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Voicemail

What is Voicemail?

Voicemail, or voice mail, vmail, VMS or messagebank, is a centralized or individualised system of managing telephone messages for a large group of people. A feature packed and usually optional devise, Voicemail allows companies to make a professional first impression and improve communication management and productivity. For example; all incoming calls can be answered quickly and efficiently, even if there is no staff member available; detailed messages to be left for staff and accessed from the desk or remotely; customers can stay in touch with you 24 hours a day.

How Voicemail solved the business communication problem, Voice mail’s introduction enabled people to leave lengthy, secure and detailed messages in natural voice, working hand-in-hand with corporate phone systems. The adoption of voicemail in corporations improved the flow of communications and saved huge amounts of money. GE, one of the pioneer adopters of voicemail in all of its offices around the world, claimed that voicemail saved, on average, over US$1,100 per year per employee.

General Features of a VOICEMAIL System:

A common question clients ask us, is why do i need to invest hundreds of dollars into a Voicemail system when i could just put an answering machine onto the phone line like i do at home? After all, isn't that what Voicemail is, a glorified answering machine? Well yes, in it's simplest form, Voicemail does just mimic the function of an answering machine but it's power comes in features. Here are some of the reasons that make Voicemail much more sophisticated then an answering machine:

Answer many phone calls at the same time.
Stores incoming voice messages in personalized mailboxes associated with the users phone number.
Sync your Voicemail with your Email inbox and access your new voicemail messages through your email inbox.
Enable users to forward received messages to another voice mailbox.
Add a voice introduction to a forwarded message.
Store voice messages for future delivery.
Make calls to a telephone or paging service to notify the user a message has arrived in his mailbox.
Transfer callers to another phone number for personal assistance.
Plays different message greetings to different callers

Choosing the right voicemail solution for your business:

When selecting a voicemail application and solution for your company, there are a few factors that need to be considered.

Deciding on the voicemail solution that you require firstly depends which phone system you have. Generally, each manufacturer produces its own Voicemail application that is unique and only compatible with systems of its own brand. For example, if you own a Samsung telephone system, you will require a Samsung-specific Voicemail application. Similarly, if you own an NEC telephone system, you will require an NEC-specific Voicemail application. There is an exception to this rule, and that is M2 Technology. M2 is an independent company that provides messaging solutions that are compatible with all brands of telephone systems.

The next thing to be aware of when purchasing your voicemail solution is that while Voicemail used to be a hardware-based application, it’s actually now software-based. This relatively recent advance in technology has enabled the prices of Voicemail applications to drop dramatically from $2000+ to just a few hundred dollars. This leads us to our next point – if you own an older telephone system (more than 5 years old), it’s more than likely that you are using, or are required to use a hardware-based Voicemail solution. In this case, in the event of a breakdown, or for example if you wanted to purchase a new Voicemail Card, you are looking at spending into the thousands of dollars to do so. In this case, you are actually better off purchasing an M2 Technology solution for anywhere from $250 to $800, or to upgrade your existing phone system to then reap the benefits of state of the art Voicemail technology for just a few hundred dollars.