Answer or detour?
On every turn of a survey call, the interviewer is listening for two kinds of reply at once:- An answer to the question it has just asked.
- A detour — something the survey handles outside the question: one of your FAQs, or the busy or stop behaviours.
- Every detour is judged against the question just asked. A direct answer, a refusal of that one question, or a request to hear it again is never treated as busy, stop or an FAQ.
- When an answer and a detour both seem to fit, a second quick check picks the single best reading. The default is an answer to the question just asked.
- Built-in exclusions keep busy and stop from firing on a refusal of one question (“I’d rather not answer that one”), on a voicemail greeting, or on a callback time the respondent has just been asked for.
When a detour is handled
- FAQ — the answer is spoken, then the open question resumes (re-asked in other words) and waits for the reply. The detour does not use up an attempt.
- Busy or stop — the closing text for that outcome is spoken, then the farewell, and the call ends. The open question is recorded as
abandoned.
Which detour wins
If more than one detour matches, the one with the lowest Priority wins: busy (20) and stop (30) by default, then FAQs from 41 to 99, with the catch-all FAQ last. The question’s own handling of “what does that mean?” and “can you read the options again?” ranks after all of them.Always fires
Each FAQ and each behaviour has an Always fires switch: “Skips the check that decides whether the caller was answering the question instead. For a route where a miss costs more than a wrong fire.” A route with Always fires on fires whenever its Accept lines match and beats any route without it. It is off by default and should normally stay off, especially for busy and stop.Answers given before the question is asked
Respondents sometimes answer a question before it is reached — “I’m 42, by the way, and I live in Parramatta” during the first question. By default each question is still asked when its turn comes. This keeps every answer tied to the exact question wording, which is what most research requires. The exception is the data-collection types. First name and Phone number questions have a Look back for it before asking setting in their Voice panel: when it is on, the question checks what the respondent has already said and confirms a value it finds instead of asking from scratch. See First name and Phone number.Requests the question handles itself
Some requests are not detours at all — the open question deals with them and carries on.
On a question whose options are never read out (Answer mode set to Unprompted), a request for the options is answered with “I’m not able to read the responses out — just tell me in your own words.”
Because FAQs rank above these requests, an FAQ worded too broadly — especially the catch-all — can take them over. If you see that happen, add a Reject line to the FAQ such as “Asking for the question or the options to be read again — that belongs to the question”.
Things to know
- The check between answers and detours runs automatically on every survey; there is nothing to turn on.
- Detours are judged by meaning, not keywords, so write Accept lines as plain descriptions (“Asks to stop, or says they do not want to continue”), not lists of exact phrases.
- If a call review shows a reply taken the wrong way, fix it in the survey’s content — an Accept, Reject or Often heard as line on the route or option involved — then compile and test again.