Would You Rather Listen to Your Voicemail or Read It?

So many choices in this ever converging digital world! Especially true when it comes to the simple things like listening to your voice mail. The choices of how to pick up a voice mail have become almost endless. Listen to it? Have it routed to where you're at? Pick it up on your PC as an email? Receive it as a text message on your cell phone? Play it as audio file? Store it for all eternity? There are even services like Pinger that let you talk into your phone and then send that message as an SMS text message. My guess is the call was not that important in the first place. 

I've been using SimulScribe, a really nifty service that takes voicemail and transcribes it into email messages (with attached WAV files if you'd like). I receive the emails on my PC and on my Blackberry. The service works amazingly well and there are times when reading your voicemail makes infinitely more sense. Of course, I found that sometimes reading your voicemail is the wrong way to go, too.

Think about the advantages of not having to listen to all of that voicemail and the monotonous robot that asks you if you want to listen to your new messages. (Why else would you have called?)

You can save time by scanning your voicemail on the screen. You can save time by NOT listening to those voicemails from Mom calling to report on CNN's latest catastrophe. It saves time because you’ve got a written record of every caller's message without lifting a finger.It saves time because you can delete or save without listening to that infernal robot voice asking you really want to delete that message.

But, should you miss your boss' vocal innuendos, you can read the message and then play the attached audio. Then there's etiquette. There are lots of times when picking up your voicemail would be downright rude; doing a quick thumb through the email is less intrusive and maybe a bit less offensive.

The default message SimulScribe users' callers receive is pretty horrific. A robotic voice speaks really slowly and asks callers to do the same when they're leaving a voice message. Some of my callers took that very seriously and spoke as if each word was their last breath. The good news is that you can create your own message to replace the generic one and no one who calls you needs to know that you plan on reading, not listening to, what they had to say. (I decided to disclose the fact that the message was being transcribed because people can be funny about that.)

In the week that I used SimulScribe the transcribed messages were nearly perfect. I was transcribed as "Robert" once and a friend with the last name of Berdy became "Dirty." But considering the range of voicemails I get and the fact that half of them come from outdoors on noisy streets, I was really impressed.

The biggest fault of SimulScribe is me—the user. There are times that I didn't want to read my voicemail. In the car for example! You can deactivate and reactivate SimulScribe with a code or by turning off call forwarding but I got forgetful about anticipating my phone message needs in advance. I also had to remember to shut down Outlook on my PC when I was away from home. If not, the emailed messages would go right to Outlook and never find me on my Blackberry.

The bottom line is that Simulscribe is an extraordinarily useful tool if you give some thought to rejiggering your voice mail life. The pluses—all of your conversations are recorded and transcribed, easily cut and pasted into your calendar or contacts. When you want to plow through a lot of voicemails it's perfect solution.

The service costs $9.95 per month for 40 transcribed voicemail messages and $.25 per message thereafter. There's also an unlimited plan for $29.95 a month (for a limited time only). It works with most mobile phones, home phones (you need to verify that your home phone has a Call Forward-No Answer feature), and VoIP phones including Skype.

Best news? For readers of this column, a special deal—a 30-day free trial.