Voice mail transcription is the conversion of voice mail audio files into text.
No. Transcription is performed automatically by machine.
Transcribed voice mail messages are delivered via email. The email address for each user's voice mail box is configured in the settings of your PBX.
Yes. In addition to the transcription text being included at the top of the email body, the audio attachment sent by the PBX to our servers is forwarded along with the email to its recipient.
The accuracy of transcribed voice mail messages is dependent upon several factors, including the quality of the audio (e.g., whether there is background noise or whether the volume is at a sufficient level), how well the speaker enunciates, whether there are specialized words or phrases included that do not appear in everyday speech, and whether a non-standard accent is present.
On average, we have seen accuracy ranging between 90 and 95 percent. This is considered excellent for machine-transcribed audio.
Yes! Spanish and French, by default, are automatically detected. By contacting us, we can also detect a third language of your choosing. In addition to providing you the message text in its original language, the message is also automatically translated to English.
Yes! SMS texting is supported with all paid plans. In addition to receiving the message text, a link is provided in order to download and listen to the actual message audio file. For any mailbox whose message you wish to receive via SMS text, simply set as the destination email the phone number at vm2email.com. For example, if the cell phone number is 972-555-1212, you would set the destination email in your phone system to 9725551212@vm2email.com. Note that this is ONLY available on paid plans. If you attempt to do this via our free email relay service, it will not work and you will get no notification that you have received a message.
If our servers encounter audio in which 2 or more voices are present, they will still attempt to transcribe the audio; however, accuracy tends to drop significantly. In addition, no diarization of audio is performed (diarization is where different voices are detected and labeled in the transcription text); all text will appear in a single paragraph, which is likely to be confusing. Finally, only the first 1.5 minutes of recorded audio for any specific message that is transcribed. For all of these reasons, this service should not be used for recordings in which there is more than a single speaker.
Because vm2email.com relies on third-party vendors to perform some functions of our service, such as actual transcription of the audio, as well as delivery of the transcription via email, and because email itself is not considered a secure means of communication, vm2email.com does not claim to be HIPAA-compliant.
Transcription is fast. In most circumstances, an email containing the voice mail audio is routed through our servers, transcribed, and forwarded to the recipient's email in less than a minute.
From a technical standpoint, the SMTP settings in your phone system (PBX) must be pointed to our servers. Upon signup, we will provide you with these settings, which will include a unique user name and password. If your PBX is already programmed with vm2email.com credentials and we are delivering emails from your PBX without transcription, you do not need to obtain new credentials/settings from us. We will simply change things on our end so that your emails are transcribed.
If the voice mail message is longer than 1.5 minutes, only the first 1.5 minutes will be transcribed. This covers the vast majority of messages, as most voice mail messages last well under 1 minute.
No. If there is no audio attachment to a message, we do not tally it against your monthly allotment of messages. This is good, since some phone systems send other emails (such as administrative alert messages) through our servers in addition to voice mail messages. As a courtesy, we will forward those emails to their destination as well.
Yes! When you pay yearly, a 2-month discount is provided, so that you receive a full year of service for the price of ten months. Additionally, unused messages are rolled over from month to month when you pay yearly. For example, if you pay yearly for a 1,000 message-per-month plan, but only 800 messages are transcribed in a month, then the 200 unused messages will be credited to the following month. Finally, if you do exceed the number of messages allotted by your plan, the overage fee is a little less expensive when you are on a yearly plan versus a monthly plan.
The only way that you would receive a monthly charge in addition to the yearly fee you already paid is if you exceed the number of messages allotted monthly by your plan. In any month where your allotment is exceeded, you will be billed overage charges according to the plan you have chosen.
If you are concerned that you may exceed your monthly allotment and want to ensure that you do not receive any additional monthly charges, please let us know at support@vm2email.com. We can limit your account so that once you have reached your allotment, any additional voice mails will not be transcribed for the month (but the audio will still be delivered via email).
Our approach is different than that of competitors, who generally require each mailbox on a phone system (PBX) to be set up separately for their service. In their case, a "dummy" email address (and sometimes separate account) is set up for each mailbox needing transcription. As you can imagine, this may quickly get unwieldy even when there are only a few mailboxes involved. Additionally, when the recipient email address for a mailbox needs to change, you have to contact their service to update the email address. In addition, competing services tend to charge on a per-mailbox basis. This can quickly get expensive when you have many users/mailboxes in your organization.
We have designed things differently so that there is a single point of configuration for our service in your PBX, making setup and ongoing administration much easier. Additionally, our charges are based on the aggregate number of messages transcribed per month. This makes it cost-effective to allow for transcription of mailboxes that may only receive a few messages per month.
By default, messages for all mailboxes will be transcribed. If you wish, however, your account can be set up so that only messages from certain mailboxes will be transcribed. Please email us at support@vm2email.com if you would like this option, and we will provide you with the technical information needed to accomplish this.
Each plan we offer includes a number of monthly messages that may be transcribed. If you exceed this limit, additional messages will be charged at the rate specified by your plan. Message overage charges are billed monthly in arrears.
If you would like to ensure that you are never charged for message overages, please let us know at support@vm2email.com. We can set up your account so that, once you have reached your monthly message allotment, additional messages for the remainder of the billing cycle will not be transcribed (but messages will still be delivered via email that include the voice mail audio). Alternatively, if overages are acceptable but you would like to limit the overages to a certain number of messages monthly, we can set that up for you, too.
For your convenience, if we calculate that you will exceed your monthly message allotment by more than 10 percent, we will send you a courtesy email when you have reached 50% of your allotment, and another when you have reached 80% of your allotment.
There are a few ways you could go about handling this:
(1) If your messages are already being routed through our vm2email.com servers, you can send us an email at support@vm2email.com to ask us what your current usage is.
(2) You may take your best guess and try out one of our plans for a month. Any overages incurred will be billed in arrears at the end of the billing cycle, and based on whether there are overages you may switch to a different plan. For your convenience, during any month in which we estimate that you will exceed your monthly allotment by more than 10 percent, we will send you a courtesy email when you have reached 50% of your allotment, and again when you have reached 80% of your allotment.
(3) After setting up your account with us, you may send us an email to have us configure your account so that once you have reached your monthly allotment of transcribed messages, no further messages will be transcribed for the rest of the billing cycle (although voice mail messages will still be delivered via email along with the voice mail audio).