The Philadelphia Inquirer ran an article last week about an informal survey they did regarding voicemail. The findings?

• More than half of respondents younger than 35 said they were in no rush to check their voicemail, saying they listened to it only every few hours or days.

• Seventy-six percent of those younger than 35 said they favored texts or e-mails over voicemail

• Those older than 55 said they preferred phone calls and voicemail

It seems as if there’s a pretty big generation gap when it comes to voicemail.

How does this effect business? Is voicemail still relevant?

I fall into the younger than 35 crowd and when it comes to my personal phone, I hate voicemail. I rarely check it and when I do, I typically delete it before listening to the whole message.

When it comes to my work phone however, it’s a different story. If I’m away from my desk or really in a zone, voicemail takes over. Do I listen to it? Of course I do. But with features like voicemail to email and voicemail transcription, I don’t listen to it in a traditional sense. There is no calling into a voicemail system; I simply listen to the mp3 on my computer.

As the younger generation continues to move into the business world, it’ll be interesting to see how tools like voicemail evolve. It seems as if there will still be the need for it but how we receive those messages is yet to be seen.

Do you listen to voicemail? Where do you see it going?