The Slow Death of Voice Mail 237
HughPickens.com writes: Duane D. Stanford reports at Bloomberg that Coca-Cola's Atlanta Headquarters is the latest big company to ditch its old-style voice mail, which requires users to push buttons to scroll through messages and listen to them one at a time. The change went into effect this month, and a standard outgoing message now throws up an electronic stiff arm, telling callers to try later or use "an alternative method" to contact the person. Techies have predicted the death of voice mail for years as smartphones co-opt much of the office work once performed by telephones and desktop computers. Younger employees who came of age texting while largely ignoring voice mail are bringing that habit into the workforce. "People north of 40 are schizophrenic about voice mail," says Michael Schrage. "People under 35 scarcely ever use it." Companies are increasingly combining telephone, e-mail, text and video systems into unified Internet-based systems that eliminate overlap. "Many people in many corporations simply don't have the time or desire to spend 25 minutes plowing through a stack of 15 to 25 voice mails at the end or beginning of the day," says Schrage.
In 2012, Vonage reported its year-over-year voicemail volumes dropped 8%. More revealing, the number of people bothering to retrieve those messages plummeted 14%. More and more personal and corporate voicemail boxes now warn callers that their messages are rarely retrieved and that they're better off sending emails or texts. "The truly productive have effectively abandoned voicemail, preferring to visually track who's called them on their mobiles," concludes Schrage. "A communications medium that was once essential has become as clunky and irrelevant as Microsoft DOS and carbon paper."
In 2012, Vonage reported its year-over-year voicemail volumes dropped 8%. More revealing, the number of people bothering to retrieve those messages plummeted 14%. More and more personal and corporate voicemail boxes now warn callers that their messages are rarely retrieved and that they're better off sending emails or texts. "The truly productive have effectively abandoned voicemail, preferring to visually track who's called them on their mobiles," concludes Schrage. "A communications medium that was once essential has become as clunky and irrelevant as Microsoft DOS and carbon paper."
youmail (Score:4, Informative)
Im sure other companies offer the same features, i know google does but to this 29 year old, this is spot on information
Re: (Score:2)
I also like Youmail, for this exact reason, and the fact that it auto-ditches spammers and other junk calls (after the phone doesn't answer). Plus, it works with both iOS and Android, so if I feel like changing out my phone, I don't need to worry if visual voicemail with the telco will work or not.
Reading a text is a lot faster than sitting through someone's long-winded speech and the time saved is worth the nominal charge.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
if i see you called
A lot of people who rely on voice mail don't pay the extra $8 per month for Caller ID.
and i want to talk to you, i call you back.
"Hello?"
"Hi, this is Staisy, What's going on?"
"I explained everything in the voice mail I left."
What's the polite way to continue?
Re:youmail (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Sorry, but I have to disagree. Our Asterisk system gives me caller, length of call, and time in an email immediately after. We had transcriptions enabled before, but they were terrible so I shut it off.
I appreciate that the telephone can be more efficient for a 2-way dialogue, but it's modality kills me. I can't change trains of thought on a dime and still get things done. To me, the courteous action is to send an email, and follow with a text if it is actually urgent.
Maybe if I got visual voicemail work
Re:youmail (Score:4, Interesting)
a) (lie) I didn't get your VM
b) (truth) I haven't listened to your VM
Maybe I'm old, but if I don't answer, leave a message. If it's not important enough for you to bother to say anything, it's not important enough for me to bother calling you back. And if you call my home number without leave a message, it may be weeks before I look at a phone and know anyone called. (with telemarketing bullshit, I rarely both looking at the call list unless the answering machine is flashing. [FTR, the phone on my desk is showing "110 missed calls"]) Calls to the cell (which goes to google voice for VM, which will *ding* on a dozen devices, get emailed to me, and transcribed to a text if Google can make any sense of it.) I'll notice in a day or two -- usually in the morning when I pick the phone up to go to work. [current count: 4 numbers I don't recognize] Texts I'll notice immediately if the phone's on me.
Bottom line... if you called me but didn't (a) leave a message, (b) send a text, or (c) follow up with an email, then you really didn't need to speak to me, did you?
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
"Sorry Staisy, I don't have time to listen to all that shit. Just tell me what you needed."
I agree with ganjadude. If I see you called it tells me that you wanted to talk to me. If I want to talk to you back, I'll call you. There is no point in leaving a message. Well, most of the time anyway. But important information is best conveyed by text anyway.
I also didn't know that you could have a phone without caller ID, but I ditched land lines over a decade ago.
And amazing that another poster said 29 wasn
Re: (Score:2)
I ditched land lines over a decade ago.
My point is that others did not, and they still expect to be able to contact you at the number you publish. You can't text at all from a land line, and doing so from a flip phone is a pain.
Re:youmail (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
I'm 39 years old and I have largely stopped listening to voice mail as well.
I tell people that if they want to reach me, don't even bother calling, I largely ignore the phone as well, but I read and respond to texts and e-mails within minutes.
Re:youmail (Score:5, Insightful)
Then include the fact that most systems for retrieving them are so awful that somebody using an email client 25 years ago would assume that you were fucking with them, and it's just icing on the cake.
Re: (Score:2)
I changed my outgoing message to if you need a prompt response please e-mail me.
I hate the phone and voice-mail at work. I want a record of every conversation.
Re:youmail (Score:5, Interesting)
Texting is no longer just for teenage girls, I hate to tell you...
I finally found a car dealership that gets it, I was shopping for a new truck this year and one dealership on their web site had a third option, finally...
How would you like us to contact you:
1. Call
2. E-mail
3. Text
I picked 3, and sure enough, they texted me and got back to me with answers to my questions without a long drawn out process. Short and sweet.
After a few back and fourth texts about model and details and trade, they asked me what time I'd like to see the truck. I gave them my time, they brought it to my house and left it with me for a few hours while they took my older truck to have it appraised. They then texted me and asked if I was happy with their number, and if so, the F&I guy would come to my house to finish the deal.
I never had to go to the dealership, ever. Not even for financing. All done at my kitchen table, no inconveniences for me.
More car dealerships would do well to learn that model, many people my age and younger would prefer to buy a car or truck that way.
Re: (Score:2)
Gawd I hated it! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Gawd I hated it! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, either way it's bad. When people are leaving messages, it is not rare you have to listen at them a half dozen times before you finally get correctly some critical information in it, like the name of the caller or the phone number which happen to not be the same as the caller id when you get one. There is still a ton of people around thinking leaving a message is some kind of race and you have nearly 10 seconds to tell about your whole life. I hate phones.
I would like to see phone plans without talking
Re:Gawd I hated it! (Score:4, Informative)
Voice mail etiquette.
(speak slowly and distinctly here) Hi. This is (your name). My number is (your number).
(speak normally here) Now state the situation as clearly as you can. But be brief. This is a message. Not exposition.
End with repeating your name (slowly and clearly) and your phone number.
Thank you.
The easiest way to do this is to realize that you MIGHT run into voice mail before you pick up the phone. Go through the message in your head before dialing. This will cut down on the uh and um and huh and em and other noises.
Re: (Score:2)
Voice mail correction. Do not bother with the phone number, most voice mail services allow call back. A spoken phone number on voice mail is a real pain, requiring repeating of the message. So greeting and message only. I will eventually press keypad 6 once I remember to pick up my phone from the other end of the house.
Re: (Score:2)
Pay-per-minute line (Score:2)
There is still a ton of people around thinking leaving a message is some kind of race and you have nearly 10 seconds to tell about your whole life.
That's probably because they're calling you on a pay-per-minute line and want to finish their message as fast as they reasonably can in order not to be billed for a second minute. Land line providers charge extra for long distance. Cell phones have free long distance, but less expensive plans charge per minute for airtime. Finally, international calls are expensive on pretty much any popular provider. This is made even worse by the lengthy instructions that many carriers append to the greeeting: "At the ton
Re: (Score:3)
Land line providers charge extra for long distance.
This is one of the biggest differences between the US and most other places in the world. I'm 36, from the UK, and remember long distance charges on landlines, but only just. Now just about all national calls from a landline are essentially free.
Calling mobiles from landlines used to be horrendously expensive (almost 50p a minute IIRC). This is how mobile companies made a whole load of their money - charging others to phone them. Now it's a little bet
Re: (Score:2)
That's just people that don't know how to leave a message. It's not an in-person conversation. You have to slow down, speak up, and call out numbers slow enough that the listener can make sense of your ramblings and have time to write it down. In person, one can ask "what's that number again?" or ask you to "slow the f*** down!"
Re: (Score:2)
2 more words: Call history. Call back the rest when you want to. Or send them a text. Or an email.
Re: (Score:2)
I agree, and I generally prefer direct-to-voicemail over the traditional wait-through-4-rings. Sometimes I need to leave someone a quick note without having to interrupt what they are doing.
Sure, I appreciate texting and I use it (very often when you include email, which is essentially the same communication concept). There are just situations that texting is much worse than leaving a quick voice message, such as while driving or using a crappy keyboard like on a game console.
Re: (Score:3)
Yup. Anymore I check my voicemail maybe once every few months. I don't even look for the red light - I use an IP-phone software and I only fire up the software if webex isn't working or I need to call somebody who isn't on the work IM system.
I don't mind talking to people on the phone at all - that makes perfect sense and I do it all the time. However, leaving messages is a waste of time for the recipient. When I get a message I have to sit there and take notes as they dump a train of thought lacking in
Mobile e-mail requires a mobile data plan (Score:5, Interesting)
When you send somebody an email you're doing them the courtesy of pre-organizing your thoughts
Not everybody pays for a $500 per year smartphone plan. For example, sometimes it might be hours before I can get to an open Wi-Fi connection through which to send an e-mail from my laptop, but I can leave a voice mail from my $80/year flip phone. What would be the most polite way for someone like me to call you?
Re: Mobile e-mail requires a mobile data plan (Score:2)
There's no need to waste $500/year on data. I pay under $25/month for cell service including a few hundred mb of data. Most of the day, I'm within WiFi range and don't need to rely on cellular data at all.
Re: (Score:2)
I pay under $25/month for cell service including a few hundred mb of data.
Which carrier in which country is getting your $300 per year?
Most of the day, I'm within WiFi range
That might be the case for someone who drives. But I spend at least an hour a day if not more riding public transit to work and back, and the buses here lack Wi-Fi.
Re:Gawd I hated it! (Score:5, Insightful)
You're right! That's, um, the, uh, problem.
Bullshit. I'm old and I hate voice mail. No one knows how to leave a message and they're just going to follow up with an email or come see you in person anyway.
If you're just going to leave a message that says "call me back" then send an email or a text or an IM. Or use the scheduling function in email to set up an appointment with me.
The worst offender was a manager I worked with some years ago. He would do the stream-of-consciousness thing whenever he got voicemail and you'd end up with 10 sentences covering 10 different topics. Which I would then turn into 10 different email messages and send back to him.
It's communication! It is NOT the same as talking. Just because you're talking does NOT mean you're communicating.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The worst of the lot are people who call and leave an urgent voicemail... then you call them back, and they are busy on the phone or not answering.
Until recently (where I use a voice mail to text service so I don't have to wade through someone like the parent poster mentions who drones on 3-4 minutes about random stuff), I've just let the voice mailbox get full, and if someone wants an answer, they can text or E-mail, which they usually do. The most notorious are third tier headhunting places who will call
Re: (Score:2)
If you're just going to leave a message that says "call me back" then send an email or a text or an IM.
Not all cellular devices and plans support e-mail or IM, and sending a text from a flip phone is painful even with T9.
Re: (Score:2)
Smartphones and smartphone plans are no longer expensive.
Since when, and in what country? My U.S. carrier quoted me $35 per month for a smartphone or $5 per month for a dumbphone.
Re:Gawd I hated it! (Score:4)
And smartphones are worse, some giving you the date and time that the phone call was made before playing the message.
That's not something specific to smartphones - that's something that comes from phone companies and voice mail (compared to answering machines of the past) in general. My smartphone has a voice mail app now that lets me just select the message and click "play" - a large improvement.
Re:Gawd I hated it! (Score:5, Funny)
Of course, if my mom knew what voicemail etiquette was, I would probably have missed out on the most hilarious "I am surrounded by furbies and I have no idea what is going on, please call me" (that's the much abridged version) when she found her self downtown during the same weekend as the furry convention.
Voicemail evolution (Score:4, Informative)
At work, my extension is tied into my email. When someone leaves me a message, it's sent as a wav file to my email, and I can listen to it from my mobile device. At home, Vonage gives me "visual voicemail", where my calls are transcribed and sent as an email, along with a wav file, to my personal email. On my cell phone, my phone, my provide provides the same service as Vonage. I don't need to pick up my phone at any location and press * or # or dial a special number to listen to my voicemail, instead it's delivered to me in an easy to consume format. This is proper voicemail. Arcane voicemail systems that require you to dial in and listen to a message will die, simply because they provide no convenience compared to newer alternatives, just like tape driven answer machines were driven out by remotely hosted voicemail services because of their superior featureset and accessibility.
Re: (Score:2)
Proper voicemail systems are evolved.
At work, my extension is tied into my email. When someone leaves me a message, it's sent as a wav file to my email, and I can listen to it from my mobile device.
That's hardly evolved. You still have to listen to the idiot who is just calling to ask "did you get my email?"...
Re:Voicemail evolution (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Not if he can't leave a voicemail. :D
Re: (Score:2)
An idiot always finds a way to broadcast his lack of brain.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The best VM system I have seen was one tied to Exchange that not just sent the WAV attachment of the caller, but a transcript of their message. There was the old fashioned way of dialing in, punching in a PIN and grabbing messages, but having them ready to go in an E-mail and listenable on a device made things easy. I sure don't miss the old VM setups that required a person to listen to an entire message before being able to delete or do anything with it.
voicemail to email (Score:2)
My Cell transcribes all voicemail to text, my work and home voicemail forward a wav to my email... This is imo a much more efficient way to handle voicemail, rather than seeing the 100 "as a valued westjet customer you are awarded 1000 reward points please press 1" and having to listen to each one and delete each one, I can see oh yeah, skip, skip, skip, oh I was waiting to hear from that guy, lets see what he has to say.
I log into my work voicemail once every 3-6 months to change the outgoing message to s
Re: (Score:3)
My Cell transcribes all voicemail to text
let's set so double the killer delete select all
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Speech to text has gotten very good
Eh? I have yet to see a single case of it getting a single sentence transcribed correctly. And I mean this literally: a ten or so years ago we spent a few hours with friends playing with IBM ViaVoice trying to get a single sentence through, and failed. Recently, I tried Google Chrome's transcriber, with exactly as much luck.
Usually the result of speech-to-text is some nonsense poetry that matches the general rhythm of what was said and possibly rhymes with it, but the similarities end there.
Now, i don't feel so bad... (Score:2)
Old Guys? (Score:3)
I've always hated talking on the phone and will ignore my red light on the phone for several days or even weeks. Heck, 95% of the time the "voice" message is *beeeeep* (a hangup vs leaving a message). As to the phone, probably half of the callers are from outside the company ("can I send you a white paper from symantec?"). I always prefer an email or text message at home and just email at work. I leave my IM off at work typically just because of the number of "drive by" IMs. If I bring IM up for a problem where I'm working with others, I'll have 4 or 5 other popups asking me about this or that.
And I'm 57.
[John]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I'm a few years south of 57 but I got lucky in my job, I get to admin the phone system. The first thing I did was disable my extension's VM. If it's that urgent, call my cell, if not send an email or put in a ticket.
When was MS DOS ever a communications medium? (Score:3)
Serious question.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I was BBS fiend back in the day - i guess I just never really thought of DOS as the medium.
I thought I missed it too - then I stood up a BBS on my C64 a few years ago for old times sake... found out that I didn't really miss it.
Voicemail won't die (Score:3)
To be clear, as long as:
- callers call callees;
- callees are not available to pick up the phone;
- callers want callees to know there and then why they called;
voicemail is not going anywhere soon (although the means through which voicemail may be consumed might change).
Re: (Score:2)
Voicemail can still die, even with all of that.
If the person doesn't answer, send a text or email. Problem solved without voicemail.
Re: (Score:3)
Voicemail can still die, even with all of that.
If the person doesn't answer, send a text or email. Problem solved without voicemail.
What's more likely is the evolution of the transcription systems mentioned elsewhere in this thread, where the voicemail that the caller leaves is transcribed to text and sent as an email to the callee.
That's certainly more convenient that having to drop the call and send a separate email.
Re:Voicemail won't die (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
If the person doesn't answer, send a text
Have you tried sending a text on a flip phone? Or a land line?
That's what email is for.
or email.
And you end up waiting for hours for someone to get to a desk to compose and send the email.
As opposed to waiting forever because no one bothers to check their voice mail any more?
Re: (Score:2)
We're well into the 21st century. Cell phones and computers come with the ability to connect to 4G networks.
Re: (Score:2)
Not really. IF I call and need answers but get your voice mail I hang up and send an email with all relevent information. If I don't get a response back then I will call again. However I do give an hour or two to hear back.
Voicemail isn't nesscary. Now fax machines those aren't going anywhere until programmers can figure out group emails with only one person responding.
Re: (Score:2)
Not really. IF I call and need answers but get your voice mail I hang up and send an email with all relevent information. If I don't get a response back then I will call again. However I do give an hour or two to hear back.
Voicemail isn't nesscary. Now fax machines those aren't going anywhere until programmers can figure out group emails with only one person responding.
What if I don't know your email address, or I don't have access to a facility from which to email you?
What might be more convenient is to have a transcription of my voicemail sent to you as text, though (assuming your number is a mobile number).
Re: (Score:2)
Voicemail was never alive in my country.
The reason is that my country was part of the USSR until its collapse and there were no answering machines or voicemail in the USSR (or just nobody used it). My first experience with voicemail was when I got my first cellphone ~16 years ago. It looked neat, but not much use. I did have it enabled for a while, but I have not received a single proper voice mail message yet (people either just disconnected and called me later or I got a recording of somebody being confus
Term... (Score:4, Funny)
V-enema: The Act of rapidly going through your voice mail just to get rid of the icon/flashing light.
Turned it off (Score:2)
Good riddance to bad rubbish (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm old enough to remember when voice mail was a privilege and you had to get your superiors to give you access because you were special. Even back then I didn't want it. I hated having to sift through the menus to listen to some irrelevant crap that someone could just as easily put in an email. I politely declined when my supervisor asked. That is, until the new phone system was installed and everyone was given their own voicemail. I hated getting pestered by some IT flunky to clear out my inbox because it was using up limited space, otherwise I would have let my inbox fill up to the point where it would reject incoming messages. I wasn't high enough on the food chain at that point to be able to get them to remove my inbox entirely but I did know at least one senior staff engineer who was able to make that happen. Though later in my career, once hard drive space was cheap enough to have way more storage than you needed because you couldn't even buy a hard drive that was too small, I did just let the inbox fill up. And after leaving a job of 3.5 years, I did log in to clear out the messages and I had a whopping 13, about half of which were from family members who ended up calling my cell phone. The rest were people who were following up on emails they had sent within 1-2 minutes of calling me.
So count me in the over 40 crowd that is happy to see voice mail going the way of the floppy disk. Good riddance. I look forward to not having to deal with it.
One reason: Annoyance (Score:5, Interesting)
One reason for the death of voice mail is the change from convenience to annoyance imposed by the carriers.
First you hear “Hi, it’s John Smith. Leave a message, and I’ll get back to you”. (5 seconds)
And THEN you hear a 15-second canned carrier message "[Phone number] is not available right now. Please leave a detailed message after the tone. When you have finished recording, you may hang up, or press pound for more options. To leave a callback number, press 5.”
That extra 15 seconds is annoying as hell to wait out, and it's only put there so that the carrier can use up metered minutes on an artificially scarce resource.
Then when you go to *play* the message, you have to wait through the "First message, from, phone number xxx-xxx-xxxx, received at ".
The old-style was much more convenient. Leave a message *beep* "Hi, this is your sister, please give me a call". Oftentimes 10 seconds *total* gets the point across.
The new-style - not so much.
Take the time wasted on each worthless recording (15 secs), multiply by the number of messages each year, and you get a *lot* of wasted man-years.
Thanks, carriers! Your relentless pursuit of money has ruined a perfectly useful feature.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You don't have to wait through all that crap. Most voicemail systems have a key assigned to skip the header and jump straight to the message. It's always a different one, though, as far as I can tell. Next time you're at the main menu of your voice system, try listening through to the end of the options and choose the help one if it exists.
Re: (Score:3)
Actually having it spelled out is useful, since they might have just called someone else after not getting you instead of leaving a message. If you're on a call list for example. Or if someone you know is just trying to reach *anyone* inside a house/office where any of 6 people could let them in / handle their problem. In those situations, a missed call with no corresponding message simply means "disregard, I've tried someone else".
Re: (Score:2)
Carriers charging $8/mo extra for caller ID (Score:2)
A call log gets that point across with no message at all.
There are still carriers that charge $100 per year extra for a call log. And these carriers still have customers.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
So you have 15 seconds to listen to the preamble, which leaves you 45 seconds to leave a message.
Since you can get it done in under 10 seconds, I fail to see why you are complaining.
Because you already spent 25 seconds waiting for the phone to ring (for which cellular providers charge, but not land line long distance providers), plus 7 listening to the greeting that the user recorded.
Connect to email (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Or better yet, simply call the number that called them without bothering to listen to the email. Saves them the time and the person that left the message gets what they originally desired - personal contact.
Hyperbole (Score:2)
Wasn't too long ago... 1990's... that everyone still bought a cassette tape based answering machine for their homes. (and if you had a dual cassette one with a separate tape for the greeting and the voicemail recording, that was da bomb)
Well into the 2000's, people still bought flash memory-based answering machines for their homes.
You'd have to be awfully young to not have used voicemail. Maybe the kids just starting college today.
Re: (Score:2)
IIRC, answering machines have been around since the 1980s, where one would have to set a mode between record, then flip a dial to play... with a machine that had two tapes, one a special outgoing message tape configured in an endless loop with a metal foil piece joining the ends. Then the next generation of machines came around using micro cassettes and storing the outgoing message at the beginning of the tape. Then in the early to mid 1990s, flash based messages with multiple voice mail boxes so everyone
Re: (Score:2)
IIRC, answering machines have been around since the 1980s, where one would have to set a mode between record, then flip a dial to play... with a machine that had two tapes, one a special outgoing message tape configured in an endless loop with a metal foil piece joining the ends. Then the next generation of machines came around using micro cassettes and storing the outgoing message at the beginning of the tape. Then in the early to mid 1990s, flash based messages with multiple voice mail boxes so everyone in the family got their own blinking light. After a while, people just started using the VM product offered by the telco because it was less hassle than having a dedicated answering machine.
All and all, voice mail isn't going anywhere. If it is a way for a company to leave their ads, there is no way that will be stopped in today's economy.
I never understood why people used the telco voice mail since that removed one of the most valuable features of a home answering machine -- the ability to screen calls by listening to the message live. I couldn't afford to pay the $9.99/month and buy a $99 caller id display in those days.
Google Voice lets you do that, you can choose to screen calls and listen to message the caller is leaving in real time and pick up if you want to. But now if I decide not to answer up the phone, I just wait for the transcri
Hell, I'm damn near 50 (Score:4)
I use VM primary in two ways (Score:3)
1. Triage calls for call back. If they won't leave a VM on my cell it is generally not a serious issue requiring immediate attention
2. To tell people they have reached the wrong number and the person they want to reach is at extension xxx. I use that at a client site because a PM has the same last name as I do since I get calls for him by accident on occasion. This message at least lets callers know they have reached the wrong person so they know to call back and dial the correct extension; which I give in my VM. I do get the occasional idiot who insists they dialed the correct extension, and says so in their VM, and leaves a request for information they need RIGHT NOW. Since I am rarely in my office and all my clients have my cell # anyway those requests generally never get answered. I assume they call back and actually dial the right extension when they do not hear back from the person they thought they left a message.
Transcribed voicemail (Score:2)
Both my google voice mail and tmo voice mail transcribes into text, and I can delete or hear it with only press. Go ahead and leave me a voice mail! Only problem is most carriers charge for "visual voicemail" services... That should be the thing to attract people, after using transcribed voice mail services, you never ever ever want to go back.
I can read my voicemail in meeting, its great.
If I was a phone system vendor id be adding transcription, make those IP phones display the voicemail, etc.
Even as
Leave a message (Score:2)
Damned if I'm going to buy a smell phone and pay for a plan just so you can interrupt my life anywhere, anytime instead of leaving a message on my land line.
Re: (Score:2)
I think the idea is that you "buy a smell phone and pay for a plan" and then cancel your land line because a cell phone has become cheaper.
Business tool, ignore at your own peril (Score:2)
Sorry "youngsters". Arrogantly ignore business tools at your own peril. I'm personally acquainted with someone who ignored their voice mail for several days and missed job interviews. Not cool at best.
voicemail not obsolete (Score:2)
Voicemail is not obsolete. What is obsolete is coca-cola's telephone system.
Their voicemail would be more widely used if Coca-Cola upgraded their phone system so that: voicemail can be forwarded as email, voicemail can be automatically transcribed and emailed, voicemail can be forwarded to cell phones, their phones were able to receive and send SMS messages, etc.
Spoofing (Score:2)
It's more difficult to spoof voicemail than e-mail or text messages. Particularly if you know the sender. And generated spam robo calls aren't very convincing. So I'm going to trust voicemail a bit more than a text based message.
Transcription (Score:2)
ring ring ring (Score:2)
If I don't have voice mail, who is going to answer the phone? I don't want to sit there listening to it ring all day.
Okay, I'm officially tired (Score:2)
Time to stop reading
Wha? (Score:2)
"People north of 40 are schizophrenic about voice mail," says Michael Schrage.
"Schizophrenic"? Meaning ... what?
They hear voicemail messages that aren't there?
The voicemail commands them to kill the dog?
May I introduce you to another ancient technology called a "dictionary" ...
While ironically ... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I did similar. My message was "please do not leave a message I rarely check my messages, instead do X". Did not work. People left messages anyway. I instead I turned off voicemail and now they do not hear any instructions on how to leave me a message.
Re: (Score:2)
I have a live secretary
Reminds me of the story about the bigshot who was sitting in his office, shooting the bull with a client. Figuring he'd impress this guy, he reached over and hit the button for the intercom to his secretary in he outer office. "Get my broker on the line, hon'." She replied, "Which one is that, sir? Stock or pawn?"
Re: (Score:2)
I'd have fired you for thinking "terrorfied" is a word.
I think he's not the CTO, he's a helpdesk analyst, but it sounds more impressive to say he's a terrorfied CTO.
Re: (Score:2)
Voice mail wouldn't be so bad with a web interface, but I could only get messages through that annoying phone interface.l
Because they want to sell you that feature as "visual voice mail" for $2.99 a month. Who actually wants to spend money on voice mail?
Re: (Score:2)
This video contains content from Channel 4, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds.
Land line users without caller ID (Score:2)
Why leave a message when the only relevant message is "call me back". They already told you that by the "missed call" entry in your phone.
Because calling a land line doesn't always leave a "missed call" entry. Caller ID costs $100 per year extra on my home town's ILEC.
People who own only smartphones and tablets (Score:2)
[Instant messaging services] So are tablets/smartphones. Laptops, desktops, etc are here to stay and I can't think of a single person who has a tablet or smartphone and doesn't have a laptop/desktop of some sort.
I can. For example, see this comment [slashdot.org] from someone complaining that he can't provide a environment in which his children can learn to program because all he has are tablets.