A call is placed to a communications device. A response to the call is received from a call recipient associated with the communications device. The received response is processed based on a set of parameters. Based on processing the received response, a determination is made whether the call recipient is a human or an answering machine. If the call recipient is determined to be a human, the call is handled in a first manner. If the call recipient is determined to be an answering machine, the call is handled in a second manner that is different from the first manner.