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Should you replace your voicemail with YouMail?
Posted May 9, 2008 2:32 AM by Alli Flowers
Using alternate voicemail with Sprint can be painful. Sprint customer service very begrudgingly changed my "no answer, forward" number to YouMail so that I could try it out.
(N.B. for Sprint customers: The customer service representative (CSR) who I spoke to assured me that customers can now set the "no answer, forward" number themselves. Unfortunately, the code she gave me to use didn't work. So be firm with Sprint CSR if you want to take advantage of services like YouMail.)
YouMail has some innovative and fun features. The basic premise behind YouMail is that everyone should be greeted personally, and traditional voicemail doesn't do that. So while you can have a standard outgoing message to everyone, you can also have dozens of personal outgoing messages played to individual callers that you can change whenever you want. YouMail matches your caller's caller ID with your address book to give each caller a totally unique voicemail experience.
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When the average caller dials my number, he will hear, "Hi, it's Alli. I can't take your call right now, but if you'll leave your number I'll get back to you." When my mother calls, she hears "Ma! Why are you always trying to disturb me when I'm out to dinner? I'll call ya back when I'm done."
I have similar messages for other frequent callers. Imagine your boss calling and hearing, "I can't come to the phone right now, I'm putting in some extra time on a project for work." Wouldn't he be impressed? (Even if that's not what you're doing and it's just for his benefit!) Working late and know your husband/wife is going to call to find out where you are? Just leave his/her outgoing message to say, "Hi honey, just went into a late meeting. I won't be home until at least 8:30, so make sure you set the Tivo for our show tonight!" The implications are limitless.
You can set up your contacts through your free account on their website, or by phoning in. It's much easier to set up on the web though. Your outgoing messages can be recorded on your phone, on your computer, or you can upload an MP3 to use as your message. YouMail also offers a huge selection of recorded messages for you to use from traditional business to funny and outrageous.
YouMail has its own form of visual voicemail. You can receive notification by email or text message. You can call YouMail, just as you would your carrier's service, to listen to your voicemail; you can listen online; or you can listen to the MP3 recording that is attached to your email notification.
YouMail is also testing out voicemail transcription (similar to a service we highly recommend called Simulscribe / Phonetag). But it has a distance to go before I would call this feature usable. There are frequent lapses of text, and enough confusion that it's difficult to tell what the caller is really saying.
It would be nice to have the outgoing flexibility offered by YouMail along with the accuracy of Simulscribe/PhoneTag for incoming messages. In the meanwhile though, YouMail is a free service, so you can't complain too much. I definitely recommend giving it a spin – especially if you are not a Sprint customer!
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