Retry cadence is the rule set governing how often an unanswered number may be called again and how long the gap between attempts must be. It balances reaching more people against annoying them, burning caller IDs and breaking state limits on how many calls a consumer may receive in a day.
A sensible cadence spreads attempts across different days and times, because people who never answer at 10am often answer at 6pm.
Retry cadence in the dialer
On ViciDial, cadence is mostly set through lead recycling: for each status, such as NA for no answer or B for busy, you choose a delay before the number is eligible again and a maximum number of attempts. A typical setup might retry a busy number after a short gap, a no answer after a few hours, and stop after a fixed number of tries in a day or a week. Convoso and other dialers have similar rules.
From a floor in Noida running a night shift, a good cadence also rotates which part of the US local day each attempt lands in, morning for one try and early evening for the next, inside the calling window.
How it shows up in reports
Contact rate by attempt number is the report to watch. If the fifth attempt almost never reaches anyone, the extra calls are mostly cost and caller-ID damage. Attempts per lead and calls per number per day are also worth tracking, because some states cap them.
Common mistakes
Redialing the same number every few minutes to hit an hourly target. Carriers notice the pattern and caller IDs get flagged as spam.
Recycling NI or DNC statuses along with no answers.
Ignoring state attempt limits. Rules vary and change, so confirm them with counsel.
A sample cadence
One common shape is two attempts on day one at different local times, one on day two, then one every few days for two weeks. Track contact rate by attempt and trim the attempts that rarely reach anyone.