Silence Tolerance

What is Silence Tolerance?

During a conversation, users may pause for various reasons:

Thinking about their response
Distracted by something
Unsure how to proceed
Technical issues with the call

Silence Tolerance settings control how long the agent waits before taking action.

Key Timers

Timer	Purpose	Typical Range
Silence Response Delay	Time before prompting a silent user	4-16 seconds
Silence Shutdown Delay	Time before ending an abandoned call	30-120 seconds

How It Works

User stops speaking
   Response and Shutdown Delay timers start
      User speaks → Timer resets, conversation continues
      Timer expires → Agent prompts user
          User responds → Conversation continues
          No response → Shutdown timer continues
              User speaks → Timer resets
              Shutdown timer expires → Assistant says it is ending the call because it hasn't heard any response

The Silence Tolerance property on each step controls silence tolerance behavior:

Setting	Response Delay	Shutdown Delay	Use Case
hurried	approx. 4s	approx. 15s	Quick interactions
patient	approx. 16s	approx. 60s	Thoughtful responses
extremely patient	approx. 48s	approx. 180s	Complex decisions
infinite	No prompting	No auto-shutdown	User-controlled timing

When to Use Each Setting

Hurried (Default)

Best for:

Simple questions with quick answers
Confirmations and acknowledgments
Fast-paced conversations

Example: “Is Tuesday at 2pm okay?”

Patient

Best for:

Questions requiring some thought
When users might need to check something
Multi-part answers

Example: “What challenges are you facing with your current process?”

Extremely Patient

Best for:

When users need to look something up
Fault finding or troubleshooting scenarios
When users might need to consult others

Example: “Can you check the serial number on the back of the device?”

Infinite

Best for:

Situations where users may need extended time
When you don’t want to interrupt at all
Calls where users explicitly need to step away

Note: Infinite silence tolerance is still limited by the maximum call duration. See Settings for call duration configuration.

Silence Prompts

When the response delay expires, the agent prompts the user to re-engage:

Silence Response: The assistant attempts to continue the current step naturally
Silence Shutdown: The assistant says that it hasn't been able to hear the user, then goodbye and ends the call.

The re-engagement prompt fires once per quiet period. If it is cancelled before the caller ever hears it — because the assistant was interrupted, or the call was busy doing something else — it is re-armed and spoken as soon as it can be, rather than being counted as already said. Silence tolerance is applied per step, so each step waits for as long as its own setting says.

Interaction with Other Settings

Silence tolerance works alongside other dynamics:

Combined With	Effect
Patient response eagerness	Waits longer before responding + longer before following-up
Deep thinking effort	More reasoning time + patient silence handling

Best Practices

Configure per step — Set silence tolerance on each step based on the expected response
Match complexity to tolerance — Complex questions need higher tolerance
Consider your audience — Elderly users may need more time
Test realistic scenarios — Try with actual users, not just ideal cases

Next Steps

Response Eagerness — Control how quickly the agent responds
Thinking Effort — Adjust LLM reasoning depth
Overview — See all conversation dynamics

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Silence Tolerance

What is Silence Tolerance?

Key Timers

How It Works

When to Use Each Setting

Hurried (Default)

Patient

Extremely Patient

Infinite

Silence Prompts

Interaction with Other Settings

Best Practices

Next Steps

​What is Silence Tolerance?

​Key Timers

​How It Works

​When to Use Each Setting

​Hurried (Default)

​Patient

​Extremely Patient

​Infinite

​Silence Prompts

​Interaction with Other Settings

​Best Practices

​Next Steps

What is Silence Tolerance?

Key Timers

How It Works

When to Use Each Setting

Hurried (Default)

Patient

Extremely Patient

Infinite

Silence Prompts

Interaction with Other Settings

Best Practices

Next Steps