I am not a fan of voicemail.  I think that the guys over at The Doghouse Diaries, captured it perfectly when it comes to the problems with retrieving messages nowadays.  I’ve been accused of leaving a voicemail on my phone for days because I know who called me and I never even bothered checking what the message was because I just returned the call without listening to it.  Today, with newer telephony technologies, there are products that allow you to read your voicemail with a speech-to-text application that translates voicemail to an interpreted text message.  It is not always perfect and sometimes it turns into a cryptic message that sounds more like a nursery rhyme than a message, but you typically get the idea.  It’s actually a nice benefit that allows you to read your voicemail, delete it without listening and keep an organized “database” of calls you have to return.

Some companies charge for this feature, while companies like Google give it away for free.  We’re not advocating any particular company, but it is a feature found on a number of offerings from VoIP companies and worthwhile to consider.  Just think you can check your messages without having to go through that voicemail tree all the time.  So if you’re tired of having to work with voicemail, take a look at increasing your productivity with this new feature.

Why do most people dread having to deal with their carriers and providers?

Having to work with your suppliers can be a bit of a daunting task.  In working with a major client, they indicated that they thought that they were a “big” account that had special access to their very own customer service rep who was supposed to take care of them, when in actuality their carrier lumped them into a group of accounts where they were one of over 250 accounts each customer service rep maintains.  How often do you think that customer was actually proactively called?  (Zero was my client’s recollection – just for the record)

So… how do you like dealing with communications vendors?  Imagine what your employees or worse – YOU would have to deal with when it comes to a working with a really large bill, like your company’s for instance.  Let us deal with it.

(If anyone know who might have had this experience, let me know – I’d like to acknowledge them)