Practice Management

Michael Arrington and The Greatest American Lawyer are right.  Voicemail is at least on the precipice overlooking its grave, at least in the business environment.  I do not think it will take much of a push to send it over the edge.

As Michel Arrington states in his article on TechCrunch:

"Typical voicemail messages today include things like 'Please don?t leave me a voicemail, I rarely listen to them. Please just email me at xxxx@xxxx.com' Many people don?t bother setting up their voicemail accounts at all. Then there?s my favorite method, the one I use personally - let the message box get full and then don?t empty it. Caller ID still tells me who called, and I can simply call them back.

How many times have you called someone back and said 'I saw that you called but didn?t listen to the voicemail yet, Is it anything urgent?'

Senders often feel guilty for leaving voicemails, too. And to make sure you get the message, quite often people will follow up with a text message - 'Just left you a VM, it?s important' - just so you know it?s there".

As a practical matter, I probably have 90% fewer voicemail messages than as short as a couple of years ago.  This has freed up so much time and has increased my productivity.

Now that I have set up a virtual PBX with an extension, I no longer get those junk voicemail recordings.  Yes, I am a small business person (figuratively and literally speaking).  No, I do not need your crappy insurance coverage.  I do not want a free estimate of anything.  Hmmm, I think you are wrong.  My extended warranty is not up.  Not receiving these messages alone helps as voicemail has become as big of junk mail repository as the mailbox.

A strange thing happened in this regard that I think helped changed the habits of lawyers calling me.  I thought initially it was a disaster.  I went to have my number ported from Vonage, which turned out to be a nightmare.  (DO NOT USE VONAGE).  The short story is that for a while I could get voicemail messages, but a call did not ring through.  It was obvious because the phone number would not ring.  It just instantly went to voicemail.  It last a lot longer than expected.  Did I lose business?  I do not think so.  Most everybody that could not reach me immediately just sent me an email.  And, that pattern has held with those I communicate with on a regular basis.

It helps that my new auto attendant first provides my callers the best ways to reach me - email and my blogsite.  Then it provides them my extension.  Most calls are diverted.  And now, if I get a voicemail, it is emailed to me so I can just open it from my email as an MP3 wherever I am.

These days most clients and prospective clients email me as well.  I email them back.  It certainly beats voicemail and playing phone tag.  It is just -- well -- productive to use email and texting, and it is unproductive to deal with voicemail.  It is a pain.

As for its death.  Maybe I exaggerate.  But, like snail mail and the fax machines before it, voicemail is becoming of very little value.