YouMail launches voicemail transcription service
Mobile Marketer | November 10, 2008
YouMail Inc. has expanded its
voicemail service offering with the addition of opt-in voicemail
transcription.
This opt-in transcription service
provides YouMail customers with human transcribed voicemail or automated
transcriptions via SMS or email.
"YouMail wants to provide an
extremely compelling mobile voicemail service, and transcription is both
something our users have clamored for, but also something that extends YouMail's
visual voicemail to give people not only the choice of which message to play in
which order, but also whether to listen or to read the message," said
Benefits of the new YouMail
transcription service include low price points, the ability to select human or
automated transcriptions.
Users are able to provide feedback
or correct transcriptions they receive to improve transcriptions of future
voicemail.
"This service addresses three big
challenges for people for whom voicemail matters," Mr. Quilici said. "One is
that it's often much faster to read a voicemail than to listen to it, so we save
busy people time.
"The second is that it's often more
convenient to read a voicemail rather than listen it, like when you're in a
meeting you don't want to interrupt or an event like a dinner or a loud
concert," he said.
"The last is that it allows people
to truly treat voicemail like email - you get a voicemail, are emailed a
transcription, and can just forward that on if someone else is supposed to deal
with it."
The service comes in three different
plans.
Read-It Text, for $3.99 a month, is
a transcription sent as a single SMS. It is designed for users without
smartphones to quickly decide what a voicemail is about and whether or not to
retrieve it.
This option provides 50 transcribed
messages per month.
The Read-It Select package, for
$6.99 a month, is transcriptions delivered as an email. It is designed for
users with smartphones to avoid dialing voicemail to receive
messages.
This option also provides 50
transcribed messages per month.
Read-It Text Unlimited is for $9.99
a transcription that fits in a single SMS. It is designed for users without
smartphones who receive a lot of voicemail.
This option provides unlimited
transcribed SMS messages per month.
Read-It Select Unlimited, for
$17.99, is a transcription delivered as an email. It is designed for users with
smartphones who receive a lot of voicemail. This option provides unlimited
transcribed email messages per month.
"In the premium services, we don't
currently have ads in the messages that deliver transcriptions in order to
devote the most real estate to the content of the transcriptions," Mr. Quilici
said.
"However, these users first get a
text message notifying them they got a voicemail - and then the transcription
follows as a separate message a few minutes later," he said.
"There is an opportunity for a brief
ad in the first text message, and that can be targeted based on the city/state,
wireless carrier, and type of device, like BlackBerry
Pearl."
In addition to the new transcription
service, YouMail has also partnered with the creators of the original Crazy
Calls answering machine messages to provide users with another fun way to
customize their mobile voicemail greetings.
There are several hundred premium
greetings that will be available for purchase by YouMail users for a nominal fee
of $1.99 per greeting.
Combined with YouMail's personal
greetings feature, this lets users entertain family and friends while
maintaining a professional appearance to other
callers.
"Up until a year or so ago,
voicemail was basically unchanged for 20 years and was generally in the category
of an annoyance," Mr. Quilici said.
"Now with things like visual
voicemail on the iPhone and services like YouMail, you're starting to see a key
fraction of the public experience in a much more productive and fun voicemail
experience," he said.
"In five years time we should see
these sorts of services - visual voicemail, transcription and so on - truly
become mainstream," he said.
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