PrintUnified messaging is a system that provides a single in-box destination for voicemail, email, and faxes. Small businesses can benefit from a unified messaging system, especially if they don't have a separate line for each service or a means to route urgent messages.
Unified messaging is particularly useful to employees who don't always have immediate access to an Internet connection or a fax machine. And it's affordable: You can expect to pay $10 to $30 a month, although some unified messaging providers offer basic service for free. Providers usually offer some combination of voicemail, email, and fax in their basic services, along with a variety of optional enhancements.
Voicemail. You'll get a new phone number, either local or toll free, that you can give to clients and customers. You'll be able to check your voicemail messages over the phone or from your email in-box. Messages you receive as email will either be audio files or converted to text.
Email. Many services give you a new, often Web-based, email account you can use to retrieve voicemails and faxes, but some send messages to your existing email account. If your service employs text-to-speech technology, you can check and send email over the phone. Depending on the service, email messages are sent as audio files or are converted to text.
Fax. With fax service, you get a local or toll-free number that your associates can send faxes to at any time. You'll be able to retrieve the faxes in your email in-box or over the phone. Faxes received over the phone are treated like a voice message, and you can forward, save, or reply to them.
Enhanced features. In addition to corralling your messages into a single in-box, many services provide enhanced features that make sending and receiving messages even more flexible:
- Speech-recognition technology lets you retrieve and manage messages using voice commands
- Notification services inform you by phone when an email or fax arrives
- Broadcasting features let you send voicemail and fax messages to multiple recipients
- Email-to-fax capabilities allow you to send or forward email messages to a fax machine
- Follow-me features forward calls to any specified location
