Information Week reported today that a new study from Yap.com shows Americans receive 70 billion voicemail messages per year. More than that, those 70 billion messages resulted in one billion hours of people’s time (recording, managing & listening). That’s crazy!

The author of the article, Eric Zeman, goes on to discuss how much he dislikes dealing with voicemails and it turns out he’s not alone. According to the study:

• 15% dislike navigating the menu to delete their voicemail

• 13% dislike having to take notes about the voicemail

• 12% dislike the fact they feel obligated to call the person back

• 10% dislike they can’t listen to the message during meetings or in noisy places

In today’s fast-paced world, where text messaging & emails are replacing voicemail, it’s not surprising that people don’t want to listen to their messages. Think about it, one billion hours of time!

Here at Grasshopper, we came out with a solution for this last year – Read Your Voicemail. The feature transcribes your voicemail and then emails it to you, letting you read your voicemail anywhere. No notes to take & you can get the contents of your voicemail in noisy places or meetings.

For more info on Read Your Voicemail, check out a few of our blog posts.

If you haven’t checked it out, head over the features page, watch the video below or check out the following blog posts: Benefits of Voice Mail Transcription & Voice Mail When You Need It. Happy Friday!

This past year here at Grasshopper we added Read Your Voicemail to the long list of features used on our virtual phone system. The feature has been met with a great response and we continue to have more and more people use it every day.

If you are still wondering if having your voice mail transcribed is worthwhile, let us answer that for you below. Here are four great benefits of voice mail transcription:

• No calling, listening, re-listening

  A friend calls you and leaves a message. Do you immediately listen to the message or do you just call them back? I can’t tell you how many people I know that call back and say, “Got your call but didn’t listen to the message.” Sometimes you simply don’t want to call and listen to the sweet voice mail lady telling you to press 1.

  With business calls you can’t just ignore your voice mail like you can your personal line but that doesn’t mean you sometimes don’t want to. With voice mail transcription, you don’t have to call your voice mail and you don’t have to open the MP3 file (for our Grasshopper customers). You open your email, read your voice mail and decide what action you want to take next. Easy enough.

• Out of office or In a meeting

  You’re sitting in a meeting and your phone rings. What do you do? You know you probably shouldn’t answer it but it could be important. If you have Read Your Voicemail, you open up the email notification on your Blackberry or iPhone and read your message.

  The same thing applies if you are out of the office. For most people, whether you work in an office or work from home, when you leave the office, answering business calls is the last thing you want to do. If the call is important enough to leave a voice mail, you will immediately know what the voice mail says.

• Prioritize your messages

  If you get a lot of voice mail messages each day it can be tough to know who to call back first. You listen to six messages, a couple hours pass, do you remember which callbacks were the most important? Open up your email, read the voice mails and refresh your memory. You don’t have to listen to six voice mails again to figure out who/what was needed.

• It’s unlimited!

  With Grasshopper there’s no limit to the number of voice mails you can have transcribed. Plus, if your voice mail transcription doesn’t come across as clear as it should, you can have a human transcribe it for free!

Have more questions? Want to learn more about voice mail transcription? Check out Read Your Voicemail now! Grasshopper customers can add it to there account here.

With the launch of Google Voice there has been a lot of talk about visual voicemail, voicemail transcription, voice to text, voicemail to email, etc. There are so many different terms it can be confusing!

Here at Grasshopper we offer a feature to our customers called ‘Read Your Voicemail‘. When a customer subscribes to this feature, they are emailed a transcription (and an MP3) of their voicemail immediately after receiving it (we offer human transcription at no extra charge for better accuracy). They can then read the voicemail on their computer or Smartphone.

However, one of the questions we often get is, ‘Do you offer visual voicemail?’ The answer to that is, it depends.

Here is how others describe ‘visual voicemail’:

Verizon

“Visual Voice Mail allows customers to see a list of all of their voice mail messages with important information, such as date and time of receipt, as well as message duration, in order to prioritize and efficiently manage their voice mail messages directly from their phones.”

Apple/iPhone

“When you decline or don’t answer a call, the caller hears a recorded greeting and can leave a voicemail message. On iPhone, visual voicemail lets you see a list of your messages and choose which ones to listen to or delete, without having to listen to prior messages or voice instructions.”

AT&T

“AT&T Visual Voicemail provides an easier way to check voicemail. No more dialing into complicated voicemail menus. Visual Voicemail delivers messages directly to your handset, so you can review your voicemail messages anytime, anywhere, and in any order you choose.”

Here is what Wikipedia has to say:

“Visual Voicemail is the process of adding a visual aspect to phone voicemail such as allowing users to view a list of audio voicemail entries or even read transcripts of these voicemail as text. These voicemails are converted to text by use of advanced speech recognition software…”

What we have here at Grasshopper is voicemail transcription AND visual voicemail. Through the online account manager, you can see a list of your voicemails, phone numbers, times, dates, notes and more. And with the Read Your Voicemail feature, you get your voicemail transcribed and sent to you.

Do you define visual voicemail and voicemail transcription as the same thing?

You are in the zone, ideas are flowing, work is getting done and the phone rings. You don’t want to miss an important call but you also don’t want to interrupt your work flow. With the Grasshopper virtual phone system you can see who is calling and send the caller to voice mail without worrying you are going to miss important information.

Why? Because with Grasshopper you will immediately be emailed the MP3 and the voice mail transcription (if you subscribe to the “Read Your Voicemail” feature). Voice mail is a great asset for your business and we have included some of the best ways to get the most out of it below.

Voice mail when you need it:

• Out of the office?

  The great thing about having Grasshopper is that you can choose when you want calls to be forwarded or when you want them to be sent to voice mail. When you are out of the office, you can have calls forwarded to your cell or home phone. Don’t want to get calls after 8 pm? Set up an after-hours greeting and send calls directly to voice mail.

  The other great thing is that even if you are out of the office, your voice mail will be emailed to you (in MP3 form), giving you the ability to listen to it on your Smartphone. You will know right away if it is an urgent call.

• Don’t want to talk?

  We have all been there. The phone rings and you really don’t want to talk to anyone. With Call Screening & Announce, you can simply listen to the number and decide if you want to talk or send them to voice mail.

• Don’t want to listen?

  To summarize, there is a Facebook group called “I Only Check My Voicemail To Get Rid Of The Little Icon On The Screen”. Yes, we can all be lazy and sometimes we just don’t feel like listening to our voice mail. The great thing about Grasshopper is that you don’t have to!

  With the “Read Your Voicemail” feature, your voice mail will be transcribed and emailed to you. You can get the contents of your voice mail without having to listen to it.

• Want to go above and beyond?

  In a recent post here on the Grasshopper blog, we show-cased how the unlimited extensions feature can help you go above and beyond for clients. By creating personalized greetings & voicemail messages for individual clients using separate extensions, you can create strong relationships and make your business stand out.

Grasshopper voice mail makes life easier for small businesses, is there when you need it and can help keep you and your business organized. Find out more about all the great features of the Grasshopper virtual phone system.