What is Voicemail to Text and how to use it?
 

What is Voicemail to Text?
Voicemail to Text converts your voicemail into text messages and delivers them to your mobile phone so you can quickly read your voicemail when you're busy or unable to dial in.

Voicemail to Text service supports both English and French.

Your mobile phone or smartphone must be able to receive text messages in order to use Voicemail to Text.

You can add Voicemail to Text to your NorthernTel Mobility rate plan for a monthly fee. You must subscribe to a basic voicemail plan like Message Centre in order to use the Voicemail to Text service.

Using Voicemail to Text
Once you subscribe to the Voicemail to Text service, your voicemails will be sent to your phone as text messages. Here's how:

  1. A caller leaves you a voicemail message.
  2. The message is converted to text. On average, it takes up to 3 minutes to convert a voicemail into a text message.
  3. You receive your voicemail as a text message on your mobile device.

You can easily respond to and/or forward the message as you would any other text message.

Deleting messages
Deleting a Voicemail to Text message does not delete the voicemail message in your voicemail box. You should dial into your voice mailbox and delete voice messages from time to time to ensure you do not reach your mailbox limits.

Caller ID
If the caller’s caller ID information is available, you’ll receive it as part of the Voicemail to Text message. If it’s not included, the person may have blocked their caller ID information.

Long messages
Depending on the length of the voicemail message, a maximum of three SMS messages (460 characters in length) will be used to convey its content. Messages exceeding this limit will be truncated and an ellipses will appear at the end of the third text message. You'll need to call into your voicemail to hear the rest of the message.

Unclear messages
If a word is unclear, a question mark will appear after the word, which will be spelled out phonetically.

An underscore ( __ ) will replace words that are garbled or muffled.

If the Voicemail to Text system is unable to understand a voicemail message, you’ll receive a text message that says "[Caller] called and left you a new message that could not be converted. To hear it call your voicemail." Reasons for this will vary but may include poor quality of the message or a caller switching between French and English during the message.

Hang ups
In the event of a hang up, you'll receive a Voicemail to Text with the following message: "[Caller] called but did not leave you a message".

Subscribing to Voicemail to Text

You can add Voicemail to Text to your NorthernTel rate plan:

  1. Online
  2. By phone: 1-800-360-8555

To subscribe to Voicemail to Text, clients must subscribe to a basic voicemail plan like Message Centre or Message Centre Express. The Voicemail to Text feature will not be shared if added to a shared plan.