callingly system. 

Below we show the default Deal Whispertext, but you can customize this as you'd like in the Team settings.

Press 1 if you scheduled an appointment. Press 2 if the lead was interested. Press 3 if the lead was not interested.
Deal menu & actions

The Deal Whispertext menu allows you to set an action for each number key, 1 through 9. For every key, you can choose for Nothing to happen, for a specific Tag to be added, or for a Stage to be set.

These Tags and Stages will vary depending on how you've set these up in your account.

How to customize outbound call Whispertext

The pre-call Whispertext is only designed to provide lead information and allow the User to choose to connect the call. From the Teams page in your Callingly account:

1.
Click the settings Settings button for the Team you'd like to edit.
2.
Enter the text you'd like to use into the input box under the correct heading: Whispertext, Post-Call Whispertext, or Deal Whispertext. Be sure to include any relevant variable fields that contain information you want the User to have about the Lead.
3.
For Deal Whispertext, assign an action from the dropdown menu for each keypad number. By default, every number is set to Do Nothing. You can add any of your account's tags or assign any of your account's stages.
4.
Press the Save button in the bottom right corner of the screen to save your changes when you're done.

Available Lead Info for Whispertext

By default, you can include the following Fields from Callingly in any Whispertext messages used in your outbound call flow.

Name Whispertext Keyword
First Name {{first_name}}
Last Name {{last_name}}
Phone Number {{phone_number}}
Email {{email}}
Company {{company}}
Category {{category}}
Comments {{comments}}
Lead Source {{source}}
Number of Contact Attempts {{attempt}}
Last Note {{latest_note}}
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Tip: You can add more fields using the Add Field button in the Fields menu of the Team Settings. Our article on Using & Creating Fields discusses this in more detail.

Whispertext language

Callingly also supports other languages to accommodate different regions.

We currently support eight languages for your Whispertext to be read in:

English (default) German
Spanish Dutch
French Portuguese
Italian Finnish
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Caution: If using another language, you'll need to write the Whispertext in the language you want the text read in. Callingly does not translate between languages. For example, if you'd like the Whispertext spoken in Spanish, you'll need to write the text in Spanish, not English.

Whispertext For Inbound Calls

Whispertext for inbound calls is referred to as Call Screening and turned on by default. The default call screening message can't be changed though it can be disabled.

With call screening turned on, a Whispertext will play for the user before connecting to the call. The message says:

Incoming call from your number, {{number.name}} Press 1 to connect, 2 to send to voicemail.

Pressing 1 will connect the User with the Lead, while pressing 2 will send the Lead to the Team's voicemail.

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Note: We recommend leaving Call Screening on, as it prevents a lead from receiving an individual User's voicemail if the User doesn't answer.

Disable Whispertext for inbound calls

The Call Screening setting is found under the settings for each phone number. From your Callingly dashboard,

1.
Select tag Numbers from the left side menu.
2.
Click the edit Edit button to the right of the number you want to change.
3.
Toggle Off the switch found under the Call Screening heading.  
4.
Press the Save button in the lower right corner of the menu.

To enable Call Screening if disabled, follow the above instructions, but move the toggle to the On position.

Pro-Tip

Callingly's Whispertext feature uses the Liquid templating language created and made popular by Shopify. You can use Liquid to add more complex rules if you'd like.

Common Questions

Can I change the Whispertext my Users hear for an incoming call?

While you can't change the content of the inbound Whispertext, you can turn this feature off. However, if a user doesn't answer, the lead will be prompted to leave a voicemail on that individual's phone rather than being sent to the Team voicemail box.

Can I use Whispertext to update the status of a deal?

Yes, you can! Turning on Deal Whispertext prompts the User to indicate a deal result after the Lead has been labeled Contacted by Callingly. You can read more about how Deal Whispertext works above.

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