Simulscribe - Fabulous Voicemail Service

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Simulscribe - Fabulous Voicemail Service

Posted by Alli Flowers on March 29, 2007 07:35 AM

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Unlike most of the reviews you read about here on the front page, this one is about a service, rather than a product. Because of its totally unique nature, Simulscribe can be used by anyone, whether you have a Treo 270, Treo 700p, Treo 700wx, or a less than smart phone (Blackberry, Q, Razr, Chocolate, etc.).

What exactly is Simulscribe?

Simulscribe is a voicemail service with a convenient twist. Replacing the voicemail provided by your carrier, your messages are transcribed using voice transcription software, and forwarded to your choice of email address, and/or sent as a text message. A recording in .wav format is attached to the email with the transcription so that you can listen at your convenience. You may never dial into your voicemail again.

Why, you may now be asking, would I want to see my voicemail rather than dial in and listen? It is normal these days to see people at a conference table in a meeting with their Treos or PDA's out taking notes, or retrieving other material necessary to the meting. It is still considered rude (at best) to make a phone call during those meetings. Even if you know the caller has information critical to the outcome of the meeting…you don't answer the phone. But now you no longer need to. You allow the caller to leave a voicemail with all the pertinent information, and two minutes later, that message appears on your Treo, perhaps pushed instantly by Chatteremail or by an Exchange server supporting push technology. You read the voicemail without any disturbance, and then announce that information.

The technology supporting Simulscribe is remarkable with about 98% accuracy. I have received voicemail from people with a range of accents: deep south to Boston, English to Israeli. The transcriptions are almost perfect.

The subject line of each voicemail gives you the originating phone number (if available), although with this technology you will never worry about missing the hurried call-back number given by your caller. The only downside here is when your friends call and don't mention who is calling because they're used to you recognizing their voice. If you don't recognize the originating phone number you may have to actually listen to the message before you know who left it.

Setting up Simulscribe is a breeze. Most carriers include a field in the Phone Preferences for the voicemail center, so all you have to do is change this to the number given to you when you sign up for Simulscribe. Those of us on the Sprint network have to call *2 and request Tech Support make the change for us to "no answer call forwarding". Not counting the 3 minutes I was on hold (Customer Service should be bypassed for this request), my voicemail number was forwarded to the correct Simulscribe number in two minutes. Once the number forwarding has been completed, you call your new voicemail number and set up your voicemail box with the outgoing message of your choice just like when you first signed up with your cell service.

Because Simulscribe is a service, a monthly fee is incurred. The basic plan includes 40 messages for $9.95/month. Additional messages are $0.25 each. Simulscribe also offers custom integration for all your voicemail: mobile, home, corporate. If you are a busy professional, this service could be just what you've always wanted.

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Comments

March 29, 2007 02:35 PM {#}

cisco187 says:

Doesn't Sprint charge for forwarded calls?

March 29, 2007 06:30 PM {#}

vhyman says:

I have been using a similar service called Spinvox for a couple of months. The service is good and free as beta. One of the features when used with a Treo is that it recognizes the caller id of the person leaving you a message. When you recieve the transcribed text message it inserts it into your treaded sms chat with that contaact.

March 30, 2007 06:39 AM {#}

rosenft says:

I've been testing the service for a few weeks now and love it.

March 30, 2007 03:42 PM {#}

phe says:

These services must use something called "conditional call forwarding" which Sprint does not support (at least as far as we've been able to tell). If you were to use the forwarding option that Sprint charges for, it would just forward all calls straight to voicemail.

March 30, 2007 05:05 PM {#}

treoandy says:

Great idea until I saw the price. $9.99 for only 40 messages? .25 for each over that?
This service would cost me $50-$70 per month to use.
No thanks.

By the way, there are mutliple companies that do voicemail to email or text. Google it and you will see.

March 31, 2007 04:30 AM {#}

Alli says:

phe - I'm on Sprint. It was as simple as calling them up, asking for tech support, and then requesting no answer call forwarding (not the same as call forwarding).

April 3, 2007 01:43 PM {#}

musclemaker says:

I am on my 3rd call to Sprint. I can't seem to find anyone who know how to do this. I requested "no answer call forwarding" the rep said it was the same as *72. I am trying again today.

April 4, 2007 11:15 AM {#}

Alli says:

You have to request tech support right away - customer service can't do it.

April 5, 2007 08:45 AM {#}

yeshaya says:

how do you get 1 year free from spinvox on ther website it says that you could have only 7 day trial

April 13, 2007 08:11 PM {#}

oyinbo says:

I just got off the phone with Sprint now and the way my rep finally got it was to tell them that you do NOT want to use *72 unconditional forwarding, you DO want conditional forwarding so they have to put the forwarding number in the "busy" and "no answer" fields; you can also have them replace your *1 voicemail number (which your mobile number) with the service number as well. They are supposed to have a way for users to do this themselves via *73 + your number, but according to various forums that has been broken for years (you get an error message when you try to use that).

At first the changes did not seem to take, but by turning my phone off and on again it all kicked in.

May 24, 2007 06:06 PM {#}

jfinlayson says:

SpinVox looks a bit pricier than Simulscribe. $10 (5 British Pounds) buys you 40 conversions from Simulscribe, 20 from SpinVox.

What matters more, of course, is which service does a better job of transcription.

June 23, 2007 01:35 AM {#}

Cheeseman says:

Hello,

I was wondering if you all got spinvox to work this way or just Simulscribe.

Thanks,

Cheeseman

June 29, 2007 11:11 PM {#}

cisco187 says:

For those who got this working on Sprint, does Sprint still chart $.20 per minute for the conditional forwarding?

October 3, 2007 02:58 AM {#}

aligoose says:

Recent success setting up Simulscribe on Sprint Treo 700wx (after several months of "no, we don't support that"): Call (888) 788-4727 and ask directly for Technical Support (ie - Customer Service can't handle it). Ask the tech support rep to open their "ESM application" and change the "Call forward/Busy" and "Call forward/No Answer" fields to the simulscribe number you received in your original email. The Tech support rep will authorize and activate the feature. There is no additional charge for that service, according to them (unlike unconditional call forwarding at $0.20/event). Within the windows mobile application itself, you can update the voicemail number itself by editing the voicemail speeddial option (click "menu" from the today screen) I hope that helps!!