Voicemail (or voice mail, voice-mail, vmail or VMS, sometimes called messagebank) is a centralized system of managing telephone messages for a large group of people. The term is also used more broadly, to denote any system of conveying voice message, including the answering machine.

Features

In its simplest form it has only the functions of an answering machine, using a standard telephone handset for the user interface, but it can use a centralized, computerized system rather than equipment at the individual telephone. Voicemail systems can be much more sophisticated than answering machines in that they can:

• answer many phones at the same time
• store incoming voice messages in personalized mailboxes associated with the user's phone number
• enable users to forward received messages to another voice mailbox
• send messages to one or more other user voice mailboxes
• add a voice introduction to a forwarded message
• store voice messages for future delivery
• make calls to a telephone or paging service to notify the user a message has arrived in his/her mailbox
• transfer callers to another phone number for personal assistance
• play different message greetings to different callers.

Storage

Voicemail messages are stored on hard disk drives, media generally used by computers to store other forms of data. Messages are recorded in digitized natural human voice similar to how music is stored on a CD. To retrieve messages, a user calls the system from any phone, logs on using Touch-tones (clearing security), and their messages can be retrieved immediately. Many users can retrieve or store messages at the same time on the same voicemail system.

Many voicemail systems also offer an automated attendant facility. Automated attendants enable callers to a “main” business number to access directory service or self-route the call to various places such as a specific department, an extension number, or to an informational recording in a voice mailbox, etc.

History of voicemail

Voicemail systems are often associated with office telephone systems or PBXs. They may also be associated with public telephone network services such as residential phones or cellular phones. Mobile phones generally have voicemail as a standard network feature. The most modern implementations of voicemail support fax delivery to personal voice mailboxes and retrieval via printers, are integrated into e-mail systems for shared directories and shared message storage (also called Unified Messaging), and use touch tone voice user interfaces (VUI), speech technologies, and/or visual, screen-based graphical user interfaces (GUI) user interfaces.

The need for voicemail

In the 1970s and early 1980s, the cost of making a phone call decreased and more business communication was done by phone. As corporations grew and labor rates increased, the ratio of secretaries to employees decreased. With multiple time zones, fewer secretaries and more communication by phone, real-time phone communications were hampered by callers being unable to reach people. Some early studies showed that only 1 in 4 phone calls resulted in a completed call and half the calls were one-way in nature (that is, they did not require a conversation). This happened because people were either not at work (due to time zone differences, being away on business, etc.), or if they were at work, they were on the phone, away from their desks in meetings, on breaks, etc. This bottleneck hindered the effectiveness of business activities and decreased both individual and group productivity. It also wasted the caller's time and created delays in resolving time-critical issues.