Breaking users out of voicemail jail is becoming a big business

Maybe it's because voicemail-to-text vendor SpinVox scored $100 million in funding last month, but suddenly, helping users better manage voicemails seems to be all the rage.

SpinVox's surprisingly large funding round — and its success in deploying its solution with more than a dozen carriers including Alltell, Cincinnati Bell and SaskTel — is just one proof point of the new trend. At CTIA, vendors such as Comverse and Nuance released carrier-grade voicemail 2.0 solutions, including apps that mimic the iPhone's much-touted “visual voicemail” as well as voice-to-text conversion.

Converting voice inputs to text is a key feature in a variety of Web-based telephony services as well. Pinger sends voice messages to groups. Jott turns voice calls into e-mails, text messages, to-do lists and blog posts. GotVoice and SimulScribe focus on the voicemail-to-e-mail route.

What all of these services do is turn a hard-to-manage voicemail into a digital object that is much easier to handle and consume. The appeal of such a service is especially large for incumbent carriers, not only because it lets them deliver a new service that customers like, but because it drives overall network usage as well, said Daniel Doulton, chief strategy officer and co-founder of SpinVox.

“The reason we're working with carriers is because that's where the largest base of existing users are for voice-messaging products today,” Doulton said. “In simple terms, the network gains by better call-completion rates because people actually leave messages because they trust their message will go directly to you, via text message or e-mail. The business case [for carriers to offer such services] is very deep and strong.”

While some wireline carriers are deploying Web-based interfaces for managing voicemails, the real action is in wireless services and devices, where such services have “changed the perception of what it means to be a service provider,” said James Colby, vice president and chief marketing officer for Comverse Americas, noting that the iPhone sparked much of the interest in better mobile user interfaces and services. “Today, it's about being a hub for a variety of services,” he said.