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Glossary

Barge-in (interruption handling)

Barge-in is a caller's ability to interrupt an automated voice while it is still speaking. With good interruption handling, the system notices the caller has started talking, stops its own audio, listens to what they say and responds to that, instead of finishing its sentence or ignoring the caller.

How barge-in works on a call

While the agent speaks, it keeps listening. When it hears a sound from the caller's side, it has to decide quickly what it is:

  • A real interruption: "Ruko, ruko, mera number change ho gaya hai." The agent stops and deals with the new number.
  • A backchannel: "Haan... hmm... achha." The caller is only showing they're listening. Stopping here makes the agent sound jumpy.
  • Background sound: a horn, a TV or someone else in the room. The agent should carry on.

Here's a payment reminder with a real interruption:

  • Agent: "Aapki ₹4,500 ki EMI 5 tareekh ko due hai, aur payment ke liye..."
  • Caller: "Maine kal hi pay kar diya."
  • Agent: "Achha, dhanyavaad. Main ise already paid mark kar deti hoon."

Why it matters

People cut in all the time on the phone, especially when they already know what's coming. An agent that can't be interrupted feels like a recording, so callers raise their voice, repeat themselves or hang up. Good barge-in keeps the call short and leaves the caller in charge.

How Kallix handles it

Interruption handling is part of every Kallix agent's call behaviour, along with idle and silence handling and fallback lines. In the example above, "already paid" is one of the outcomes in Kallix's catalogue, so the call is logged correctly. Before launch, add a test scenario where the caller cuts in, and rerun it after every change.

Set call behaviour in the agent studio

Common questions.

More on the FAQ page, or write to us.

Barge-in is the caller cutting in. Interruption handling is how the agent responds: it stops its audio, decides whether the sound was a real interruption and replies to what the caller said.

It should treat short sounds such as 'haan' or 'hmm' as the caller listening, and stop for a full phrase. Test this with your own callers' habits before launch, because it varies by audience.

In older IVR systems, yes: pressing a key during a prompt skips it. On AI voice calls, barge-in usually means speaking, and keypad (DTMF) input is handled separately.

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