How EMMA Handles Silent or Unresponsive Callers?

Purpose of Document

Practices occasionally report that a patient went silent during a call and EMMA ended the call without helping them. This article ensures support staff can explain EMMA's full silent caller process accurately, confirm the correct fallback steps were taken, identify whether anything went wrong, and reassure the practice that no patient is left without a route to complete their request.

Background: What EMMA Does When a Caller Goes Silent

When a caller stops responding during a call, EMMA does not simply end the call immediately. As of April 2026, EMMA uses a structured two-step, receptionist-style check before disconnecting. This mirrors how a real receptionist would respond if they could no longer hear the caller.

Step 1: EMMA says "Hello, can you hear me?"

Step 2: If still no response, EMMA says "Hello, I can't hear you, are you on mute at all?"

If the caller still does not respond after both prompts, EMMA disconnects the call.

What happens on disconnect depends on whether the caller is on a mobile or a landline:

This behaviour was introduced on 22 April 2026. Before this date, EMMA repeated the same single prompt when a caller went silent, which felt robotic, and no distinction was made between mobile and landline callers at disconnect.

Lifeline: The V12 Proactive Fallback (May 2026)

As of EMMA V12 (May 2026), EMMA now tells every caller at the very start of the call that if the call drops or their signal is poor, they will receive a secure link to pick up exactly where they left off through SOPHIA.

This is the Lifeline feature. It sets the patient's expectation from the beginning of the call that a fallback exists. If the call subsequently drops or the patient goes silent and disconnects, EMMA sends the SOPHIA link and the patient can continue without needing to call back.

This applies to all surgeries on V12, not just eConsult surgeries.

Key point for support staff: practices may notice an increase in SOPHIA submissions from patients who previously would have called back. This is expected V12 behaviour and is a positive outcome. The patient's request reached the surgery rather than being lost.

SOPHIA SMS Message Types for Silent or Dropped Calls

As of March 2026, SOPHIA sends one of two scenario-specific messages depending on what triggered the SMS:

• Disconnected call message: sent when the call drops unexpectedly. This message references the disconnection so the patient understands why they are receiving the link.
• Neutral continuation message: sent for all other scenarios including caller choice, poor call quality, or practice-directed SOPHIA flows. This message does not reference a disconnection.

Before March 2026, SOPHIA sent a single generic message in all scenarios, which could confuse patients who had chosen SOPHIA themselves or been redirected rather than experiencing a drop.

Common Causes of Practice Complaints and What to Check

1. A patient says they went silent and EMMA ended the call without helping them

This is expected behaviour if the caller did not respond to either of EMMA's two check-in prompts. The patient will have received an SMS continuation link if they were on a mobile.

What to do:

• Review the call recording and confirm the two-step check occurred
• Confirm whether the caller was on a mobile or a landline
• If on a mobile, confirm whether the SOPHIA SMS was sent
• If the two-step check did not occur and the call ended abruptly, escalate to engineering with the call ID

2. A patient says they received a text but do not know why

The patient was likely on a mobile, went silent or dropped the call, and EMMA sent the SOPHIA continuation link automatically.

What to do:

• Reassure the practice this is expected behaviour
• Explain that the SMS allows the patient to complete their request without calling back
• Confirm whether the patient went on to submit via SOPHIA, which would appear as a SOPHIA submission in the dashboard

3. A patient on a landline says they received no help after being disconnected

Landline callers do not receive an SMS. They receive verbal signposting to the surgery's online form or an instruction to call back.

What to do:

• Confirm the caller was on a landline
• Explain that the SOPHIA SMS continuation is not available for landline callers as SMS cannot be sent to a landline number
• Confirm the call recording shows the verbal signposting was provided
• If the patient has urgent needs, confirm the call recording includes 999 or 111 signposting as appropriate

4. A practice on V12 notices more SOPHIA submissions than before

This is expected since Lifeline is now active. Patients are being told at the start of every call that a fallback link will be sent if the call drops, which means more patients are using SOPHIA to complete their requests instead of calling back.

What to do:

• Confirm the surgery is on V12
• Explain Lifeline to the practice
• Reassure them that SOPHIA submissions contain the same structured patient information as a standard EMMA submission and require the same actioning process

Step-by-Step Triage Process

1. Ask the practice to describe the specific complaint. Did the patient say they went silent? Did they receive an SMS they did not expect? Did a landline caller receive no follow-up?
2. Pull the call recording and confirm whether the two-step check occurred.
3. Confirm whether the caller was on a mobile or a landline.
4. Check whether a SOPHIA SMS was sent after the call ended.
5. Check whether a SOPHIA submission subsequently appeared in the dashboard.
6. If the two-step check did not occur, or the SOPHIA SMS was not sent for a mobile caller, escalate to engineering with the call ID and timestamp.

What to Tell the Practice

Example wording when a patient went silent and the call ended:

"When a caller goes silent, EMMA says hello twice and asks if they are on mute before ending the call. If the patient was on a mobile, they will have received a secure text message link to complete their request without needing to call back. All callers are also given 999 or 111 signposting in case they had an urgent need."

Example wording for practices on V12 seeing more SOPHIA submissions:

"As part of our V12 release, EMMA now tells every patient at the start of the call that if the line drops or their signal is poor, they will receive a link to continue their request in writing. This means patients who would previously have called back are now completing their request via SOPHIA instead. The submission your team receives contains the same information and requires the same actioning process."

Common Mistakes

• Telling a practice the call ended without a check occurring, before reviewing the call recording
• Not confirming whether the caller was on a mobile or a landline before explaining what fallback they received
• Treating SOPHIA submissions that follow a dropped call as a platform fault
• Not being aware that Lifeline (V12) proactively tells patients about the fallback at the start of every call
• Telling a practice that landline callers receive an SMS. They do not.

Escalation Guidance

Escalate to engineering if:

• The call recording confirms the two-step check did not occur before EMMA disconnected
• A mobile caller did not receive a SOPHIA SMS continuation link after disconnection
• The SOPHIA SMS was sent but contained incorrect or blank content
• Multiple callers are experiencing silent call handling issues at the same time across one or more surgeries

When escalating, always include:

• Surgery name and ODS code
• Call ID and timestamp
• Whether the caller was on a mobile or a landline
• Description of what the call recording shows
• Whether a SOPHIA SMS was sent and whether a SOPHIA submission appeared in the dashboard

Last Reviewed: May 2026 Owner: Support and Customer Success