Phone Message Transcribing

[billbenson]

I frequently start work at about 11am. I usually work until after midnight. When I start work in the morning I will have at least several phone messages. 15 or 20 isn't unusual. I don't use call waiting as I don't like interrupting a customer I am talking to.

So the first thing I do is check phone messages most mornings. I then call the ones that most likely have money attached to them. It takes a while to check all the messages. I type the messages into a text file I have. Frequently I need to listen to a message twice to be sure I have the information correct.

All of the above can be time consuming. And all I am doing is transcribing information from messages. BTW, I can get 40 incoming calls on a busy day. If I am on the phone, a lot of those will end up being voice mails

I use Vonage for my business line. I also have a second line from my local ISP. Vonage has good service. Not perfect. You have to talk to India every now and then. One thing they excel at is getting and managing messages online. They also email you the caller ID info for every message.

They have a fairly new service which I just tried for the first time today. They transcribe each message and send you an email with the text of the message as well as a WAV file with the message. The charge for this service is 25 cents a message or free if you go to a premium plan.

Its pretty slick. I only had about 10 messages today, but they all were quite accurate. Phone numbers give in the message were all correct and only two misspellings today. This looks like something that can really same me a lot of time - and tedious time at that. I pay $25 per month right now. The package that includes the free transcription is $35.

[Steve B]

That sounds pretty slick. I use phone power for one of my businesses. They send a .wav file, but not the transcribing.

[KristineS]

If you get a lot of messages, this could save you quite a bit of time. Either that or try to transition your customers over to e-mail, but I know that's tough sometimes.

[billbenson]

So far its been pretty good. No messed up phone numbers although errors in the text. I assume it strongly depends on the quality of the connection. They attach a wav file so you can listen to it if required although so far I haven't needed to.

I've been able to get enough out of the text in all cases to make a decision as to whether its an important call or just a tire kicker of a customer.

[thewebwriter]

Vonage has a SoftPhone - as do most VoIP services.
Instead of connecting a handset to the phone adapter, the soft phone goes straight to the PC and you talk via headphone/mike.

There are advantages with doing this.

You can answer, hands free, while still at the computer
You can record the conversation to clarify instructions etc.
It records whether you answer or not
Some soft phone systems interact with email browsers such as Outlook
Using an audio to text transcription software you can type any conversations you want while ignoring others.


You don't want Vonage to transcribe every message. 10 messages per day at $0.25 per message for 250 workdays per year = $625.00

I think there are only three caveats to using a softphone.

You are tied to the PC for the conversation
You need to ensure the caller is aware they may be recorded (different states, different laws)
Audio files take a lot of space on the hard drive and need to be backed up and removed.

VoIP systems are associated with IP addresses. If you use a laptop with broadband connectivity it is possible to take your office phone with you.

I have not used Vonage, I had a similar setup with VOIP.com but was unhappy with customer service. I now use Skype for my international calls and messages to existing clients. All new clients contact me via webpage form.

[billbenson]

That's an interesting thought. The call transcribing only requires the world plan (I think) that includes the call transcribing, so the cost isn't really an issue for that. It sounds interesting though. I'll look into it further. Thanks!

[J from Michigan]

I needed a second phone with a different area code, so I tried Google Voice.

It transcribes the voicemails and has a playback to actually hear them.
You can also record conversations as you have them.

And it's all free. :)