I was out of the office and 1/2 the way through my day when I realized that my voice mails were not showing up in my email and I have to admit it, I was lost !

Right away I realized that I had no idea how to dial into my phone system remotely and retrieve my voicemails, something about a username, a password and a retrieval code needed to collect voice mail remotely.  This was my error as I should have known what these were just in case.

Of course, it only took a short while to resolve the problem but I had some time to evaluate how  Voicemail to Email (VoiceEmail) had improved my business and my time management.  As a small business owner every little bit helps.

  1. By receiving customer VoiceEmail on my phone while out of the office I am able to listen to the message and react and respond to my customers call immediately.  More than once I have been able to stop by a customer site while passing by and resolve a problem rather than picking up the email when I return to the office and scheduling a return site visit.
  2. I can forward this VoiceEmail intact off to my business colleagues or contractors with my own comments for immediate action.
  3. I love that I can attach the VoiceEmail to my CRM system. For me, I can attach files (your voicemail is normally just a WAV file) at the project, quote, customer or contact level. For others you might be able to attach emails to a client or a policy. With this ability I can keep relevant voice mails in my CRM system for easy access. I know that I could just file the email in an Outlook folder but many times this feature makes it easier to locate the correct email.
  4. Generally with voicemails alone; once the voicemail is deleted it is gone forever. With your VoiceEmail you can backup and archive your voicemails (just like your emails) and you can do this without any additional effort by your IT department.
  5. Never will a customer call you and attempt to leave a voicemail only to be told that the voicemail box is full. Managing your voicemails in your email keeps voicemail folders sizes in check.
  6. Email distribution and routing rules can be used to forward VoiceEmails to customer retention teams or maybe you have escalation rules built into your system and you can auto-escalate a voice mail to a second level support team. Anything you can do with an eMail you can now do with VoiceEmails.

No matter how you slice it, VoiceEmails are a keeper for a responsive business and even the shortest outage can cause panic and stress.