Retry cadence, callbacks and human transfer

What happens after a call that didn't connect? That is the agent's call policy, and it lives in the Retries & transfer tab of the agent editor: automatic redials on the outcomes you choose, real scheduled callbacks, the voicemail behavior, and an optional hand-off to a human. Every agent has its own policy — an aggressive follow-up cadence for one campaign, a single-attempt policy for another.

Automatic retries (off by default)

Retries are a per-day plan: each row says "for N days: M calls, one every X minutes". The example the dialer was built around is two rows — 9 calls a day every 60 minutes for 3 days, then 3 calls a day every 180 minutes for 2 days, then stop. The summary under the rows tells you the total (33 attempts over 5 days) and the estimated cost.

• First call. It is placed the moment the lead arrives in GodSetter, ahead of every waiting retry. By default it respects the calling window (a lead who fills the form at 23:00 is called at the window opening, still first in line); the switch Even outside the calling window makes it instant at any hour. A new trigger for the same contact restarts the plan from the first call and cancels its pending retries.
• Inside a day. Calls are spaced by the row's interval. If M × X does not fit the calling window, the excess calls slip to the next opening — nothing is lost.
• Next day. A new day starts at the first window opening after the previous day.
• End of plan. When every attempt is used without ever talking to the contact, the lead gets the Retry plan exhausted (unreached) tag from Tag CRM (default non_raggiunto) and a note with the count — hook your SMS/email recovery workflow on that tag.
• Which outcomes retry. No answer, voicemail and failed, as before; an answered call that ends in "not interested" or a booking never retries.
• Where you start from. Out of the box the plan is one row — for 3 days: 1 call, one every 240 minutes — and the outcomes ticked are No answer and Voicemail (Failed is opt-in). A plan can hold up to 5 rows, 1–30 days and 1–20 calls each, one every 5 to 720 minutes, 200 attempts in total.

Retries never take the slots reserved for first calls (Settings → Concurrency → Slots reserved for first calls, 20% by default), so a burst of retries can never delay a lead who just arrived.

Real callbacks

When a lead names a precise moment — "call me back at 3 pm tomorrow" — the agent doesn't just take a note: it actually schedules the redial for that time and confirms it out loud, so the lead hears the commitment. Any horizon works: "call me in March" is scheduled in March. If the lead is vague ("call me some other time"), the agent proposes a time itself ("would around 10 work?") and records that; if they refuse to name any moment at all, the platform still plans the call a couple of days later and the agent says so ("we'll speak again in the next few days"). When the lead says they will call back, the agent asks roughly when and the platform plans a courtesy call one week after that moment: it goes out only if the lead has not called or booked in the meantime, and the agent opens with "I was expecting your call".

No follow-up is ever lost. A lead leaves the cycle in exactly three ways: an appointment is booked, the lead explicitly declines, or a follow-up call is planned that will go out whatever they said about timing. A conversation that simply ends with no next step — "let me think about it", a polite hang-up — gets an automatic follow-up a few days later (agent editor → Retries & transfer → Automatic follow-up when a call ends with no outcome: days and how many times in a row, on by default). Every planned follow-up is visible on the lead page (Next follow-up), written as a CRM note and tag, and — if you set the two fields in Settings → Follow-up in the CRM — into a date and a note custom field of the contact, so your own GHL automations can key on the date. An hourly check re-plans any follow-up whose queued call went missing.

A callback replaces every other call already lined up for that contact: parked retries, a parked first call and any earlier callback are removed the moment the lead names a time, so nobody dials them in between. The time is indicative, not an appointment: the agent never says a time is unavailable — "tomorrow at 10" goes out at the first available moment from 10 on, and a vague "tomorrow morning" gets a proposal from the agent ("would around 10 work?") before it is recorded. Only appointments need an exact slot from the calendar.

If the time falls outside the calling window, it slides to the next opening and the agent confirms that time out loud — unless the agent's Agreed callbacks → Call at the agreed time even outside the calling window switch is on, in which case the lead is called when they asked. Either way "tomorrow at 10" is read in the time zone set on the agent (agency, sub-account or contact mode).

On the callback the agent receives a system context — why it is calling, the lead's own words ("tomorrow at 10, I'm driving right now"), the agreed time and the previous call's outcome and summary — without any instruction in your prompt: the platform builds that text and appends it to the prompt it pushes to Retell, so the agent opens with "as agreed" rather than a cold pitch. If the callback goes unanswered, the agent's Agreed callbacks block decides: a set number of further tries every X minutes (default: one more try after 30 minutes, each keeping the callback context, then a CRM note), or restart the retry plan as for a new contact, with the unanswered callback counting as its first call. Restart the retry plan needs automatic retries switched on: with retries off the card says so and the "try again N times" option applies instead.

Scheduled callbacks are placed by the dispatcher like retries: every minute, inside the calling window.

Booked leads are never redialed

The moment a lead books an appointment — during a call or as the call's outcome — every pending retry and callback for that lead is removed. A redial scheduled before the booking will never call someone who has just booked.

Voicemail policy

Voicemail detection is always on: the agent never talks to an answering machine. You choose what happens instead:

• Hang up (default, recommended) — end the call silently. Combined with a retry on the Voicemail outcome, the agent simply tries again later.
• Leave a message — play the fixed Message text you write, then hang up.

Transfer to a human

In the Transfer to a human card, switch on Enable warm transfer and set the Transfer number in international E.164 format (for example +39…). The agent gains a transfer tool pointed at that number: when the lead asks to speak with a person, the call is handed over to it.

Known limits and guardrails

• Timing: the first call is placed instantly when the lead arrives; retries and callbacks are placed by the dispatcher, which runs every minute and is also the safety net for a first call that could not go out on the spot. See How outbound dispatch works.
• Custom values survive the redial: the {{cv_*}} values your CRM trigger sent are stored on the lead, so a retry or a callback resolves the same set as the first call — on top of the system context (attempt number, previous outcome and summary), which the platform writes for you.
• Do-Not-Call always wins: a blocked lead is never retried and never called back, regardless of policy. See Do-Not-Call: blocking and unblocking.