VoIP 
In addition to saving you money, one of the most compelling reasons to switch to VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) phone service is that it can provide your business with a wide range of features that a traditional phone system simply can’t offer. Many of these features, such as visual voicemail, work by utilizing the data from your phone calls in new ways — opening up a world of possibilities.
Of these features, visual voicemail is one of the most useful. When it’s activated, your voicemail messages will be automatically transcribed from audio files into text so that you can access them just as you would your email.
Though simple in concept, visual voicemail contains significant potential to improve business communications – but how?
Take a closer look to see how visual voicemail can save time, streamline workflows, and more.
Increase productivity
With visual voicemail, you no longer have to dedicate time to listening to voicemails or taking notes while you listen. You’ll spend less time by reading instead of listening, and you can see the message in the same place as your emails, chats, and other communications.
Access messages from any location
When voicemails in your business voicemail inbox are transcribed and turned into emails, you don’t have to be at your desk phone to keep in touch. Visual voicemail allows you to check your voice messages consistently, no matter where you are. Even when you’re in a situation in which you can’t pick up the phone, you can be on the go and still stay in touch.
Maintain your privacy
This is a great reason to use visual voicemail. If you need to listen to a time-sensitive message containing potentially confidential information, you don’t want to be worried about someone else overhearing. Use visual voicemail to keep your private details private.
Forward messages with ease
If you receive a message by mistake that wasn’t meant for you, you can fix it easily with visual voicemail. Because this feature turns voice messages into text, you can simply forward the message along to the correct party as you would an email. No need to worry about taking notes or getting the details right; you can just forward it along.
Eliminate confusion
Have you ever gotten a voicemail that’s so hard to understand, you’ve had to listen multiple times to decipher what someone is saying? Visual voicemail can help you solve this problem. Messages are automatically transcribed for you, so you’ll only have to read once to get the message!
Prioritize accordingly
One great thing about visual voicemail is that it allows you to prioritize in a new way. Instead of having to listen to all the messages in your inbox in the order in which they were left (or having to go through all of them again to get back to the one you want), visual voicemail lets you skip all of that and choose your own order. You can see who left which messages before you read them and prioritize that way; alternatively, you can scan messages for urgent matters and attend to those first. Visual voicemail allows for much greater flexibility when it comes to responding to your voice messages.
Manage follow-ups better
Similarly, it’s much easier to respond in a timely manner when you have a visible record of the voicemails you need to follow up on. Visual voicemail creates the list for you, so you can treat your voicemails just like emails. This means that while you reduce the number of communication channels that you have to worry about, the people who prefer to call instead of email can continue to do so without worrying if you’ll get back to them.
Improve record-keeping
Importantly, visual voicemail helps you create an easily accessible record of all the voicemails you receive. You can delete the actual voicemails from your phone as needed, without worrying if you’ll be getting rid of important details that you’ll need to find later on. As with any communication channel, keeping thorough records with your voice messages can serve you well into the future. And with visual voicemail, the work is already done for you.
As it’s easy to see, using visual voicemail leads to an across-the-board increase in convenience. When your phone system more flexibility, so do you! Only VoIP-based services offer a rich variety of features, including visual voicemail, that can help everyone on your team work the way they want to (not to mention save you a significant amount of money in the process). If this sounds like something you’re interested in, contact Nextiva today to get a free estimate of what it would cost to switch your business to VoIP today.
