Improve the limitations of your professional voice mail with interactive video email.
New communication tools, such as video email, have surpassed the once-revolutionary invention of voice mail.
Modern communication technology has come a long way since Thomas Edison invented the very first voice-recording machine, the phonograph, in the late 1870’s.
According to Wikipedia, Edison listed a few ideas he had about the future usefulness of his machine, including “all kinds of dictation without the aid of a stenographer.” Basically, voice messages, or “voice mail.”
For almost 100 years, the innovations and updates in telephone services were few. Developments in computer technologies in the 1970s led to new advances in telephone products and services, which resulted in voice mail.
Surpassing the past with new solutions
Although voice mail was cutting-edge technology at the time, new communication tools, such as video email, have now surpassed this once revolutionary invention and offer better alternatives to the traditional method.
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Facing the limits of voice mail
Whether you’re a business professional trying to make a call to a client, or a customer trying to troubleshoot a problem or receive some information, we’ve all been routed through the automated answering service many businesses have in place.
The disadvantages of using voicemail occur at both ends, for senders as well as receivers. The following list highlights some of these problems:
- Uncertainty: Even after you’ve left a voice mail message, you don’t really know if the recipient got it.
- Personal desire: Some people find it a hassle to check their voice mail, especially if it involves an extra phone call and entering a password. The ease and speed of email and text messages have made checking voice mail cumbersome.
- Efficiency: Some people procrastinate checking their voice mail because they are busy. Or, perhaps they may not get the message right away if they’re out of the office or their cell phone is off.
- Easy to ignore or forget: Many of us forget things if we don’t write them down. This increases the chances that you’ll be likely to forget the message or feel like ignoring it if you can’t really remember it.
- Convenience: In some situations, like staff meetings or movie theaters, it’s considered rude to be “on the phone.” It’s also harder to be discrete through a phone call than it is through a message you can check online.
- Figuring it out: Some voicemail systems are tricky and time-consuming to navigate, and you have to go through a bunch of steps before you get the person you want.
- Customer dissatisfaction: Everyone wants to talk to a “real” person when they have something important or urgent to discuss. Being routed through an automated series of commands before finally reaching someone, who turns out to be unavailable, leaves the caller feeling thwarted and unimportant.
- Only one element: A voice mail message only engages one of the recipient’s senses: hearing. Because people have different learning styles, and because so many things compete for our attention these days, it’s helpful to include other elements to make your message memorable.
Benefiting from new tools
Fortunately, new technologies exist that can improve many of these issues and make communication more personal and efficient. The following list offers some of the benefits of video email as an alternative to professional voicemail:
- A combination of audio and visual stimuli helps people remember. Including elements such as videos, documents, and surveys allow people to interact more with your message, which will help them better understand and connect with your content.
- Whether it’s someone you’re meeting for the first time, or someone you’ve been playing “phone tag” with, it’s nice to put a face with the name. Seeing the person (in a video message) gives everything a higher value than a regular phone call or plain text email.
- The value of non-verbal cues, such as facial expressions and tone of voice, are priceless. Many messages are misunderstood because of the lack of these cues. Video email eliminates this problem – you know exactly how the sender meant what they said.
- A video email message is not only harder to ignore or forget, it can also serve as documentation that you sent the information.
- Video email, such as Ving, allows real-time feedback. With each message you send, you can see if the person got it and when they interacted with each component.
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