What's better than "Visual Voicemail"? How about REALLY visual voicemail?
Most of the techie people who read my blog will probably wonder why I'm stating the obvious. I'm writing this for all the regular people out there who don't realize how awesome a transcription enabled voice-mail box is. Even better, you can get it for free!
Here's how it works: When someone calls your home, business, or cell and you don't answer it goes to voice-mail. Instead of a voice-mail box where you have to dial in and listen to the message the message gets emailed to you in an audio file along with a transcribed email (the FULL text is included!). You have no idea how much of a time saver this is until you actually try it. You never have to dial and listen for your voice-mail again, instead just check your email or SMS and it will appear there (you set it up in the options).
So what's the big secret? There really isn't one.
I have been using Google Voice for months, but since they released the free phone calls between U.S. and Canada I decided to tweak my settings a little. I disabled the call forwarding feature, and I use it only as a central voice mail box for ALL of my phone numbers.
I have a house in Seattle, one in Calgary, and a number of other phones. I have one mailbox enabled and all my phones are directed to the central box for distribution. Here are the steps to getting your Google Voice Mailbox setup.
1) Get a Google Voice Number
Pick something cool, and take your time. You can search for words or digit combinations, it's your choice. You can choose your own area code or search the entire United States. (BTW if you're Canadian like me you may need a U.S. address to set it up).
2) Disable the "forward to" feature
This basically makes your Google Voice account an effective voicemail box, you will never have to answer the phone when someone dials the number.
3) On the "Voicemail & Text" tab enable "Transcribe Voicemails" Make sure you setup your preferences to your liking, email address, etc.
4) Call your phone company and ask them to disable your voicemail service. On a cell phone such as Rogers once you've done this you need to type the following:
ENABLE NO ANSWER TRANSFER:
TO ACTIVATE: * 6 1 * (receiving phone number) # SEND
TO CANCEL: # 6 1 # SEND
ENABLE BUSY TRANSFER:
TO ACTIVATE: * 6 7 * (receiving phone number) # SEND
TO CANCEL: # 6 7 # SEND
ENABLE BUSY/NO ANSWER TRANSFER:
TO ACTIVATE: * 0 0 4 * (receiving phone number) # SEND
TO CANCEL: # # 0 0 4 # SEND
I enabled all three of these features just incase. Once you're done you'll start receiving emails instead of voicemails. Visual Voicemail has NOTHING on this. There I said it.
