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In 2002, I signed up for voice mail from the phone company for my home-based business. Up until then, I
had used an answering machine.
After using the service for several months, I have discovered several little issues that I
did not originally consider. I list them here for your consideration.
Advantages of Voice Mail over an Answering Machine:
- With voice mail, my customers will never get a busy signal when they call me. This is the main
reason I signed up for voice mail. Previously, when I only used my answering machine, if a customer
called while I was on the line, they would get a busy signal. (I've never used call waiting because
I don't like my conversations being interrupted.)
Disadvantages:
- If I'm on the phone, and a customer calls me, they go directly to voice mail. Therefore, their name
and number do not show up on my caller id unit.
- You have to pick up the phone and listen for the stutter dial tone to see if you have any messages waiting.
I like walking into my office and "seeing" if someone left me a message while I was out.
- You cannot buy a stand alone visual message waiting indicator. At least I have not yet found one anywhere.
The only thing I've found are a couple of caller id units that also include a call waiting indicator.
I originally bought a BellSouth CI-30. This is a simple caller id unit, but it also has a green message waiting
indicator on it. I was quite disappointed when I set it up in my office, only to find out that to use the
message waiting feature, you need an AC adapter (not included); they don't mention this on the packaging anywhere. So I figured
I'd just get one at Radio Shack, no such luck. This needs a 9VAC 150mA adapter. I've never heard of that before.
All Radio Shack has is DC adapters. So, then I found a BellSouth CI-165. This is a bigger and uglier version of the
above-mentioned caller id unit, but it comes with the AC adapter. So I decided to still use the CI-30 with the
adapter from the CI-165. That's my current setup and it seems to be working fine.
- You have to make a local phone call to pick up your messages. This is not good if you have to pay for
local calls or if you only get a set amount of free local calls. If you check your messages twice a day, every
business day, that's 40 local calls.
Possibility:
You might want to use both an answering machine and voice mail. This way, all calls will still go to your answering
machine unless you're on the phone. However, checking messages in two places is kind of inconvenient. For example,
if you're out of the office and need to call in for your messages, you'll have to make two calls.
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