Voicemail feature request

Hey
Dylan a tech support rep suggested i post here and see what other people think. I suspect i am the lonely voice out there, otherwise more companies would offer this.

I have long been a fan of answering machines that support multiple mailboxes. I have one box for me, one for the other household member and a 3d jointly shared mailbox for people who want to leave messages for both of us.

I like not having to listen to the other person's messages. For some reason this is a voicemail feature that you generally get only on business systems.

Am I the lone voice out there or would other people like to be able to have voicemail that says, something to the effect of "Hi, you've reached Jim, and Ann, to leave a message for both of us press 1, for Jim press 2, for Ann press 3, thanks"

I'd like to see that, as well as time-related voicemail. For instance, if someone calls me after midnight on the house line, I'd prefer that it goes straight to voicemail. It'd be even cooler to have a VM message that says "It's too late for us to answer - leave a message" and then revert back to the standard home message in the morning, after 8 AM.

Just random, but I think it'd be neat. Not sure if anyone else would get use out of a feature like that.

The biggest problem with multiple mailboxes is that it would attract business customers.

Fraud is a very big problem with unlimited residential VoIP services.

Many businesses signup and attempt to use the residential plans for business use and their usage is so high that providers lose massive amounts of money. Our pricing is based on normal residential usage patterns and businesses usually have higher usage.

So there are a lot of things that we'd like to offer but have to be very cautious with because they'd make it easier for businesses to use the service fraudulently. It's unfortunate that a few bad people can affect things for everyone, but it's a serious enough issue that we have to be protective about it to remain profitable.

That's pretty much why it's not something common for other residential services.

Disregard, I missed the original posters request.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Madelaine

I'd like to see that, as well as time-related voicemail. For instance, if someone calls me after midnight on the house line, I'd prefer that it goes straight to voicemail. It'd be even cooler to have a VM message that says "It's too late for us to answer - leave a message" and then revert back to the standard home message in the morning, after 8 AM.

Just random, but I think it'd be neat. Not sure if anyone else would get use out of a feature like that.

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Scheduling is something that we do have on our list of possible additions for the future, but no work has been done on it yet.

Tim,

While you wait to do your high-quality development work on a scheduling feature, may I suggest that you publish detailed information on your API feature? While it's not an ideal solution, anyone with the know-how can set up "task scheduler" or a cron job to accomplish this, as has been mentioned in other threads. With a good how-to (maybe in your knowledgebase), you can always say something like this:

"Scheduling of features is an option that Voipo has not developed at this time. However, with our API service (currently alpha), you can set up schedules for features like Do Not Disturb, ... Here's how...

... snip ...

We hope to offer a fully-integrated scheduling option within each user's vPanel, but we do not have an estimate for availability of that option. In the meantime, the instructions above should provide the functionality you're looking for with our service."

Quote:

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Originally Posted by VOIPoTim

The biggest problem with multiple mailboxes is that it would attract business customers.

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It is interesting how companies like BroadvoxDirect, and more lately, signs from Packet8 seem to be shunning the Residential clientele. Perhaps the abuse is why they don't want it?

Are there long term plans to market to businesses? A SOHO-addon that provided multiple mail boxes might be a nice extra cost feature set. It could perhaps double the soft cap, and make it a hard cap plan (6000 minutes?) It could start expensive, and then later be promoted more competitively as you evaluate the demographic using it.

SOHO brings the concept of SMALL, to business. It need not be so elaborate that mega corporations will expect your solution to work for them.

Just thinking out of the box.

I also put a voicemail suggestion in through the ticket system a day or so ago. Saving a voicemail gets rid of the message indicator, but becomes an inconvenience. It would be nice to hear newest to oldest messages, yet checking via the VOIPo phone plays saved messages first. It feels very awkward. The presentation of new messages should be a 1st priority - or make it a conscientious selection by the user versus auto-play as you have it. I also seem to lack the knowledge of a button that lets me skip without deleting or saving a message while it plays?

One "feature" I'd like to eventually see is an option to specify VM behavior when the line is forwarded. Currently, when I forward my Voipo line (to my cell, for instance) the Voipo VM still will grab unanswered calls. Most of the time I like this behavior, but there are periods when the line is forwarded where I want my cell VM (or whatever system is catching missed calls on the forwarded-to line) to catch the missed calls. I realize I can tweak other settings, like disabling the Voipo VM, or upping the Voipo VM ring count to give the competing VM system the chance to catch the call first. The reasons I'd like to see a new feature rather than these workarounds are:

1)I usually initiate call forwarding using the SMS Control, on the fly, either because I'm in a rush, or because I don't have access to a PC. The above workarounds can't be done via SMS AFAIK. I can login to vPanel from my Blackberry browser to change the other settings, but that would take a minute or two to navigate through.
2)Upon returning home, it's obviously faster and easier to just unforward, vs unforward + re-enable VM or change ring count.

I don't know if anyone else would see any utility with this wish-list feature. But for me, I have pretty distinct periods where I'm working on a project or traveling, where my preference for catching missed, forwarded calls will vary, and that change in preference usually lasts for days or weeks until I'm ready to revert to Voipo VM catching all the calls again.

Yeah, I use GoogleVoice at times (since they were still GrandCentral and before G gobbled them up). It's definitely pretty cool, but for my personal tastes, not something I want to use as my primary contact point/phone system. But I'm glad the majority loves it, becase I definitely want it to succeed.

BTW, I don't know if it's relevant or not, but previously I had my cell phone entered into the Simulring config section on vPanel. It was disabled at all times, but it was still listed as the simulring # (just waiting to be enabled). Anyway, I vaguely remembered a thread discussing simulring, and someone complaining that the Voipo VM was always grabbing missed calls when simulring was enabled, so I went ahead and deleted my cell from the simulring list. FTM, it looks like when I forward to my cell, my cell VM is consistently catching missed calls, not the Voipo VM. FWIW.

Spam starting again??

Come on you idiots....GET LOST.
This is not a playground..

The voicemail feature that I want is the maximum call length (same with toll free numbers) to limit the minutes consumed by a caller.