What are you looking for in voicemail?

What what do consumers want out of their message service?

• The ability to avoid dialing in to retrieve voicemail.
• To not have to write down details of a voicemail.
• To be able to read, rather than hear, the message.
• To be able to respond to messages by clicking, either to call, text, or email.

It would seem that the iPhone’s visual voicemail feature would be a step in that direction, but as Daniel Doulton, chief strategist and co-founder at SpinVox says, it doesn’t fulfill all voicemail needs:

“The launch of the iPhone into the market has focused attention on the use of Visual Voicemail and the ability to see who has called and when. What our research has shown is that consumers value this but also want the ability to see what was spoken and to take action with a single click. Visual Voicemail is a step in the right direction, but already it lacks many of the capabilities that consumers now desire.”

Then you have services like Alltel’s Voice2Text, which transcribe voicemail messages and text message them to you. However, once again, there is no way to just click-and-respond with those. The survey also introduced participants to SpinVox, a service aiming to provide these advanced voicemail services. They found a few things in their favor:

• Two-thirds of respondents would pay extra for these advanced voicemail features
• Over 90 percent of respondents were impressed with SpinVox’s array of services.
• About 78 percent said they were in some way likely to buy this kind of service if offered through their carrier.

So while there is an ulterior motive in this survey — so SpinVox can sell their services to carriers — it appears they do provide enough value to consumers. So what do you think? Would you pay more for better voicemail features? Or are you, like me, content with what’s being offered right now? [Fox Business]]]>