
Ask HN: Do you have voicemail turned on? - timvdalen
Inspired by: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=14477017<p>How many of you have your voicemail setup so people can leave messages?
I have mine set to a &#x27;disabled&#x27; message so anyone that calls and misses me is encouraged to SMS or email me - which is much easier for me to check than listening to an audio message.<p>Do any of you use voicemail-to-text services so you can read voicemails?
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Amogha_IO
Voicemail is just another tool for communication. It allows for one way
communication towards you, which might be useless in most cases but
indispensable in some.

If you are someone who conducts a lot of business over the phone, voicemail is
a must. If someone "important" is trying to call you / get hold of you and you
are unavailable, your default goal should be to "reduce friction" for the
other person to get the message to you! ("important" usually means they are
really busy and they value their time a lot, and you should too.... Clients,
Board, Investors, Counsel, Accountant, your managers, doctor, etc... ). Having
voicemail disabled and requiring people to text you or email you after having
tried to call you (which usually means it's time sensitive / important-ish) is
adding more friction/resistance in the communications line. It also comes off
as very unprofessional. What if you don't have their number saved on your
phone or they call from an unknown number and you don't know who the miss call
is from...adds a lot of lag in the communication pipeline.

Voicemail also allows you to take your time in getting back to someone if you
don't want to / can't have a conversation right away, but you want to know
what they might want to talk about. You can then prepare for the topic and
call back.

My iPhone does a decent job at converting voicemail-to-text (at&t visual
voicemail). I can quickly scroll through my voicemails, delete stuff from
marketers/advertisements and call back important ones after reading/listening
to the message. Voicemail has definitely help me prepare for important call-
back more than a few times (especially while dealing with general counsel).

I would never disable my voicemail or let my inbox get full (voicemail inboxes
filling up might be a "thing of the past" very soon!)

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mvdwoord
Switched it off in 2003.. enabled it again in 2005 because of a practical joke
by a friend who had my new manager made it a requirement for the new job.. :D

Switched it off soon after again. Reason is mainly that 99.9% of the
voicemails left were work related (I only keep one phone# for everything)
ahem, "lazy bullshit". It seems most (middle) management is constantly leaving
messages about non-issues, for me to deal with. Texting is a miniscule
additional "hurdle" which filters this out for me.

I had several discussions proving my point.

    
    
      [Bill Lumbergh]"Yeah, could you please enable your voice mail?"
      [Me]"Well, if it is important you can text me, I'll get right back to you"
      [Bill]"but that is less convenient.."
      [Me]"I guess if there is something important, it would warrant the effort to send a three word SMS message.. 'please call me'"
      [Bill]"Eh.."

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greenyoda
Not everyone is able to use text messages. For example, if I get a call from a
business that's returning my call, they're probably calling from a land line
that doesn't have texting capabilities. And a non-online business (e.g., my
doctor or my car repair shop) probably doesn't have my e-mail address and/or
doesn't want to deal with customers via e-mail (it's an extra communication
channel that someone at the business needs to monitor).

Also, if I want someone to reply to me quickly, I'm not going to put extra
hurdles in their way to make it more difficult for them to do so.

On the other hand, if I'm calling a friend's cell phone and they don't answer,
I usually leave a text message instead of a voice mail since it's easier for
them to deal with.

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mindcrime
Yes, but I almost never answer the phone unless I recognize the number, and I
rarely check my v/m, meaning 3/4's of the time my mailbox is full and you
can't leave me a message anyway. But I've been pretty cavalier about sharing
my phone number over the years, so I get a lot of robo-call crap / marketing
spam, etc., and it's pretty rare that I miss anything genuinely important.

At some point I'll get a new phone number and retire this one and when I do
that, I'll probably A. be more guarded about sharing the number, and B. care
more about voicemail. Maybe.

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BevanR
I hate listening to voice messages. But my provider didn't allow it to be
disabled. So my greeting says "please don't leave a message. I won't check it.
Send me an email or text message instead"

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laurentdc
Disabled, since my provider charges for it (around 0.12 € per message, but
still..) and it requires setting and remembering a PIN code to access it.

I don't think it's that useful anymore in the era of WhatsApp voice messages.

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tedmiston
I have it enabled. If I receive an unexpected call from an unknown number, I
don't bother returning it unless they consider it important enough to leave a
voicemail. I don't use it much, but of course there are places like doctors
offices that wouldn't communicate via sms or email.

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squarefoot
I use my land line only to place calls because of free calls to cellphones and
national land numbers, but the ring is kept off 24/7\. Voice mail is enabled
though I'm considering disabling it since the ratio of commercial vs non
commercial calls is overwhelming.

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et-al
On; because my dentist's office isn't going to text me (though I usually know
it's an appointment reminder). And the iPhone does pretty decent job of
transcribing voicemails these days.

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praseodym
Disabled. I like having a little more time to answer my phone, and do not like
incurring costs to the other party when I do not answer (voicemail counts as a
connected call).

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toomuchtodo
Enabled. Transcript by Google Voice emailed to me.

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BevanR
How do you set that up?

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et-al
Assuming you already have a Google Voice account, go to Settings > Voicemail >
Get voicemail via email

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toomuchtodo
And have your mobile number forward to your Google Voice number if you don't
answer.

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tim2387
I never thought about it. Thanks for the tip.

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nailer
Same as you: turned on, message saying don't leave a message, email me.

