Voicemail Transcription

Written by

Michael Roden

GetVoIP Staff Member

Michael Roden is GetVoIP.com’s news reporter and VoIP provider analyst. Mike currently resides in Brooklyn, NY, all the while neglecting his Mother’s wish that he keep his wallet in his front pocket. He finds the most solace in the arts, humanities, music, & culture – with the same fervor and fascination Aristotle had for the stars. There are few things that may upset Mike, but none more than when Paris Hilton tries to DJ.

August 10, 2012

Voicemail Transcription sends a voice-to-text version of voicemail messages deciphered by software or an actual person to the e-mail address of your choice. When using voice recognition technology or a dedicated service, a written transcription is delivered to an end user's email address and/or e-mail enabled mobile phone along with an attached audio file of the actual voice message. Voicemail transcription is ideal for busy professionals that are often in meetings, out of the office, and need to check voicemail without wasting valuable time reviewing the entire message.

How It Works:
Much like Virtual Voicemail, Voicemail Transcription has the advantage of giving you, in one glimpse, a series of important information about a voicemail message, like the caller, time of message, duration etc. This allows the recipient to save a tremendous amount of time, that which they would have spent with traditional audio voicemail retrieval - listening to a message in its entirety. Voicemail Transcription makes voicemail review even quicker by converting it into text. Later, that transcription will be readily available in a quickly accessible form if the user needs to reference any information left in the voicemail message.

There are few companies that offer Virtual Voicemail Transcription, and many that don't. This service is usually paid, and of course, is not 100 percent accurate considering the technology is as imperfect as the voice quality of the incoming call/caller. Factors such as calling connection, heavy accents, incoherence/mumbling, background noise, and speaking too softly or quickly will affect the accuracy of the transcription.

Companies like Nextiva & Jive Communications offer Visual Voicemail transcription as an inclusion with its calling plans, while Phone.com offers a $1.50/month unlimited automated transcription, or 25 cents per message for a human to do the transcribing. Virtual Voicemail Transcription is understood to be more of a minutely flawed, yet generally useful tool that eliminates the need to enter a pin, blindly check for new voicemail, and tend to all calls promptly without screening their degree of importance first.