Retries need a policy that explains when another attempt is useful and when contact must stop. This guide helps campaign owners and implementers define a bounded operational policy. Local calling rules and the business’s approved contact permissions require appropriate owner review.
The steps below are a proposed operating method. Confirm supported actions in your configured HeyRik account before using them in a client commitment.
Start from permission and the contact record
Confirm which contacts may be called, for what purpose and within which approved windows. A provider’s no-answer event does not grant permission for repeated calls. Keep those decisions in the business policy and apply them before queuing another attempt.
Link attempts to a stable contact reference. The retry scheduler needs the latest contact state, not only the previous phone event. Client changes, corrected details and a declined request may make an older queued attempt inappropriate.
Write a retry policy card
- Trigger: which verified terminal events may be considered for retry.
- Limit: maximum attempts under the owner-approved policy.
- Window: allowed time zone and contact periods.
- Stop: declined follow-up, wrong number, completed task or revoked permission.
- Deduplication: how scheduled and active attempts are reconciled.
- Recovery: who reviews a failed scheduler or inconsistent contact state.
Worked race: two workers queue the same contact
Illustrative case: workers A and B both observe an unanswered attempt for contact C8. Without an atomic reservation or equivalent control, both may schedule a retry. The implementation owner chooses a supported deduplication mechanism and records one authorised next attempt.
Test the case again after a caller declines further contact. The stale scheduled attempt must be reviewed or cancelled according to the actual supported process. Do not claim a suppression feature until its behavior has been verified.
Test the boundaries
- 1Use fictional test contacts for unanswered, busy and failed calls.
- 2Verify the provider event and contact-level retry decision separately.
- 3Test a time-window boundary and the final permitted attempt.
- 4Simulate two competing workers and an updated stop state.
- 5Confirm the owner can inspect queued work and recover an exception.
Review outcomes without increasing pressure
Twilio’s call resource distinguishes terminal states; those states are input signals for the proposed policy. No universal retry number follows from them. Track attempts per contact, stopped requests and useful conversations, and inspect whether repeated attempts create avoidable complaints or work.
A little more before you begin.
How many retries should every campaign use?
There is no universal number. Set an approved policy for the task, permission, geography and receiving capacity, then verify the configured behavior.
Start here
Discuss the supported workflow for your BPO
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