Business Voice Mail

Voicemail is an important function of your business phone system and the basic foundation for unified messaging. ICS understands that communicating effectively with your customers and staff members is a priority for your business and that voicemail plays an important role in the process. Through a combination of traditional and new technologies, ICS can make your voicemail system work for you and not the other way around. Imagine being able to access your voicemail through not only your office phone system but also through your Outlook client, computer, laptop, PDA device and any place where you have phone access or internet connectivity. Imagine being able to save your voicemail messages to your desktop and then forward those important messages to others in your organization with the click of a mouse. These things and more are possible, and ICS can help you get there. Since 1981, we’ve been providing sound communication advice to thousands of businesses in Texas and across the United States. Let us help you with your voicemail and unified messaging needs today. Call 1-281-819-5829.

The Evolution of Voicemail

Voicemail has changed significantly in the last 10 years. New technologies like Voice Over IP, along with the addition of SoftKeys and improved display screens, have allowed it to become more robust and easily integrated with other products and services. Let’s take a look at how these technologies and functions have changed voicemail and how you can benefit from it.

In the past the only way that you could check or receive your voicemails was if you were sitting at your desk using the phone where your messages were stored. You’ve always been able to access your voicemail remotely but the problem of alerting you that an actual message had been received was still unresolved. Many times the only thing indicating that you had received a voicemail was a blinking light on your phone. If you were in the field, the only way you could find out if you had messages was to call in and check. Now through the utilization of IP technologies, not only can you receive your voicemail alerts by a light flashing on your phone, but you can also receive the alert and manage your voicemail messages through your Outlook client. In addition to that amazing advance in technology you can also listen to these messages anywhere you have capabilities to play a simple WAV file. In addition to these great new alert and accessibility features you can also save voicemails right onto your computer, laptop or any hard drive and forward voicemails through any mail application. Voicemail has truly changed for the better. It’s become easier to work with and more useful to the people that use it the most.

The changes in voicemail don’t stop here. Read below for more information about SIP and it’s affect on voicemail.

What Is SIP and What Does it Have to Do with Voicemail?

SIP stands for Session Initiation Protocol and it’s a language used for talking with multimedia communication sessions such as voice and video calls over the Internet. What SIP does for voicemail is allow you, as the customer, to have more choices when deciding to deploy voicemail in your company. In the past, you had to set up voicemail via analog stations and the language spoken was proprietary to each different manufacturer. With the implementation of SIP, all manufacturers started talking the same language. This opened up the doors to many different smaller voicemail providers that focused strictly on making the best voicemail available. What does this mean for you? It means that you have more flexibility and options when deciding to deploy or upgrade your voicemail system; you are no longer tied to the voice messaging server of a particular manufacturer. This allows ICS to serve you better and present you with better products that are better suited for the particular needs of your organization.

Voicemail Features & Benefits:

Take a look below to learn more about the features and benefits of voicemail being utilized by organizations in today’s business environment.

• Easily Be Alerted Of New Voicemails: Now receive your voicemail alerts not only by the visual representation of the light blinking on your phone but also through your email that can be accessed from any computer, laptop or PDA device in the world, allowing you to be more mobile and better connected with your staff and customers.
• Flexibility Of Accessing Voicemails: Of course you can still access your voicemail the traditional way from the phone on your desk, or by calling in when you’re remote, but you can also access your voicemails through Outlook on your computer, laptop or PDA device. Access and listen to your voicemail anywhere and everywhere that you need to be.
• Voicemail Inbox Client(Outlook Alternative): Don’t use Outlook but still want to take advantage of these great features and benefits? For those who don’t use Outlook, you can use a standard voicemail Inbox Client that will give you a visual presentation of all your voicemails in the same way that Outlook will. Install it on any computer and it will alert you that you have a voicemail wherever your are, it also allows you to listen to those voicemails, forward them or save them to your computer for archiving and offline listening.
• Easily Find Voicemails: Instead of having to dial in to the voicemail system and sort through messages listed in chronological order, you can simply navigate through your inbox to retrieve important messages.
• Easily Store Voicemails: Through the use of a simple WAV file, you can store virtually unlimited amounts of voice mails in folders on your computer, laptop or any hard drive, making it easy to create catalogs of voicemails received by time of day, date or both.

How Does ICS Do It Better?

When looking to deploy voicemail in your business or upgrading your voice messaging system, ICS wants you to understand that you have choices. At ICS we create custom solutions for businesses of all sizes, we know that your business is important to you, and we want you to feel that your business is important to us, too.

Many times clients will think that they only have one option when it comes to voicemail and that option is through the manufacturer of the phone. The phone manufacturer’s voicemail system may in fact be the best solution or might offer the most robust features, but that isn’t always the case. Take a look at the case study below to learn more about how a few extra features can end up costing you more than you expected.

Voicemail Testimonial:

A small but growing business decided to purchase a voicemail solution for their phone systems. The first place that they turned was to their phone system manufacturer. Had they not also called ICS, they would have spent five times more than they needed to. Learn more by reading what this businesses owner had to say about his experience with voicemail and ICS.

“Our business was a pretty small organization but started growing fast after we did well on a few big projects. We decided that our current system for taking messages simply wasn’t enough to keep our sales staff and customers in good communication with each other. Having no idea where to start we called the manufacturer of our phone system to see if they could offer us a solution or at least point us in the right direction. When we called them they informed us that they had the perfect solution for our needs and that since they designed it, it would work perfectly with our phone system. When the gave us the price of the system we were all blown away. It was just more than we were considering spending on this type of service, but we knew that we had to get something and get something soon. Before making a commitment with the manufacturer we decided to look in to alternatives that might be a little less expensive but still do everything that we needed it to do. A close business associate of ours advised us that we should call the people that handle their phone systems, the folks they used is a company called ICS. Right away, ICS informed us that they had several options that were less expensive and offered all the features that we needed. We set up a meeting with their staff to discuss our specific needs and they came back with a proposal that fit our budget. Not only did they have two different options for us to go with, but they also took the time to explain each one of them thoroughly. Now we have a great voicemail system that can expand as we expand, and we didn’t spend near as much as we could have on the system being offered by our manufacturer. We’re happy with our voicemail system and with ICS. There’s no doubt that we’ll use them in the future any time that we have to make a decision about our communications systems.”

This is just another example of how ICS is dedicated to providing custom solutions that focus on functionality and cost effectiveness.

Voicemail vs. Voice Mail

It may be important to note that there is not a difference between the words voicemail and voice mail. There are simply two ways of spelling the same word. Different websites throughout the internet use both ‘voicemail systems’ and ‘voice mail systems’ on the same page, but the terms are identical in meaning.

What’s Next for Your Business?

The first step in deploying a voicemail system or upgrading your current system starts with a call to a professional business communications consultant like the friendly and knowledgeable staff at ICS. Start off the right way by calling ICS today. We have specialists ready to assist you. Call ICS today at 1-281-819-5829.