How does Voice Mail differ from an Answering Machine?

The Telephone Answering Machine (TAM) has played an important role in exposing people to the concept of capturing telephone messages and listening to them when it is convenient. However, today's Voice Mail services can do much more than a Telephone Answering Machine. TMIA is committed to educating consumers and businesses on how voice mail can make their lives and businesses more productive and rewarding. The advantages of Voice Mail over the TAM include:

Busy Line Answer
Voice mail answers calls when you are on the phone or online. For some people, this is a more economical solution to ensure that they don’t miss important calls than buying a second line.

Not Susceptible to Power Outages
Because it is provided via the telephone network, voice mail will work even if there is a power outage, and there are never any batteries, tapes or other equipment to replace.

Handles Messages for Multiple Users
In situations where several people share a single phone (such as a family, a small business, or even a dormitory), voice mail can provide each individual with a separate mailbox that holds his/her messages in complete confidence.

Stores Voice & Fax Messages
Voice mail now allows you to receive and send faxes as well. This is useful for anyone who travels away from the office, or even for homes that want to receive an occasional fax without having to buy a machine or leave their computer powered on all the time.

In addition, voice mail provides a whole new way for people to communicate with each other over the telephone. This is the concept we call "voice messaging," and basically it means you can use your voice mailbox to send messages to other people's voice mailboxes in much the same way people are learning to send e-mail to each other. This greatly benefits small business, church groups, coaches, or anyone who needs to send a message to multiple people and doesn't have the time to call them individually.

All these features are available today, in the voice mail offered by most local service providers. TMIA is also looking out for the future of voice mail, to ensure that new features meet end users' needs and are viable additions to the service.


Many people claim that voice mail is hard to use. Subscribers may complain about the user interface of their mailbox, and callers often say they've landed in "voice mail jail." What's being done to address these concerns?

Voice Mail is a communications facilitator. It allows people to leave you a message when they cannot reach you and allows you to manage how you are notified about that message and retrieve it at your convenience. Subscriber interfaces are simple and are becoming increasingly intuitive, with few keystrokes required for telephone answering functionality. User materials (such as helpful hints) are routinely provided to ensure that subscribers fully understand the capabilities and benefits of their mailbox. And the technology is evolving to allow very accurate speech recognition, which means that eventually, logging into your mailbox will be just like having a conversation with your assistant.

Although the term "Voice Mail Jail" has a catchy ring, it is a misleading and inaccurate phrase. The service that most people are referring to when they use this phrase is actually an Integrated Voice Response system (IVR) or an Automated Attendant. Insurance offices, banks, and other consumer establishments typically use these to help direct customers' calls to the appropriate person or piece of information.

Although the telecommunications industry has published recommendations on IVR and voice mail etiquette, there are still many systems out there that do not follow these recommendations. An application that is confusing, has too many branches, or does not allow the caller to speak to a live person can make a caller feel trapped like they are in "jail."

It is important to note that all members of the TMIA have spent a great deal of time researching and developing their voice mail services to avoid these complaints.


What about the economics of voice mail? Doesn't it normally involve a monthly charge?

The several million satisfied consumers who have thrown away their answering machines and chosen voice mail speaks to the value of the service. For consumers, the value of voice mail can be measured by the reliability with which it takes and stores messages, especially when someone is on the phone or on-line with their computer. This busy line answer capability coupled with the security, reliability, advanced features, ease-of-use advantages make using voice mail an easy decision for many consumers.

Business customers can easily quantify the return on their voice mail investment. By allowing businesses to never miss a call, voice mail ensures that the call from a potential new client does not go unanswered. Eliminating busy signal for existing customers helps them to remain satisfied and loyal. In addition, voice mail can be used to take calls when resources are focused on important projects or activities making your business run more effectively.

Both businesses and consumers can benefit from the voice messaging capability available with many voice mail offerings. Voice messaging is a "whole new way to communicate" that allows voice messages to be distributed to groups and sent to colleagues or friends. This "non-real time" messaging will improve communication between and among consumers and businesses.


E-mail seems to be catching on quite rapidly. How does TMIA see E-mail impacting the voice mail/messaging opportunity?

We believe the growth of e-mail represents significant opportunities for all aspects of telemessaging. First, we see that e-mail represents a shift away from the "real-time" nature of telephone calls and pagers, and people are learning to use this non real-time technology for many different applications. We feel this will help educate people to the nature of voice messaging, which is also a non real-time technology letting people communicate with others in a more convenient fashion.

Second, we believe voice mail and e-mail will soon merge into a range of unified messaging solutions that allow people to access their voice, fax and e-mail messages from any number of convenient devices, including the telephone, the personal computer or even the television. This concept is powerful, because it allows subscribers to access all their messages, at any time, wherever they are. Even with a simple telephone, the most ubiquitous "terminal" in the world, subscribers will have access to voice, fax and e-mail messages and can act on them in many ways. In essence, unified messaging will be the great "equalizer" that extends messaging within the reach of each individual, and voice mail is a critical part of this service.


What does TMIA envision messaging will look like two years from now in the consumer market?

TMIA envisions significantly greater penetration of messaging services across the globe, with consumers increasingly understanding and valuing the lifestyle-affecting benefits of voice mail/messaging. Ideally, every telephone will someday be connected to a voice messaging service capability. More realistically, over the next few years, TMIA will push to ensure that consumers will be aware of how voice mail and messaging services benefit them. Some will opt for voice mail subscription, others perhaps opting for casual use messaging services instead, and still others relying on alternative solutions such as telephone answering machines.

We envision that new technologies will be incorporated into messaging solutions as they make sense for the end user. We've already talked about E-mail and speech recognition. Combining such technologies with voice mail provides unique solutions that solve a variety of end-user needs while remaining simple to use.

Consumer messaging, including messaging between consumer and business end users, will be happening with increasing frequency. Consumers will subscribe to personalized information services from a number of providers. While the infrastructure for messaging may not yet be ubiquitous (e.g., everyone has a mailbox, common standards and/or interfaces), the ability to message will be. As more and more consumers work at home, telecommute and bring office work home, a blurring will occur between segments, and this will afford even greater opportunity for messaging applications - beyond voice mail - in the enhanced services arena. Device independence will become de facto, with consumers using the phone, their voice pager, the TV, their PC…whatever device - in whatever media - makes sense for them at a given moment.

TMIA will view itself successful if it can create the necessary awareness and adoption of messaging services to grow the industry, such that each industry participant can enjoy increased profitability from a larger overall market


So what will TMIA do to help meet its goals and secure this vision of the future?

TMIA will pursue a variety of activities in line with our position and our goals. Although subject to change, some activities currently under consideration include…