One of the most-touted features of Google Voice is its purported ability to transcribe voicemail, allowing users to funnel all their inbound communication into their email inbox. The technology is unproven; voice recognition software is infamously unreliable. But one Web company, PhoneTag, is already doing voicemail transcription–and not only that, they’re charging a monthly fee. What can Google bring to the market that PhoneTag can’t?
PhoneTag works like this: set up your account with any phone on any carrier, and all your voicemails will be transcribed and sent to your email inbox. It doesn’t delete or alter the voicemails themselves, so you can always go back and listen if you need to. For that privilege, you pay either per message ($0.95), in batches of 40 messages ($10, plus more for each additional message), or for an unlimited account, which is $30 a month. (Most of us probably average more than one voicemail a day, so the only real viable plan is the unlimited one.)
PhoneTag has a few proprietary advantages: it’ll email you an audio file of the voicemail so you don’t have to dial in, and it also works with your Skype account, so it can transcribe those voicemails, too. You can also trade up to PhoneTag’s corporate service if you think the rest of your team might benefit from the technology.
But PhoneTag’s major weakness is that it still relies upon your existing phone number. That might not seem like such a liability at first, but consider what PhoneTag does: it turns your phone number into another conduit for your email. Most people are sparing when it comes to divulging their real phone number, but begin treating it like an email address, and you find yourself more profligate. Suddenly, you’re getting more calls and voicemails than you ever meant to, which then translates into more email traffic. Sure, it probably won’t create more work for you, but it will give you the impression that you’re being inundated.
As a GrandCentral user, I got my faux phone number–GC lets you pick an area code and generates one for free–about a year ago. I stuck it on my business card, and set it up to ring my cell and office phone, and used GC’s Web interface to listen to my voicemails. Six months later, my cell phone was dying every six hours from the call volume, and my office phone was disrupting everyone within a three-desk radius. Figuring that GC could help me screen and filter, I didn’t just give out my work email address to contacts, as I used to–I went ahead and gave them my number, too. I didn’t have any more stories to write–I’m a journalist–or any more sources to interview. But it felt like I was working at the White House press office. Alone.
PhoneTag’s other liability is naturally its monthly cost, but that fee does get you something that Google surely won’t provide: a customer service hotline. Phone communication, especially customer service-related, is anathema to Google, but they might have to rethink that strategy now that millions will soon be depending on Google Voice to handle their phone traffic. After all, they’re running a telephony service, and billing people (at least for long-distance calls); an 800 number would be nice. Hear that, Google?
The New York Times disses voicemail
I hate voice mail. Whenever I have to check voice messages, I feel like I’m entering a kind of Twilight Zone, a different dimension of frustration where I lose all control of time.
It gets to where I get annoyed with people who leave me voice mail. I’m far from the only person who feels this way – and far from the only person who has left an announcement on my phone with one form or another of, “Please send me e-mail”.
When I calm down enough to think about it, the reasons are clear. Voice mail is the worst of two worlds – the e-mail world and the phone call world. In the e-mail world, you don’t get to interact immediately with the other person; you and they can’t interrupt with a question, ask for details or pick up subtle vocal shadings. And in the phone call world, the other person can go on and on – and, I guess, I can too. The voice mail world is missing interaction, like the e-mail world, and is far worse in the tendency of some people (you know who you are) to go on and on – like the phone call world, only worse. Voice mail is also a hassle to check, much harder than e-mail or (when the other person is available when you need them) a phone call.
The New York Times has now noted these frustrations, analyzed them – and cited Google Voice as an answer. In an article titled You’ve Got Voice Mail, but Do You Care?, Jill Colvin hits several nails right on the head. Via interviews, she even puts some numbers on the inefficiency of voice mail:
>According to her calculation, it takes 7 to 10 steps to check a voice mail message versus zero to 3 for an e-mail.
>Mr. Siminoff estimates that textual voice messaging is about 15 to 20 times faster than traditional voice mail.
The article then mentions Google Voice as a solution:
>Most important for the voice-mail-averse, Google Voice will also transcribe voice mails at no cost.
Consumers can be expected to go for Google Voice instinctively, inherently aware of these frustrations. Businesses, with a much greater need to cost-justify their decisions and to find a way to weigh convenience against, for instance, security concerns, can reprise the calculations above for themselves and their own specific situations.