Foundational Element 3 – Modern Voicemail
May 18, 2008 – 4:44 pm
Voicemail is probably the least efficient item on today’s buffet of telecommunications offerings. Because my typical day involves many situations where I am not able to answer my telephone, I often found myself spending significant amounts of time listening to and taking notes from voicemail messages. The use of past-tense was intentional – this used to be the case – before I found Simulscribe (now called PhoneTag).
More frequently, I would find myself in a meeting with my cell phone ringing. All I know at this point is who is calling based on a quick glance at the screen. The reason for their call and the urgency of their need to talk to me is unknown. With traditional voicemail systems, I would have to excuse myself from the meeting or wait until the meeting is over to learn the purpose of the call.
With PhoneTag, a transcription of the text message is sent to my phone via e-mail within a few minutes of the caller leaving it. Now, I am able to glance at my phone and read the message - this allows me to respond more appropriately. In addition, any phone numbers left by the caller are click-able, making return calls a breeze.
The service works quite well. Sometimes they seem to suffer from significant delays in message delivery. I have my account configured to send me a notification as soon as a new message is sent in addition to the transcription that follows when it is ready. Sometimes the interval between these two messages is several minutes or up to a few hours – which is a huge drawback. For the most part, however, the transcription arrives within 5 minutes of the missed call.
Like many people, I use my e-mail inbox as a task list. If something is sitting in my inbox, it will get my attention. Prior to PhoneTag, I had to manage a few separate inboxes in the form of my various voice mailboxes on my home, office, and cell phones. With this system, I am able to forward all my phones to one system, which then delivers the final message to my e-mail inbox for action. Sometimes I even reply to the voicemail as if the caller had sent me e-mail (which is a far more efficient way to communicate these days). The combination of all my inbound messages into one place is a huge time-saver and it helps me keep things organized.
None of this would be possible if I didn’t have the first two foundational elements:
There are other services that provide similar features. I am simultaneously testing SpinVoxwith similar good results. By comparison, I like the ability to forward an e-mail with a WAV or MP3 file to PhoneTag for transcription. SpinVox does not offer this feature. On the other hand, SpinVox has other features that allow you to dictate blog entries to it for automatic posting to your website.
YouMail and CallWave also offer similar services, but I have not tested them extensively.
You can get a free 30-day trial of PhoneTag by clicking this link.