With Verizon’s official launch of visual voicemail today, the carrier is taking the service beyond simply mapping visual functions onto the same traditional voicemail prompts and into group-centric applications and organization. In addition to the standard visual features made popular by Apple’s iPhone and mimicked by the Samsung Instinct, Verizon’s app allows users to forward their messages, create up to 10 greetings, up to 20 distribution lists and 50 distribution members to receive messages. It also lets users avoid the phone call to other Verizon subscribers by responding directly with voicemail.

Powered by Comverse’s InSight next-generation voicemail platform, the service gives subscribers one-touch access to listen to voicemail messages. They can delete, reply and forward their voice messages without having to listen to prior messages or voice prompts, much like an email inbox. Up to 40 incoming messages can be stored for 40 days, double the storage capacity and retention time of basic voicemail, according to Comverse.

Garrison Macri, vice president group account general manager, said that the primary customer driver was avoiding the old telephony user interface and dialing in to retrieve messages. The first goal of Comverse’s platform is to improve the overall customer experience. Despite the new functionality, this one-click access remains the primary benefit and driver of customer interest.

“There are other benefits such as forwarding messages and archiving messages, but the primary one is easier, immediate access to the voicemail and being able to see who called and when they call and picking and choosing whose voicemail you want to get first, rather than in the order it was received,” Macri said.

Alcatel-Lucent’s 5150 Messaging Applications Broker is responsible for the voicemail’s interface as well as network integration services. The service is available for $2.99 per month only on the LG Voyager at launch.