A little envelope icon that pops up in your phone app usually provokes negative feelings. It indicates that someone made a call, but since you were not there, he/she left a voice message that you will need to play. What you expect is static noise, background sounds, and an awkward message that starts with something like "Hey, it's me, um, I just wanted to talk about that, um... yeah, you should give me a call back". There is definitely a better solution to this problem. Your phone has some kind of superpower and that is transcribing voice mail for free.
Voicemail transcription technology is rather simple. Instead of recording a voice message, a phone or a carrier converts it into text automatically and sends this text message to your phone either in the form of a text message or in the form of the content of the voicemail. All you need to do is to read it and that is it, you do not have to push the "play" button anymore.
This is not an advanced technology that you need to have a PhD degree to activate it. It is already incorporated in apps that are installed on your phone. In iPhones, for example, the Phone app automatically transcribes voicemails through your carrier. In the majority of Android devices, you can do this using the Google Phone app. Services such as Google Voice and YouMail already provide this technology for many years. The set-up process is usually located in the voicemail settings menu where you just turn "Transcription" or "Visual Voicemail" toggle on.
Now let's talk about advantages of having your voicemail transcribed for the people who are in high school with a schedule that is tight as a packed subway car in the middle of rush hour. You are at class, practice or in the library and you receive a call from an unknown number – it is probably a call from a college admissions office or a part-time job. You cannot answer the phone. But later, when you see this little envelope icon, you are going to postpone listening to it for hours with anxiety. Transcribed voicemail is a lifesaver – you just take a look at your phone, read three sentences and know exactly what was said. No mystery, no waiting, no finding a quiet place to listen to your voicemail.
Accuracy of transcription of voicemail has become surprisingly impressive in recent years. Transcriptions were really hilarious several years ago when a simple phrase "appointment at three" could easily become "a point mint at free". Now they use AI that understands most accents very well. It is not perfect: if somebody talks in a wind tunnel, you are going to get gibberish. However, if the person talks clearly, then there is a very high chance that transcription is going to be correct. In addition, the system learns and adapts itself to the voices of your speakers with time.
Productivity is increased dramatically. Just think about the process of sorting through messages. You can quickly scan a list of transcribed messages and prioritize them right away. The message from "Mom" saying that "Dinner is at 6, do not be late" is immediately ignored until 5:55 PM. The message from an unknown number talking about "scholarship opportunity" becomes your priority. You can simply copy and paste any needed information from the text of the message – no need to play the message over and over again to hear if that letter after the "@" symbol was "B" or "D".
You become more responsive. If your friend leaves you an emotional message about his or her bad day, then you can read it first to respond appropriately. You are not forced to respond immediately after pressing "play" button. If your family member leaves you an emotional message about his/her troubles with neighbors and their lawn gnomes, you can get the main idea of it without listening to a seven-minute monologue about all the gnomes.
There might be a slight drawback, depending on your plan of the carrier. Some of them provide voicemail transcription for free while others require you to pay two dollars per month for it, as it is included in the premium visual voicemail service. However, in most cases, this is absolutely worth it. After all, it is one of those rare features that simplify our lives.
There is a privacy issue that needs to be discussed briefly. Your voicemail is processed by the computer and the text message is stored on the server somewhere. For 99.9 percent of the users, it is nothing to worry about – it is an automatic scanning. However, if you discuss something extremely private, it would be wise to switch to Signal or WhatsApp calls. For a normal voicemail regarding logistics and check-ups, it is perfectly safe.
So, just do yourself a big favor. Take your phone, open the settings menu, find the voicemail or visual voicemail section and turn transcription on. The next time when you see this little envelope icon, you are going to react to it calmly and confidently instead of groaning. You will not even imagine how you could live without this feature.
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