Read Your Voice Mail in Your Inbox, How Cool is That?

If you find yourself checking and responding to voice mail multiple times during the day, this sales tool could be a serious time saver.

PhoneTag provides a simply yet useful service. It takes the voice mails you receive from one or multiple phone lines, transcribes your messages to text and forwards them as an email or as a text message to your smartphone.

If you choose email, the original voicemail is attached as an MP3 file. It’s cool stuff.

Now, I think I know what’s on your mind.

You’re asking “Will it accurately transcribe my messages?”

Am I right?

From what we’ve been able to experience, the answer is a resounding yes. We were very impressed. Messages came through without a hitch – and PhoneTag marks transcribed words of which it is not sure with a question mark.

PhoneTag does its magic on unanswered messages that are forwarded to the service. A one time setup is all it takes to make sure your incoming and unanswered calls skip your voice mailbox and are forwarded to your personal PhoneTag mailbox instead. Once that’s done, you’re off to the races.

PhoneTag claims integration with 95% of all mobile, work and home voice mail systems. I tested their service with T-Mobile and setup was indeed a snap.

So, other than the obvious coolness factor – here are 7 reasons why PhoneTag solves a real business problem

You may remember my rant about the problems I had with voice mail earlier this year. And using PhoneTag fixes many of the issues I described in that post.

1. I get transcribed voice mail messages in my inbox. I can read or listen to them in any order I want. I can jump back and forth between messages and I’m no longer stuck to the order they were received.
2. I’m getting a copy of the message in audio format as an attachment. If you had any concerns about transcription quality, don’t. The original spoken message is attached for your convenience.
3. I no longer have to interrupt my “flow” to check messages – much of my activity during the day day is centered around email. Whether I’m at the office, at home or on the road, it’s often much easier and convenient for me to connect that way. Thanks to PhoneTag, the tedious task of checking multiple mailboxes has now been eliminated.
4. I can now search my voice mails. Folks, this is huge for me – no more disconnect between email, voice mail and archive. All messages in one place and if you use Google Mail as your email system, you’ll have world-class search capabilities available for all messages you received.
5. I can forward messages – ever tried forwarding a message you received on your cell phone to the office line of a colleague or to your team? Right, that doesn’t work. But now it’s as easy as forwarding an email.
6. I now have everything in writing, including return phone numbers. Man, this is handy. When I’m out and about and get a message from PhoneTag on my Blackberry, I can simple scroll down the message, select the return number and place a call. Without having to jot down a single thing.
7. I can now have visual voice mail on my Blackberry. With an add-on service called SimulSays I can now visualize my mailbox on my handheld just like iPhone users can. I can browse through messages, skip back and forth – and all of this regardless of time the message was received.  Simulsays is free when you’re a PhoneTag user. It’ll cost you $5 a month otherwise. If you’re not sold on the voice to text element, I can see SimulSays by itself being a powerful tool as well.

This is a great service and one that was long, long overdue for busy, mobile professionals.

What’s not to like? Well, there’s only one thing. I think it’s expensive.

Unlimited messages for $30, $10 for 40 messages – and how useful is that 2nd option, really? – and a pay as you play plan for 35 cents a message.

It’s a very strong and tempting offering – at this point, however, I’m balking at yet another $30 on telecom related charges. Don’t let that stop you, though. I do believe that PhoneTag is one of better sales tools that have hit the market lately.

As an alternative, there’s SpinVox that provides a similar service but has less flexibility in choosing a plan. 40 messages for $10 is your only option here. CallWave is the third provider of similar services with plans starting at $15 for 40 messages. There are differences between these services and their feature set varies. If you’re in the market for this kind of stuff, I’d recommend getting starting with a trial.

Are these services you could use in your sales business?