Why does voicemail suck so bad?

136 views

For all the improvements made in phone hardware and software, why is voicemail basically useless? VOIP services resolve some of the issues, but here are a few notable problems:

* Voicemails are stored in some kind of inbox that can only be accessed by calling a number
* Apps like “visual voicemail” still rely on calling to get access to your voicemails
* Voicemails are not transferred when you switch providers
* Voice mailboxes have an arbitrary limit to the number of messages they save

What is so hard about the voicemail platform that these problems still haven’t been fixed?

In: 4

2 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

* All these things are possible, it’s just your carrier doesn’t care to make it any better.
* For example almost all of your issues have been dealt with by Google Fi:
* I can listen to and/or read a transcript of my voicemails from any internet connected browser (and of course the same on the phone without having to make a call to my voicemail box)
* As far as I can tell there are no limits the number of voicemails I can have in the list.
* The only thing in your list it *can’t* do, of course, is force other providers to take your old voicemails if you were to switch.
* And while I love having these features on my phone…I can understand why the big carriers just don’t care.
* They can’t convince their shareholders that adding these features will get anyone to switch to their service.
* In the case of Google Fi, their *small* user base likes these kinds of things, but mostly picked Google Fi because either:
* They are Google fanboys or
* They wanted the carrier switching feature (which is less useful now that T-Mobile ate Sprint).

You are viewing 1 out of 2 answers, click here to view all answers.