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 A question arose recently on the Minnesota State Bar Association's Solo/Small Firm Listserv about how to deal with voicemail messages in a paperless office. Our friend Sam Glover, who also publishes The Lawyerist Blog, had a great response from his firm's experience:
There are two good options.
If you don't mind paying, PhoneTag provides excellent transcription. You can set any phone to forward the call after a certain number of rings, instead of going to VM, and PhoneTag will record the message and transcribe it. I have it set to e-mail a transcription along with the MP3. You could save every voicemail, if you wanted to.
We pay less than $20 per month on PhoneTag. The cost varies by the number of messages you get.
For my cell phone, I use Google Voice. The transcription is absolutely terrible, and it is just not as useful as PhoneTag, yet. But it is free. You can either use GV for your main number--I use it for my "direct line"--which is nice if you use Google for your contacts, because you can set it to screen all calls, certain calls, only pick up calls from a certain group of contacts between 8 and 5 on weekdays, etc. Very cool stuff. Or, just like PhoneTag, you can just have GV handle your voicemail.
I like transcriptions--accurate ones, preferably--because listening to VMs is a waste of time. People wander, leave their phone number to the end, etc. With a transcription, I can usually tell at a glance what the message is about and whether I need to return the call.
I do not save all the messages, incidentally. If I need to make a record, I do. Otherwise, I just delete them.
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The Glover Law Firm, LLC
125 Main Street SE, Suite 250
Minneapolis, MN 55414
phone • 612.424.3770
fax • 612.605.1947
e-mail •
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web • www.thegloverlawfirm.com
blog • www.caveatemptorblog.com
The lawyering survival guide: www.lawyerist.com
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