Voicemail Greetings and On-Hold Services:

What is Voice Mail Greetings, IVR, On Hold Messages?

- The term used for mobile and cellular voice message services. Calls are diverted to VoiceMail when the user is unavailable or has the phone powered off. The phone alerts you to indicate the receipt of a message.

- Similar to an answering machine used for conventional phones, except that the messages are saved and serviced at a central location, rather than at the individual telephone.

- Spelled as one word. It refers to an electronic messaging system or answering service. Voicemail (or voice mail; abbreviated v-mail or vmail) is a centralized system of managing telephone messages for a large group of people. In its simplest form it mimics the functions of an answering machine, but uses a centralised server rather than equipment at the individual telephone. Most Voice Mail systems are more sophisticated than answering machines, with the ability to forward messages to another voice mailbox, send messages to multiple voice mailboxes, add voice notes to a message, store messages for future delivery, make calls to a telephone or paging service when a message is received (outbound notification), transfer callers to another phone for personal assistance and play different message greetings to different callers. Voicemail messages are stored in media used by computers to store other forms of data (hard drives, optical drives, and tape).

Many voicemail systems also offer an automated attendant facility, allowing callers answered by the system to dial a selected person's mail box or telephone.

Voicemail systems are found associated with many office telephone systems or PBX. They may also be associated with public telephone lines as network services. Mobile phones generally have voicemail as a standard network feature. The most modern implementation of voicemail are voicemail to text services, which transform each incoming voice message into text messaging for immediate delivery of a readable copy to SMS, alphanumeric pager, and e-mail.