Understanding visual voicemail

Keeping on top of your voicemail messages ensures that you never miss essential business communication, but sometimes it's not convenient to listen to a recorded message. When you're on the go or in a crowded space, trying to hear what someone said on a voicemail can be difficult, and searching archived messages becomes more complicated when the messages are all vocal. Visual voicemail converts messages into a readable format so you can check them at a glance without having to play the actual voice message.

What is visual voicemail

Visual voicemail is essentially a text version of regular voicemail messages. A computer program translates spoken messages into text so you can read them on your phone or computer. Messages from customers in your call queue can be organized and responded to in the most efficient way.

With visual voicemail, you can delete, save or archive messages by touch, which makes prioritizing important messages simpler. You can also respond directly to transcribed messages with a text, voice message or email. Messages are easily organized, and you can forward voice messages to someone else or send them to a different device directly from your visual voicemail system. Integrating visual voicemail with your existing system lets you use caller features such as call blocking and do not disturb to send specific voicemails to an analysis program instead of making employees deal with them immediately.

Is visual voicemail accurate?

The accuracy of visual voicemail depends on the specific technology you're using. In general, this type of text-from-speech tends to be fairly accurate, although it might occasionally swap out uncommon words that it doesn't recognize. This is particularly noticeable with names. Swapped names are often easy to figure out, though, so visual voicemail users tend to adapt to the limitations of the software.

How to set up visual voicemail

Setting up visual voicemail depends on your specific provider. Some phones, such as Apple iPhones, offer visual voicemail as a standard feature, so you don't need to do anything special to set it up. Carriers and corporate communication systems have their own versions of visual voicemail, so setup steps vary.

There may be specific options for your visual voicemail system that you can set up independently. You might opt to have an alert sent to your email whenever you have a visual voicemail. Or you could arrange the system to send all visual voicemails in your all-in-one communications system to a central extension that multiple people in your distributed workforce can access.

How much does visual voicemail cost?

Some carriers and phone manufacturers automatically include visual voicemail for all users. Others charge a monthly fee for visual voicemail as an add-on service. Business-class voicemail systems may charge based on the number of users and the specific visual voicemail services you need.

Do you really need visual voicemail?

If your business relies on quick responses to phone messages, visual voicemail may be an essential service. Managers and employees who are frequently in meetings can access and share visual voicemails at any time, and management can easily archive visual voicemail messages from a distributed workforce for convenient analysis.

Provide your workforce with convenient voicemail options

Adding visual voicemail to your all-in-one communications system makes it easier to track and save voice messages across your workforce. Check out visual voicemail options from 8x8 and improve message storage and retrieval across your entire network.